Roofwater harvesting : a handbook for practitioners

This handbook covers all aspects of low-cost Domestic Roofwater Harvesting (DRWH) in the humid tropics. In most tropical regions DRWH can provide full coverage in the wet season, but only partial coverage during the dry season, as well as short-term security against the failure of other sources. The right combination of roofing materials, guttering, collection and storage systems is needed to successfully collect even up till 80 % of the water that falls on the roof. This handbook covers such issues as optimum tank size to meet different needs, methods to ensure that only clean water enters the tank, ways to protect against potential health hazards and factors that influence public and household investment. Anyone interested in domestic roofwater harvesting will find this book, with illustrated examples from around the world, to be a useful source of information. Those implementing it as a policy will find detailed discussions of the contribution it can make to safe water coverage, and the economics of installing and maintaining the system.

Collecting the water that falls on household roofs provides an attractive method of conserving water, it reliefs the burden of water-carrying, particularly for women and children. This is crucial in communities where households face labour shortages due to the prolonged sickness or death of key household members, increasingly as a result of HIV/AIDS, coupled with a reduction in the availability of labour due to education and migration.

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