Agriculture and Domestic Supply
Usually, there are two basic ways of
rainwater harvesting like surface runoff harvesting and rooftop rainwater
harvesting. In the first method, rainwater flowing along the surface is
collected in an underground tank. In the second method, rainwater is collected
from roof catchment and stored in a tank. The harvested rainwater is the purest
form of water source. So, it can be consumed directly. Rainwater collected from
ground catchments may be poor in quality with respect to the bacteriological
quality, whereas if rainwater is collected from well-maintained rooftop
catchment systems and storage tanks, then that water is suitable for drinking.
If water is collected from a dirty surface, then the collected water can be
made utilizable by using a proper filtering system. Thereafter, it can be used
for some the following purposes like drinking, culinary, bathing, laundry,
toiletry purpose, watering gardens, compost making, birdbaths, recharging ponds
and pools, washing vehicles, fire extinguishing, etc.