Environmental benefits of rainwater harvesting

Do you have to get up at 5 a.m. to fetch water before going out to work? Did you know that the city of Cape Town, South Africa, is nearing a state of no water and that many other cities are at risk of bottoming out? While you may be taking a shower right now, it takes a pregnant woman in a remote village in Rajasthan five hours to fetch a jug of water from a nearby river that discharges the city's stench and sewage. Such are the differences in our realities, yet, ironically, we are all headed for the same doom. No one is immune to the wrath of nature. Water is our life source and we must find sources to protect, treat and recycle it. Rainwater harvesting is a successful and cost effective method of collecting and storing rainwater, natural reservoirs and surface water infiltration into underground aquifers to avoid their runoff. Let us discuss the environmental benefits of rainwater collecting in more detail in the following sections.

Benefits of rainwater harvesting

Runoff reduction.

With rainwater harvesting, we are able to stop rainwater from causing damage if left unchecked. It reduces the runoff caused by rainwater. If left unchecked, the peak flow and velocity of storms in local water bodies such as ponds, lakes, rivers, creeks and streams will be at risk of streambank erosion. Rainwater harvesting not only avoids this consequence, but also makes the best use of the abundant water resources after strategic harvesting.

Chemical-free and clean.

Pumped groundwater is hard and contaminated by the infiltration of chemicals and other harmful elements. Pumped water is also chemically treated and not exactly conducive to irrigation of plants and gardens. Rainwater collected and stored under sanitary conditions is very useful for irrigation because it is free of chemicals such as fluoride and chloramines (chlorine).

Charity begins at home.

Rainwater harvesting is a practice that relies heavily on individual participation. A significant shift at the community level is the contribution of each family, not the other way around. Your garden or patio is the primary base for constructing water catchment areas in your garden using tiles, sheet metal, plastic barrels or dug pits. The water collected can be used to irrigate plants, provide for livestock, water gardens and plants, bathe pets, etc. If it is equal to the amount of water used for all of these things, we will see the important role that rainwater harvesting plays.

Rainwater Management.

As we began to discuss the participatory systems used for rainwater harvesting, we noted that individual efforts are essential in creating pan-community impacts. Municipalities have made stormwater management one of their primary goals, and rainwater harvesting systems can serve as a clear and effective way to meet the criteria they deem necessary for an effective water conversation.

These are just a few of the environmental benefits of rainwater harvesting. The benefits of rainwater harvesting are still to be fully realized, and we will be when we start putting them into practice in our own way. Water conservation is the only option we have to survive the relentless depletion this planet is causing. Therefore, it is time to put our focus in its proper place and work towards building rainwater harvesting friendly infrastructure and making a culture of water conservation a part of our way of life.

Choose tanks for rainwater collecting

We can choose storage tanks for rainwater. Traditional large storage tanks either use welded carbon steel tanks or structural concrete tanks. Both types of tanks perform well, but both have some serious drawbacks. Field-welded carbon steel tanks are difficult to guarantee 100 percent on-site rust removal and painting, which can lead to an increased likelihood of corrosion, while the tanks must be thoroughly inspected after welding is complete to ensure they do not leak. Concrete tanks are a huge project to build and require a lot of time and labor costs.

The third option is a glass fused to steel tank, where all materials are produced by the factory and transported to the project site for bolting and assembly. Bolted glass fused to steel tanks have the strength of steel and the corrosion resistance of enamel, are quick to install and easy to maintain or repair.

Glass fused to steel tank is assembled with special enamel steel plates and fixed with self-locking bolts, and then coated with sealing glue at the joint gap and bolt position to improve the sealing performance of the glass fused to steel tank. The service life of the GFS tank is up to 30 years. This is mainly because the special enamel steel plate is icoated with two to three layers of enamel coating inside and outside. After heating polymerization, so that there is a strong bond between the coating and the steel plate. The protective layer formed by the coating not only stops the corrosion of the tank, but also has the function of resistance to strong acid and alkali and strong resistance to wear and tear.