Rain is gain!

Nilma Dole

Remember singing that nursery rhyme, “Rain rain, go away, come again another day,” when you were young?

Surely, Sri Lanka’s 12-century King Parakramabahu wouldn’t have liked that rhyme because it was he who said, “not a single drop of water received from rain should be allowed to escape into the sea without being made use of.” Without rain, the Parakrama Samudra wouldn’t have been built and our civilization wouldn’t have been so successful!

However, people are still not incorporating the optimum use of rainwater. While our neighbouring countries like the Maldives Islands value rainwater as their primary source of freshwater, we don’t make the most of it. This is also taking into consideration the fact that President Mahinda Rajapaksa has a vision of providing water for all by the year 2010.

Today, as the dramatic consequences of global warming takes effect, what we do now has a significant impact on our future generations. Hence, it’s vital that we now adopt more environmentally-friendly policies that would not only be better for Mother Nature but make us fitting examples for our children.

Rainwater harvesting is a very simple technique of gathering, or accumulating and storing, rainwater making it beneficial in providing drinking water, water for livestock, water for irrigation or to refill aquifers in a process called groundwater recharge.

The best aspect of rainwater systems is that they are simple to build from inexpensive local materials, and have been successful in most habitable locations. Even though in Sri Lanka, we might have bird dropping problems which can be mixed with rainwater, it can be used for other purposes like flushing the commode (13 liters of water in one flush) or just watering the garden (upto 1000 liters of water).

The Lanka Rainwater Harvesting Forum (LRHF) is an organization comprising diverse professionals from the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB), Intermediate Technology Development Group Sri Lanka (ITSL), Community Water Supply and Sanitation Project (CWSSP), Church of Ceylon, Board of Women’s Work, NGO Water Supply and Sanitation Decade Services, Agrarian Research and Training Institute (HARTI) and the Open University.

Speaking to the Daily News was LRHF executive director Tanuja Ariyananda who said, “Architects have a big role in building rainwater harvesting collection systems which need to be integrated with the traditional home and commercial building designs.” She highlighted that groundwater in the rural and urban areas can be contaminated and even Watawala that has the highest rainfall in the country have water shortages due to having water retention.

Explaining the concept, she said, “In the hill country, you need to get to the groundwater level to obtain water and sometimes this isn’t good for consumption so rainwater is essential.” LRHF has been successful in implementing over 3000 rainwater collection tanks in the tsunami-affected areas around the country and are hopeful to use this method by helping government authorities to rehabilitate the North.

In the dry zone of southern Sri Lanka, the organization Practical Action together with LRHF have allowed villagers to collect and use rainwater efficiently as possible. Facilities that were installed have been both top and bottom ground rainwater catchment tanks, with the water collected from roofs of buildings, dams and channels for irrigation purposes, and improvement of ponds used for storing water.

A Sri Lankan company called Green Earth Renewables (Pvt) have already made it a reality by building houses for their clients in a practical way with rainwater harvesting techniques. “One of our golden rules when it comes to building the modern home which is eco-friendly is recycling water because a country like Sri Lanka that is blessed with yearly monsoons should make maximum use of rainwater” said the company’s CEO Susantha Pinto.

A veteran in the plantation management sector, Mr Pinto has made use of his green thumb when it comes to giving a hand to Mother Nature. “Our company has even pioneered a ‘waste not, want not’ policy of water recycling which we have already implemented,” he said.

Explaining the mechanism of rain water harvesting, he said that when it rains, the water can be collected for usage in your toilet (flushing purposes) and the gray water (used bathing water) can be collected and used for watering the garden. “Even if it doesn’t rain, the system we install gives you the alternative of getting water from the main tap line” he said.

Susantha Welgama, a veteran in the transport sector, has also found benefits of the ‘rainwater harvesting’ policy saying, “Our authorities should adopt the rainwater collection system because in 1981, I did this very successfully in our Transport Yard for years to wash our trucks”.

He added, “When the water was fresh, our drivers even had a bath.” He mentioned that places like Rathnapura that has one of the high rainfalls in the island should adopt such methodologies at local hospitals and other institutions.

“This should be a good natural solution than blaming each other. Just collect the roof rainwater with tanks above a man’s height,” he concluded.