Project of UNESCO and
KSCST - “Do it Yourself RWH tool”
http://rwh-advisor.info
Background:
Karnataka State Council
for Science and Technology (KSCST) is providing S & T solutions for the
benefit of the society and in the last four decades, KSCST has worked on water
issues leading to conservation of water and rainwater harvesting.
Understanding the
importance of domestic water use and its growing demand, KSCST researched on
Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) and developed technological solutions to adopt RWH
with scientific interventions.
Large scale awareness
campaigns, training programmes for building and plumbing contractors and
helpdesk for providing cost effective as well as site specific solutions for
harvesting rainwater were made available
for the citizens of Karnataka.
RWH structures were
designed, developed and implemented for land mark buildings like Vidana Soudha,
High Court of Karnataka and over 350 public and private institutions.
KSCST is instrumental in
bringing policy changes at the Government of Karnataka to incorporate RWH in
the building bylaws of BBMP and an amended act of BWSSB for mandatory
installation of RWH in buildings of Bangalore city.
UNESCO strives to build
networks among nations and mobilizes partnerships and resources for education:
so that every child, boy or girl, has access to quality education as a
fundamental human right and as a prerequisite for human development. It strives
to build intercultural understanding: through protection of heritage and
support for cultural diversity. UNESCO created the idea of World Heritage to
protect sites of outstanding universal values. It pursues scientific cooperation: such as early warning
systems for tsunamis or trans-boundary water management agreements, to
strengthen ties between nations and societies. finally, it protects
freedom of expression: an essential condition for democracy, development and
human dignity and strives to create knowledge societies.
One of its activities,
ICT and sciences, is designed to leverage the power of information and
communication technologies to bring science closer to the reach of common men
and women and generate solutions to solve problems of scientific nature.
Taking note of the
success stories of RWH through KSCST interventions in Karnataka and other
state, UNESCO joined hands with KSCST to develop a software application to
provide RWH solutions through web and mobile phone across the country.
RWH - UNESCO and KSCST
project :
A
letter of exchange was established between UNESCO and KSCST in Feb 2015.
KSCST and
UNESCO thus collaborated with a
few other institutions and experts to develop a
“DOIT YOURSELF RWH tool”. This application has the potentiality to
address most of the needs of a prospective candidate planning to install a RWH system. The front end of
the tool provides query sheet to enter the basic and available
information, and the back end of the
software processes data
collected from many
relevant sources. The output generated
provides sufficient information and scientific understanding required for the installation of
a sustainable, site-specific and cost effective RWH system. The application is
available on web and also on Android
platform for mobile phones.
The RWH concepts revolve
around local parameters, the rainfall pattern, local practices for water
collection and storage, types of buildings and their structure, ground water
parameters, geological details, soil characteristics, building materials,
quality of existing ground and surface water and many more.
Rainfall data for a
region of around 20 to 40 sq km area are obtained from the meteorological
institution of the country / province.
The rainfall data
required is daily data for any one full year (365 days). The selection of the
year depends on the available data for number of years. If the data is
available for say 50 years, the yearly average rainfall is considered. The
daily rainfall data of that year which is close to the annual average rainfall
of that place is considered.
For example Bangalore in
India has 50 years rainfall data and the average annual rainfall is say 978 mm,
then from among the 50 individual years, the year (say 2006 has 964 mm) which
has rainfall close to 978 mm rainfall will be considered. The daily rainfall
data of 2006 will be considered for the software.
Roof of a building plays
a crucial role in harvesting rainwater. The type of roof and the roof water
channelization methods adopted locally will guide the software to chose the
yield of water collection and the quality of water. The cost of the rainwater
harvesting depends on the local practices to store water and the types of local
structures, material used in construction etc.
The software developed
will highlight the groundwater characteristics and the soil characteristics for
suggesting the ground water recharge options.
Rainfall data - 50 years
normal daily rainfall data collection for 173 blocks of Karnataka state obtained from Karnataka State
Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) and for 256 Districts from 15
States of India was obtained from Indian Metrological department (IMD), Pune.
The computation logics along with advanced graphic integration and calculation
has been integrated with the backend data of the software.
The app is available at the web link :
http://rwh-advisor.info
and
http://210.212.203.68/kscstnmitrwhbeta13.php
The app is available at the web link :
http://rwh-advisor.info
and
http://210.212.203.68/kscstnmitrwhbeta13.php
Parameters required for
input data:
- Place name where RWH is planned (Place, District, Taluk)
- Type of building - Existing / New, Flat / inclined roof
- Roof area considered for RWH
- Space available for RWH
- Water used in the building for a day
- RWH solution required for storing rainwater / recharging in to the ground
- Average annual rainfall in mm and inches for your place
- Number of rainy days in your place
- Potential of rainwater that can be harvested per year from your roof in liter
- Most optimum size of the tank / sump in liter to store rainwater for future use
- Various options of length, breadth and depth for the suggested tank / sump size
- Actual rainwater that can be harvested in the suggested tank in liter per year
- Number of days in a year that the harvested rain water that can be used for your daily requirement
- Prediction of number of days that the suggested tank may overflow in a year
- Dynamic graph to show historic data of 365 days daily rainfall in mm in your place
- Dynamic graph to show quantity of rainwater that is likely to be available on a given day of an year
- Suggestions as per Indian building code for size of the down water pipe and number of pipes required for your roof size
- Material and cost estimate for installation of RWH system in your building
- Suggestion for type of tank suitable for the given size of tank / sump
- By choosing ground water recharge instead of storing rainwater in a tank while feeding the input data, similar results as above pertaining to local site specific ground water recharge can be obtained
- List of Government and other institutions with details supporting RWH activities in your town / city
- List of experienced / skilled individuals / agencies with details providing services to install RWH in your town / city
- List of equipment / material suppliers with details related to RWH installation in your town / city
- Provision to modify the input data to get various options of RWH system suitable for your building
- Provision to optimise RWH tank size / RWH project cost as per your requirement / available resources
Organisations :
Karnataka State Council
for Science and Technology (KSCST)
United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Project team :
Mr. A. R. Shivakumar,
Principal Investigator
and Architect of the project, KSCST, Indian Institute of Science
Prof. H. A. Sanjay
Mr. Sanket Salvi
Dept. Information Science
& Engg, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, Bangalore
Prof. Yogesh Simmhan,
Supercomputer Education
and Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Mr. C.S. Ramasesha
Former Commissioner,
Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India
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