Determining water supply benefits of residential rainwater harvesting in India using tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) data

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Title Determining water supply benefits of residential rainwater harvesting in India using tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) data
Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Engineering
Department Civil & Environmental Engineering
Author Stout, Daniel Trevor
Date 2013-12
Description The goal of this study was to analyze precipitation patterns in five different climatic regions across the country of India, to determine if rainwater harvesting (RWH) could provide sufficient indoor water for a typical household. Data were acquired from the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite for this study. For the study, six cities were selected in five different climatic regions based on the Koppen climate classification. Three-hour increment precipitation average intensities were extracted from TRMM_3B42 files for the centroid of each city. The analysis applied a water balance approach, with inflows estimated as runoff from the rooftop catchment and outflows estimated from water demand. Cistern sizes were varied from 757 to 18,927 liters and the catchment area was varied from 10 to 100 m3 to quantify the performance of RWH across a range of system design conditions. As a result of the monsoonal climate in India, highly seasonal precipitation patterns occur. To study the seasonal precipitation influence, a dry-to-wet ratio was calculated as the average volume of precipitation for the months of June through August divided by the average volume of precipitation for the months of September through May. The Water Saving Efficiency (WSE) metric was calculated for each city on a yearly basis. The WSE values for each city were analyzed with the dry-to-wet ratios and precipitation volumes. The WSE varied from 2% to 6% for the smallest catchment area and cistern volume, to 20% to 50% for the largest catchment area and cistern volume. Overall, the larger the area available and the larger the cistern, the higher the efficiency; however, for small catchment areas, the increases in cistern volume provided no additional benefit. A low dry-to-wet ratio resulted in a moderate efficiency if the precipitation volume was high, and a high dry-to-wet ratio resulted in a poor efficiency if the precipitation volume was low. Synthesizing the results, the general conclusion from this study is most cities in India will realize benefits from rainwater harvesting for urban water supply.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Harvesting; India; Rainwater; Supply; TRMM; Water
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Master of Science
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Daniel Trevor Stout 2013
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 1,254,905 bytes
Identifier etd3/id/2671
ARK ark:/87278/s6p30698
Setname ir_etd
ID 196246
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6p30698
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