Recharging of borewells and analysis of harvested rooftop rainwater in houses of Udaipur city.

ABSTRACT

Water is an inorganic component, which covers about 3/4th of the earth's surface, but only 3 percent of it is available to man for use. The remaining 97 percent of water found in oceans is full of soluble salts, being unfit for human use and consumption. Rainwater is free source of nearly pure water. The concept of rainwater harvesting lies in tapping the rainwater it falls. The present study was conducted in houses of Udaipur city. In order to find out the water management practices adopted by the families, a sample of 100 households was selected. Out of the total samples, 30 houses were selected purposively for commissioning the rainwater harvesting system and the rooftop rainwater harvesting potential was also calculated among these 30 households. Field experiment was conducted for quantitative analysis of harvested rooftop rainwater in houses which reveals that rooftop rainwater harvesting system is very effective measure in increasing the quantity of water in borewells as compared to those borewells without having the rainwater harvesting system attached to them. The availability of water per day was found to be higher i.e. 269 litres in those houses where the rainwater harvesting potential was also higher i.e. 98.32 m3, as the catchment area of these houses was found to be more (186 sq m.) as compared to other houses.