THE RAINS & YOU

Bang !! Tsh......” Now, you’d think it’s a bomb wouldn’t you; well it’s not it’s the splattering tones of the rain n booming thunder; a night time storm. And the so the monsoon season is upon us. Rains generally signify a pleasant vicissitude. Standing in my balcony enjoying the shower , my mind is wandering till my eyes light up at the sight of the galleons of water going down the drain. Oh! you can almost see the bulb blinking over my head, well actually its just a matter of putting 2 and 2 together, we are having  shortage of clean fresh water why not harvest rainwater

We all know what rainwater harvesting is, we know that

waterharvesting potential = rainfall (in mm) * collection efficiency.

Yes, the technicalities have been embedded into us like a moth to a flame. But as I say “what is knowledge if we can’t put it into practical use” (if you heard this somewhere else be rest assured that they are copying my lines!).So, its time we apply our hard learnt facts in daily life. For instance

•Storage tanks covered to prevent mosquito breeding and reduce evaporation

•Maintenance and cleaning to keep the system hygienic

•Build subsurface dykes in aquifers to obstruct natural flow of groundwater

Four buckets of water all we need to clean a car , it is an economical and conservative way of using resources. Now we switch to a larger scale, for instance if we save a tank of approximately 50 galleons of rainwater then that’s all we need for a day’s household chores like washing, mopping etc. As we can see rainwater harvesting has become an almost quintessential necessity in these water restricted times. Besides this the advantages of rainwater harvesting are three fold:

•It provides quality water for household needs

•It is renewable (though that depends on the unpredictable rains)

•It ensures an independent water supply when we are short off water.

But then again these multi-fold advantages can only be visualised if we undertake rainwater harvesting .We can start small with a simple bucket to water plants and then move onto capturing rainwater from roof tops and local catchments or the seasonal flood waters from local streams , aquifers ,or the usual water shed management. As they say THINK BIG , FEEL BIGGER ( on the inside of-course).