The city of Delhi, the capital of India, has witnessed unprecedented pace of urbanization in the decades after independence in 1947. As a result of rapid urban development that has outstripped expectations, the water supply infrastructure has failed to match demand. The speed of urbanization and its concomitant demand on the urban water supply system over a period led to a situation when ecological sustainable water supply system, ie, piped supply from perennial rivers gradually became vulnerable to meet the ever-growing demand of the population. With the result the underground water reserves came to supplement the water shortages through a system of extraction by tube wells, here wells etc. Over the period, ground water was over exploited by the affluent class, unplanned habitation packets apart from extensive withdrawal by construction, industry and irrigation sector. The extraction of ground water reserves thus far exceeded the natural recuperation through rainwater ground percolation and by 1990s situation became alarming. Depletion of ground water table and deterioration of quality of water due to leaching of harmful metal compounds, shrinking aquifers all have posed before city planers, civic agencies and engineers a formidable challenge as to not only to check the further depletion of underground water aquifers but to replenish the same. Borne out of such challenge and development of acute awareness to unsustainable nature of ground water extraction system, the program-of 'rain water harvesting' has been launched in the city of Delhi in a concerted manner involving Government agencies, residential colony societies, civic bodies, NGOs and private individuals, The concept of rain water harvesting (RWH) is aptly conveyed in the slogan 'catch water where it falls and therefore involves the activity of rain water storage as well as other activities aimed at harvesting and conserving surface and ground.
展开▼
