Rural community water management through directional tunnelling: visual modelling of rainwater harvesting system

Abstract

Rainwater, a prominent source of water, needs to be properly harvested for better utilisation during water unavailable circumstances. Creating rainwater storage structures is an important aspect in the planning of water resources as it serves for future water usage and consumption. Advancements in rainwater storage structures are not happening on a large scale. Most of the structures are limited to individual household rainwater collection. Innovations and advanced technology applications must address rainwater storage functioning for a community. This research work proposes an innovative method called directional tunnelling for the activity of rainwater harvesting and its management for a small community in a rural area. Initially, rainwater is harvested in multiple individual household tanks, and later the excess of water from the corresponding tanks is subsequently collected in a community tank named as directional tunnel. All the details related to rural community water management have been discussed as well as highlighted by visual modelling using Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools. The current research work is intended on the rural aspect; therefore, the directional tunnel's practical execution and results are portrayed in a better manner through a case study at a village in Rajasthan, India.