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Water Conservation and Rain Water Harvesting

Water is a precious resource for growth and prosperity. We can note its importance from the fact that all the great civilizations prospered in the vicinity of water resources. Major sources of fresh water are surface water and ground water.Surface water depends on rainfall and groundwater can’t be drawn beyond its recharge rate. Making the most efficient use of our limited and precious resources is essential. Thus there is growing awareness to conserve water. Agriculture is a major user of water and there is greater emphasis in water conservation in agriculture.

Now-a-days quantity of available freshwater including groundwater is becoming short in supply even for domestic and drinking purposes. High standards of living in urban areas demand greater water supply. With rapid increase in industrial growth, the requirement of freshwater for industries is also increasing. Industries can play a major role by conserving water and recycling the treated wastewater to reduce the demand of freshwater. Water conservation not only helps in reducing the expenditure on procuring water but also reduces wastewater volume. This wastewater needs to be treated before it leaves the industry premises.

Every citizen as well as institutions and industries should use water judiciously.They can also help in augmenting the freshwater resources. Rainwater harvesting is one such movement where involvement of all the people is needed. With the surfaces around houses and buildings being cemented, particularly in cities and towns, rainwater, which runs off from terraces and roofs drains into low lying areas or drained into sewers without percolating into the soil. Thereby, precious rainwater is squandered. Therefore, roof water harvesting in residential and industrial areas can be used to augment the freshwater resources.

We will appreciate the basic concepts such as hydrologic cycle and watershed, which are useful in water conservation. Then we will discuss different components of a rainwater harvesting system, their functions and material of construction. We will also learn some tips on conservation of water in a dairy plant.This unit is intended to sensitize about water conservation aspects in general on watershed basis and water conservation in a dairy processing plant in particular.

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