Feasibility and acceptability study of rainwater use to the acute water shortage areas in Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Abstract

This study explored the feasibility and acceptability of harvested rainwater in rural communities of Bangladesh as well as densely populated City like Dhaka, using simple and low-cost technology. As a part of this study, a field survey was conducted in the water-scarce Dhaka City. Four slums were selected for conducting questionnaire survey. A questionnaire was furnished to know some information such as the socio-economic condition for those slum dwellers and family information, housing condition, sanitation condition, health condition, economic condition, existing water supply condition, knowledge about rainwater, willingness to accept rainwater, etc. Two hundred people from different representative groups were selected randomly. Yield after spillage and yield before spillage models were developed to know the actual rainwater availability and storage conditions, which were used to justify the effective tank size. Cost-benefit analysis and feasibility analysis were performed using the survey results and the research findings. A sensitivity analysis was performed to check the important parameters toward the implementation of the system as well. The results showed that cost was the most sensitive parameter (48.1%), the second highest sensitive parameter was roof area (25.9%) and the lowest sensitive parameter was demand (2.2%). The study showed that the low-cost rainwater harvesting technique was feasible and acceptable to the slum dwellers as the only potential alternative source of safe drinking water.