BYPROF.

KIRTI ARORA

The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect), and reducing temperature extremes between day and night (the diurnal temperature variation).

The hydrosphere is the liquid water component of the Earth. It includes the oceans, seas, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams. The hydrosphere covers about 70% of the surface of the Earth and is the home for many plants and animals.

Next to the air, the other important requirement for human life to exists is water. Water is available in various forms such as rivers, lake, streams etc. The earliest civilizations organized on the banks of major river systems and required water for drinking, bathing, cooking etc. But with the advancement of civilization the utility of water enormously increased and now such a stage has come that without well organized public water supply scheme, it is impossible to run the present civic life and the develop the towns.

VARIOUS TYPES OF WATER DEMANDS While designing the water supply scheme for a town or city, it is necessary to determine the total quantity of a water required for various purposes by the city. As a matter of fact the first duty of the engineer is to determine the water demand of the town and then to find suitable water sources from where the demand can be met. But as there are so many factors involved in demand of water, it is not possible to accurately determine the actual demand. Certain empirical formulae and thumb rules are employed in determining the water demand, which is very near to the actual demand. Following are the various types of water demands of a city or town: i. Domestic water demand ii. Industrial demand iii. Institution and commercial demand iv. Demand for public use v. Fire demand vi. Loses and wastes

The quantity of water required in the houses for drinking, bathing, cooking, washing etc is called domestic water demand and mainly depends upon the habits, social status, climatic conditions and customs of the people. As per IS: 1172-1963, under normal conditions, the domestic consumption of water in India is about 135 litres/day/capita. But in developed countries this figure may be 350 litres/day/capita because of use of air coolers, air conditioners, maintenance of lawns, automatic household appliances. The details of the domestic consumption are a) Drinking ------ 5 litres b) Cooking ------ 5 litres c) Bathing ------ 55 litres d) Clothes washing ------ 20 litres e) Utensils washing ------ 10 litres f) House washing ------ 10 litres -------------------------135 litres/day/capita

The water required in the industries mainly depends on the type of industries, which are existing in the city. The water required by factories, paper mills, Cloth mills, Cotton mills, Breweries, Sugar refineries etc. comes under industrial use. The quantity of water demand for industrial purpose is around 20 to 25% of the total demand of the city.

Universities, Institution, commercial buildings and commercial centers including office buildings, warehouses, stores, hotels shopping centers, health centers, schools, temple, cinema houses, railway and bus stations etc comes under this category. As per IS: 1172-1963, water supply requirements for the public buildings other than residences as follows.

Quantity of water required for public utility purposes such as for washing and sprinkling on roads, cleaning of sewers, watering of public parks, gardens, public fountains etc comes under public demand. To meet the water demand for public use, provision of 5% of the total consumption is made designing the water works for a city.

Fire may take place due to faulty electric wires by short circuiting, fire catching materials, explosions, bad intension of criminal people or any other unforeseen mishappenings. As during the fire breakdown large quantity of water is required for throwing it over the fire to extinguish it, therefore provision is made in the water work to supply sufficient quantity of water or keep as reserve in the water mains for this purpose. In the cities fire hydrants are provided on the water mains at 100 to 150 m apart for fire demand. The quantity of water required for fire fighting is generally calculated by using different empirical formulae. For Indian conditions kuichings formula gives satisfactory results. Q=3182 p Where Q is quantity of water required in litres/min P is population of town or city in thousands

All the water, which goes in the distribution, pipes does not reach the consumers. The following are the reasons 1. Losses due to defective pipe joints, cracked and broken pipes, faulty valves and fittings. 2. Losses due to, consumers keep open their taps of public taps even when they are not using the water and allow the continuous wastage of water. 3. Losses due to unauthorised and illegal connections. While estimating the total quantity of water of a town; allowance of 15% of total quantity of water is made to compensate for losses, thefts and wastage of water.

Water is the most abundant compound in nature. It covers 75% of the earth surface. About 97.3% of water is contained in the great oceans that are saline and 2.14% is held in icecaps glaciers in the poles, which are also not useful. Barely the remaining 0.56% found on earth is in useful form for general livelihood.

The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or H2O cycle, describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. Water can change states among liquid, vapor, and solid at various places in the water cycle. Although the balance of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time, individual water molecules can come and go, in and out of the atmosphere. The water moves from one reservoir to another, such as from river to ocean, or from the ocean to the atmosphere, by the physical processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, runoff, and subsurface flow. In so doing, the water goes through different phases: liquid, solid, and gas.

The evaporated water from the surfaces of streams, rivers, sea, ponds, wet surfaces, trees and plants etc again returned to the earth surface by the condensation in the form of rain, hails, dew, sleet etc is known as precipitation. The major part of the precipitation occurs in the form of rain and other forms quantities are very small. The water of precipitation further goes off in the following ways. i. RUN-OFF: After precipitation a portion of its water flows over the ground in the form of rivers and streams and some water flows towards lakes and ponds and collected there.

ii. INFILTRATION: A portion of precipitation, percolates in the ground and it is stored in the form of sub-soil or ground water. iii. EVAPORATION: some portion of the precipitation is also evaporated from the lakes, rivers, reservoirs and wet surfaces in the form of vapour due to suns heat is known as evaporation. iv. EVAPO-TRANSPIRATION: The roots of the trees sucks water from the ground and some portion.

