http://www.thebetterindia.com/92434/a-r-shivakumar-rainwater-harvesting-bengaluru-karnataka/
One man believes that this dire situation can be turned around. A R Shivakumar believes that a lot of water is being wasted due to mismanagement and that planned rainwater harvesting (RWH) can effectively sustain the city’s water supply.
senior scientist at the Karnataka State Council of Science and Technology (KSCST) at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Shivakumar is not a new convert to the concept. A vociferous proponent of RWH, he does not have a Cauvery water connection in his home and he has been relying entirely on collected rainwater to serve all his family’s needs for over two decades.
Shivakumar has also invented tools that simplify RWH at home and has even worked with local authorities to popularise rainwater harvesting in Bengaluru!
In 1995, when Shivakumar started building his house, he did a lot of research to look for alternatives that would fulfill his family’s needs without harming the environment. His first step was to analyse the water bills of residents of the locality to map the water consumption of an average family.
He found that his findings matched the water consumption norms published by WHO – a family of four uses approximately 500 litres of water per day. Next, he sat and tabulated the rainfall data in the city over the last 100 years. He was surprised to discover that as per the data, there is more than enough rainfall in the city, even in the worst monsoon-deficient years.
The only catch was that while it rained for about 60-70 days in a year, the water had to last for 365 days.
Each tank has been fitted with an innovative filter device that has been built and patented by Shivakumar himself. Called Pop-Up Filter, the device uses a simple silver sheet to remove all impurities from the collected rainwater before channeling it around the house. It can be vertically installed on the walls of a small buildings (for bigger buildings, Shivakumar has designed a ‘First Flush Lock and Diverter’ that performs the same function)
Careful not to let even a drop of rain water go waste, Shivakumar has also dug percolation pits in the garden around his house that help in the direct recharge of the ground water table. (Incredibly, within one year of recharge, the groundwater table around Shivakumar’s house ‘Sourabha’ rose from 200 ft to around 40 ft!) This system is also a backup for the rare case in which it doesn’t rain in Bengaluru for more than 100 days – water drawn from a shallow tube well, recharged by the rainwater, helps meet the family’s requirement.
Other than RWH, Shivakumar is also judicious while using water at home. He has designed and installed an effective greywater recycling system at his home – the outlet water from his washing machine is stored in a separate tank and is used for flushing toilets in the house. In the same way, water from the kitchen is stored and used for gardening.
Shivakumar has also tweaked his household devices to make them more eco-friendly. For instance, the containers used to store water from the solar water heaters have been lined with rice husk to ensure that the water stays hot throughout the day. The LED lights in the house are solar powered while the rooftop water tanks and surrounding garden help naturally air condition the house.
Over the years, Shivakumar has designed and implemented hundreds of rainwater harvesting projects in Bangalore, including at Vidhana Soudha, the Karnataka High Court, corporate offices (such as Arvind Mills and Intel India) and several housing societies in the city. He has also trained Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) plumbers, building contractors and architects in the integration of RWH in construction.
The RWH at Vidhana Soudha
Shivakumar’s RWH systems are also being used in Africa as well in some European countries. The Norwegian government has also selected it for its joint project with the Indian government. He has been honoured with several awards like central government’s National Innovation Award, Karnataka government’s Ammulya award and Rotary International’s Citizen Extraordinary award.
The RWH expert also played a key role in getting the Karnataka government to pass an amendment to the (BWSSB) Act that made rainwater harvesting compulsory for houses and offices with an area greater than 2,400 sq. ft. in the core of Bengaluru.
Shivakumar’s expertise and technical know-how is now being utilised by the government of Meghalaya to build a RWH infrastructure in the state. Home to Mawsynram and Cherrapunji (the wettest places in India), Meghalaya receives one of the highest rainfall in India, but still suffers from acute water scarcity when the precipitations drop sharply from November until March.
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