Rainwater harvesting is a familiar term for Bangladesh. People in areas that lack drinking
water, particularly the coastal areas and the rural areas in the country, practice rain water
harvesting. The high annual rainfall in the country makes rainwater harvesting a logical
solution for the arsenic contamination of ground water in Bangladesh (Rahman et al.
2003). Also, the increasing population in the urban as well as rural areas is putting
increased load on underground aquifers which is evident in the fact that the piezometric
level in Dhaka has decreased by more than 65 feet in the last decade. The annual rain fall
that the city receives may be an effective answer to the recharge of aquifers. Rain water
harvesting during the rainy season can reduce the increasing load on groundwater levels.
This study aims to provide some guidelines for economic rainwater harvesting system,
especially for urban areas for specific user groups. These guidelines were formulated
through literature review, analysis of some case studies on rainwater harvesting, and, to a
certain extent, practical experience of the researcher. Data from secondary sources have
also been used for the purpose. The guidelines have been formulated using existing data
on rainwater harvesting systems. Based on these guidelines, a mathematical model has
been developed to figure out cistern sizes for collection of rainwater. The solution is
applied to a typical plan of an apartment house in Dhaka (multistoried) using
programming and visualization so as to demonstrate the scope and benefit of integration
of rain water harvesting technique with the architectural design. The harvested rainwater definitely does not meet the basic domestic requirement, but
supplements it during the rainy season which, most importantly, is usable for individual
household use. Large-scale rainwater harvesting also, hopefully, results in a decrease of
seasonal flooding in the urban areas. The products of this research are a) a computer
program for sizing cisterns and b) an animation of the proposed rainwater harvesting
system that may be used as a tool to demonstrate the benefits of the technique.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2034 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Sultana, Farzana |
| Contributors | Choudhury, Ifte, Haque, Mohammed |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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