Opportunities in rainwater harvesting

Currently, more than two-thirds of the population in Africa must leave their home to fetch water for drinking and domestic use. The time burden of water fetching has been suggested to influence the volume of water collected by households as well as time spent on income generating activities and child care. However, little is known about the potential health benefits of reducing water fetching distances. Data from almost 200 000 Demographic and Health Surveys carried out in 26 countries were used to assess the relationship between household walk time to water source and child health outcomes. To estimate the causal effect of decreased water fetching time on health, geographic variation in freshwater availability was employed as an instrumental variable for one-way walk time to water source in a two-stage regression model. Time spent walking to a household’s main water source was found to be a significant determinant of under-five child health. A 15-min decrease in one-way walk time to water source is assoc...

Freshwater availability and water fetching distance affect child health in sub-Saharan Africa.

Review of socio-economic drivers of community acceptance and adoption of decentralised water systems

https://arrow.tudublin.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=engschmecart

Rainwater harvesting and greywater treatment systems for domestic application in Ireland

Dry spells are a direct consequence of spatial and temporal variability of rainfall, and these jeopardise the success of rainfed agriculture by causing crop yield reduction and crop failure in rural South Africa. The potential of rainwater harvesting (RWH) to mitigate the spatial and temporal variability of rainfall has brought about its revival during the last two decades. For planning and implementation purposes, it is critical to be able to identify areas suitable for RWH. The paper presents a methodology that enable water managers to assess the suitability of RWH for any given area of South Africa. Previous methodologies developed to assess RWH suitability recognised the importance of the socio-economic factors but did not incorporate them in their assessment. This non-integration of socio-economic factors is pointed as the main cause of failure of rainwater harvesting projects. In this study, in-field RWH and ex-field RWH suitability maps are developed based on a combination of physical, ecological and socio-economic factors. Model Builder, an extension of ArcView 3.3 that enables a weighted overlay of datasets, is used to create the suitability model, comprising the physical, ecological and vulnerability sub-models from which the physical, the ecological and the vulnerability maps are derived respectively. Results indicate that about 30% is highly suitable for in-field RWH and 25% is highly suitable for ex-field RWH. Details of the proposed method as well as the suitability maps produced are presented in this paper. The implementation of this method is envisaged to support any policy shifts towards wide spread adoption of RWH.

Developing suitability maps for rainwater harvesting in South Africa

Halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, is one of the targets of the 7th Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In South Africa, with its mix of developed and developing regions, 9.7 million (20%) of the people do not have access to adequate water supply and 16 million (33%) lack proper sanitation services. Domestic Rainwater Harvesting (DRWH), which provides water directly to households enables a number of small-scale productive activities, has the potential to supply water even in rural and peri-urban areas that conventional technologies cannot supply. As part of the effort to achieve the MDGs, the South African government has committed itself to provide financial assistance to poor households for the capital cost of rainwater storage tanks and related works in the rural areas. Despite this financial assistance, the legal status of DRWH remains unclear and DRWH is in fact illegal by strict application of the water legislations. Beyond the cost of installation, maintenance and proper use of the DRWH system to ensure its sustainability, there is risk of waterborne diseases. This paper explores challenges to sustainable implementation of DRWH and proposes some interventions which the South African government could implement to overcome them.

http://lshs.tamu.edu/docs/lshs/end-notes/domestic%20rainwater%20harvesting%20to%20improve%20water%20supply%20in%20r-0695381068/domestic%20rainwater%20harvesting%20to%20improve%20water%20supply%20in%20rural%20south%20africa.pdf

Jean R. Boroto

Papers

Domestic rainwater harvesting to improve water supply in rural South Africa