Water resources are sources of water that are useful or potentially useful. Uses of water include agricultural, industrial, household, recreational and environmenta l activities. Virtually all of these human uses require fresh water. Ninety-seven percent of the water on the Earth is salt water. Only three percent is fresh water; slightly over two thirds of this is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. The remaining unfrozen freshwater is found mainly as groundwater, with only a small fraction present above ground or in the air.

All the sources of water can be broadly divided into 1. Surfaces sources and 2. Sub surface sources The surface sources further divided into i. Streams ii. Rivers iii. Ponds iv. Lakes v. Impounding reservoirs etc

These are further divided into (i) Infiltration galleries (ii) Infiltration wells

(iii) Springs etc

INFILTRATION WELLS

INFILTRATION GALLERY

SPRING

Rainwater harvesting is the accumulating and storing, of rainwater. It has been used to provide drinking water, water for livestock, water for irrigation or to refill aquifers in a process called groundwater recharge. In some cases, rainwater may be the only available, or economical, water source. Rainwater harvesting systems can be simple to construct from inexpensive local materials, and are potentially successful in most habitable locations. Some rooftop materials may produce rainwater that is harmful to human health, it can be useful in flushing toilets, washing clothes, watering the garden and washing cars; these uses alone halve the amount of water used by a typical home.

Surface water is inadequate to meet our demand and we have to depend on ground water. Due to rapid urbanization, infiltration of rain water into the sub-soil has decreased drastically and recharging of ground water has diminished. Over the years due to increase in population, irrigation and industrialisation, the demand of water has gone up to a large extent. Increase in run-off. Reduction in open soil surface area. Reduction in infiltration and deterioration in water quality.

 The

decision whether to store or recharge water depends on the rainfall pattern and the potential to do so, in a particular region.

For example, Delhi and Rajasthan where the total annual rainfall occurs during 3 or 4 months, are examples of places where groundwater recharge is usually practiced. In places like Kerala and Bangalore where rain falls throughout the year barring a few dry periods, one can depend on a small sized tank for storing rainwater, since the period between two spells of rain is short. Wherever substrata is impermeable recharging will not be feasible. Hence, it would be ideal to opt for storage.

RURAL CASE STUDY I. Rural water harvesting Communities in the face of adversity have revived or created new water harvesting systems. They have made checkdams and other structures to harvest every drop of drain. Some of them have even harvested rooftop runoffs. In many places these efforts have withstood the effects of recurring drought. II. Tank management The irrigation tanks (earthen bounded reservoirs constructed across slopes by taking advantage of local depressions and mounds) of South India are symbols of an ancient and rich tradition of harnessing local rainfall and stream flow for agriculture.

URBAN CASE STUDY Jamia Hamdard University Total rooftop and surface area: 3,15,380 sq. m. Average annual rainfall in Delhi : 611 mm Total volume of rainwater harvested: 67444 m or 6,74,44,000 litres. WATER SUPPLY SOURCE The daily water requirement of approximately six lakh litres is extracted from six borewells. The remaining requirement is met through private water tankers. RAINWATER HARVESTING SYSTEM Rainwater from various catchments, such as rooftop, surface runoff from open areas and runoff from the Jahanpanah Reserve Forest are harvested.

  

1. ROOFTOP RAINWATER HARVESTING a) Rooftop rainwater harvesting at the library building Rainwater from the library's rooftop is taken to a desilting chamber measuring 2m x 2m x 3m through a closed drain. A wall divides the chamber into two compartments - settlement and filtering chambers. The rainwater first enters the settlement chamber where the silt gets collected and then overflows into the filtering chamber. The filtering chamber has pebbles, which further filters the rainwater before diverting it into the recharge well. The recharge well measures 1.5m x 1.5m x 3m in size with a 30m deep recharge borewell measuring 100mm in diameter. Recharging is done in the same way at the girls hostel

2. SURFACE RUNOFF HARVESTING a) Surface runoff harvesting near library building Surface runoff from the paved and unpaved areas surrounding the library is collected in two trenches located in the eastern part of the campus (near Gates 5 and 6). The runoff collected near Gate 5 is diverted into a recharge well. Similarly, the runoff from the northern side of the building is drained into an abandoned open dugwell near Gate 6. b) Surface runoff harvesting from Jahanpanah Reserve Forest. The surface runoff from the Jahanpanah reserve forest collects in a pond from where it flows through a stormwater drain adjacent to the Scholars' House. This runoff water is channelised into a desilting chamber and then into a recharge well which measures 2m x 2m x 3m with the help of a 1m high diversion wall.