- Farrukh Basheer & Dr Izharul Haq Farooqi, Aligarh Muslim University
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Rainwater is nature’s most renewable resources. Across the world there are few practices more sustainable than collecting rain and utilising it for your needs. Using rainwater can decrease water and wastewater treatment and conveyance costs which are rising faster than the energy cost in some areas. Rainwater harvesting can also turn a potential liability - runoff and resulting erosion - into an asset. Rainwater harvesting in urban areas has manifold reasons. To provide supplemental water for the city’s requirements, it increases soil moisture levels for urban greenery, to increase the ground water table through artificial recharge, to mitigate urban flooding and to improve the quality of groundwater are some of the reasons why rainwater harvesting can be adopted in cities. In urban areas of the developed world, at a household level, harvested rainwater can be used for flushing toilets, washing laundry and gardening purposes.
At the moment, two types of systems are generally used. These include do it yourself (DIY) and commercial systems. Both of these systems are known under the term water harvesters and require only a limited amount of knowledge to set up (if basic systems are used). In both cases, the system consists of a storage tank to store the water and piping (to guide the water in). Finally, water purifying equipment as water-purifying plants, UV-lights or distillation equipment is sometimes added to purify the collected water. The system is then called a Grey water treatment system. In practice, gravity-controlled systems are usually created by placing the water harvester on elevation (eg rooftops). This presentation overviews the most common household rainwater harvesting system.
BIOS:
Farrukh Basheer has been working as a Junior Research Fellow in the Environmental Engineering Section, Department of Civil Engineering, AMU, Aligarh. His area of interest is biodegradation of toxic industrial wastewater. He has been awarded a Junior Research Fellowship in Engineering and Technology by the University Grants Commission (UGC). He has had articles published in various international journals and conference proceedings.
Dr Izharul Haq Farooqi is an Associate Professor in the Environmental Engineering Section, Department of Civil Engineering, AMU, Aligarh India. His area of interest is biological wastewater treatment and corrosion engineering. He has teaching and research experience of more than 20 years. He has been awarded with the Young Scientist Award by the Council of Science & Technology, India. He has more than forty publications in refereed journals and in conference proceedings. He has more than 50 citations in international journals. Presently he is working on national projects funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and Council of Science and Technology India. He is a member of the International Water Association, IWA (UK), Indian Society for Technical Education, and Institution of Engineers (India).