Rainwater Harvesting

To meet the ever-increasing water demand in a densely populated country like India, reliance on groundwater is constantly increasing. However, the development and use of groundwater resources have been unsystematic, unplanned and uncontrolled. As a consequences, piezometric levels have been declining rapidly resulting in many undesirable and often irreversible environmental and socio-economic consequences. Solutions for these consequences exist in the knowledge of the development and careful insight into management of water harvesting systems prevalent in various parts of the world. The successful story of many rainwater harvesting projects in Ambala and Mahendragarh districts in Haryana have manifested the benefits of resource conservation and management. Moreover, these water harvesting projects have resulted in flood and drought modernisation, groundwater augmentation and improvement in the socio-economic conditions of the people. The fast depleting groundwater level, and limited surface water has necessitated a critical appraisal of the scope for rainwater harvesting especially in those areas, which have registered appreciable declining trends in groundwater levels. Thus, the present work is concerned with the study to examine the scope of rainwater harvesting. This study establishes a relationship between rainfall, runoff and groundwater recharging possibilities.