Alternative Arrangement for Roof Tops Rural Housing Catching Rain Water in the Semi-Arid

Abstract

Harvesting rainwater for human consumption through rooftops is becoming an increasingly common practice, especially in regions where there are no community water supplies, such as much of the Indian semi-arid region. The water collection systems installed in this region are based on the construction of cisterns to collect water collected through roofs. In order to contribute to the improvement of the performance of these systems, this work aimed to study the problems preventing the proper functioning of this important water supply and to propose design solutions adapting appropriate technologies for the rural population of the Indian hemisphere, Arid region. The starting point was a field study conducted in the rural community of Namakkal Taluk in Tamil Nadu between 2020 and 2021. The results showed that 80% of the residential buildings surveyed have a water intake system, but only 16% store enough water for a year-round supply. It was found that this low rate is mainly due to unreliable conditions for installation and maintenance of water conduit subsystems (gutters and channels). Based on this finding, and taking into account functional and aesthetic-formal aspects, five alternative devices for rainwater harvesting systems, consisting of roofs, gutters and channels, were developed. In order to simplify and, as a result, reduce the cost, the gutter supports were eliminated, which gave a performance advantage over conventional systems.