About Rainwater Harvesting
About Rainwater Harvesting
About Rainwater Harvesting
Rainwater is the first source of water. It needs to be filtered to be made potable through
rainwater harvesting.
Rainwater harvesting is done by recharging groundwater and helps in sustaining the
ecology.
It is a one-time cost-effective measure that can improve the quality of water. Through
rainwater harvesting, a lot of money can be saved.
Around 800 million litres of water is wasted through leakages in tankers every day, as per
BMC data. Rainwater harvesting can help save this precious resource.
he armed police headquarters at Naigon, Dadar, does not depend upon the
local municipal corporation for its water supply.
With the capacity to harvest 38.8 million litres of rainfall every monsoon, it
supplies water to the residential building surrounding these open grounds.
Serving as the base for three battalions and several special units of the
Mumbai police, the precinct is home to more than 2,300 families of the
constabulary, a municipal school, and a police hospital. However, it received
less than 20 minutes of municipal water supply daily. This will now be
augmented by the new system.
According to CERE, more than 10,000 water tankers ply in Mumbai and the
cost of fresh water constantly increases with an ever-widening demand-
supply gap, leading to severe water shortages annually.
“Owing to concretisation, most of the rainfall is lost as surface water run off
and flows into the sea through storm water drains, instead of being allowed to
percolate into the soil to recharge our depleted ground water aquifers,” said
Rashneh N Pardiwala, founder and director, CERE, architect of the project.
“Rainwater harvesting would be the only long-term, cost-effective, low
maintenance solution to address the city’s water woes.”
In April, the RWH system was initiated at three large grounds at the precinct,
and was completed within three-and-a-half months, before the onset of the
monsoon.
The team dug 1,150 cubic metres of percolation trenches to allow the rainfall
to seep into the ground and recharge the underground aquifers. They repaired
and revived nine dry bore wells within the precinct, which will now be used
to store water.
The pipes from these bore wells are connected to washrooms used by
residents.
Mumbai police commissioner Datta Padsalgikar, joint commissioner of
police (admin) Archana Tyagi and additional commissioner of police Aswati
Dorje inaugurated the system.
“Even though Mumbai received more than 300mm of rain on August 29-30
and September 19-20, there was no flooding around the three grounds,” said
police. “Even though Naigon is a low-lying area and chances of flooding are
high, we saw rainwater being soaked up by percolation trenches for the first
time in many years,” said Aswati Dorje, additional commissioner of police,
Naigon.
She added that based on the success of the project, RWH projects in different
parts of the city are being revived.
“Recharging the depleted ground water table and underground aquifers also
helps prevent the ingress of sea water which is vital for island cities like
Mumbai. A number of open wells in the city have become brackish and salty
over the past decade as sea water gushes in and corrodes the foundation of
our city,” said Rashneh N Pardiwala, founder and director, CERE adding that
the project at Naigaon is a prototype of how a community can become self-
reliant, more environmentally sustainable and contribute towards improving
the city’s environment.
“Other communities like large housing colonies, office complexes, and
educational campuses also follow suit in order to save Mumbai city,” said
Pardiwala
Apart from RWH, following activities carried out and planned at Naigon:
-CERE and Mumbai Police next plan to install solar panels on the main
Police Community Hall to reduce their carbon footprint
PROJECTS