Handbook of Water Harvesting and Conservation

1Concept and Technology of Rainwater Harvesting

Fayez Abdulla¹, Cealeen Abdulla¹, and Saeid Eslamian²

¹Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, 22110, Jordan

²Department of Water Engineering, College of Agriculture, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

1.1 Introduction

“Rainwater harvesting” (RWH) is defined in this chapter as the collection of rainfall, usually collected and stored in either artificial reservoirs known as cisterns or natural surfaces used in micro-catchment rainwater harvesting.

Rainwater harvesting has been used in many locations in the world to provide water that is suitable for various domestic and irrigation uses. People continue to collect rainwater despite the availability of water distribution systems due to the shortage of water. In early civilization, people in deserts and semi-arid regions have relied on collecting rainwater from land surfaces and storing it in cisterns (Gorokhovich et al. 2011). A number of distinctive historical examples that incorporate effective water harvesting systems survive in different climatic zones, and can be found in areas which receive between 100 and 1000 mm of precipitation annually (Prinz 1995). The capture and utilization of rainwater today is based on an ancient tradition and uses techniques similar to those used around 5000 years ago. Building dams to tap stream water, channeled through canals and stored in reservoirs, was practiced by ancient civilizations about 5000 years ago to provide ...