A top-down spatial scenario approach for identifying the locations of rainwater harvesting sites in an urban region

Abstract

Alternative water sources are necessary in developing nations because surface water is not always accessible, and groundwater is depleted. In such situations, rainwater harvesting is considered a promising sustainable water resource management solution. Numerous studies have been conducted to determine suitable locations for rainwater harvesting (RWH) using bottom-up approaches applied to large watersheds. The bottom-up methods begin with various geographic criteria and end with regions suitable for RWH intervention, even considering the distance from settlements to be one of the criteria, excluding urban areas from RWH site identification. This study developed a top-down methodology that began with the distributed pinpoint locations of potential RWH sites, as determined by distributed flow accumulation values produced from a digital elevation model (DEM), and then filtered out the sites based on various criteria in the context of urban areas. The flow accumulation values were apportioned according to the flow-contributing area of each RWH site. Five flow-contributing areal scenarios corresponding to 1 km2, 2.5 km2, 5 km2, 7.5 km2, and 10 km2 were considered in this study, as it is challenging to choose a suitable location for RWH sites in urban zones for efficient water storage owing to a variety of land uses. Based on this technique, a case study was conducted in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, where it was found that the volumetric potential of rainwater storage is maximum (403,679,424.9 cu. m) for 1 km2 and minimum (169,951,322 cu. m) for 10 km2 flow contributing areal distribution per RWH site.