Rain Water Harvesting

The ongoing water crisis in Chennai has attracted immense all across the world with several prominent celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Rajnikanth expressing their concern on this matter. Rajnikanth has suggested that this water crisis can be mitigated if adequate arrangements to harvest rainwater are made in the state. To be fair, rains do cause a lot of damage as the flood waters are not channelized and they escape back into the ocean. Channelizing and storing them may present a solution, one of the many, to increase water utilization in India.

Rain Water Harvesting

  • While most of India is not rainfall deficient, they receive most of their rain in a short duration (the monsoon season).
  • In absence of storage, that rain runs off from rooftops, parks, roads, open grounds, etc.
  • Rainwater harvesting is the collection and storage of rainwater.
  • This water runs off can be either stored or recharged into the groundwater.
  • Rainwater harvesting can be performed using underground tanks, lakes, ponds, artificial tanks etc.
  • Not only does it improve the quality & quantity of groundwater but also reduces the flooding in a flood-prone area.

Is it easy?

Rain Water Harvesting is not difficult. However, it does require some sort of understanding of the sub-surface hydrology and architecture of the infrastructure to succeed.