What is water harvesting? How is it done?
A. Water harvesting refers to collection and storage of rainwater aimed at enhancing surface and groundwater resources. The rainwater collected can be harvested for direct usage or for recharging the groundwater. The choice whether to store or recharge depends on the rainfall pattern and the hydrogeology of a particular region. For example, in places like Kerala and Mizoram, it rains throughout the year, barring a few dry periods. In such places, one can depend on a small domestic-sized water tank for storing rainwater, since the period between two spells of rain is short. Wherever impermeable sub-strata is available recharging will not be feasible. Hence, it would be ideal to opt for storage. In dry areas like Delhi, Rajasthan and Gujarat, the total annual rainfall occurs only during 3 or 4 months of monsoon. The water collected during the monsoon has to be stored throughout the year; which means that huge volumes of storage containers would have to be provided. Since it is not possib
