It is the deliberate collection and storage of rainwater that runs off a natural or man-made catchment surface.
Rain water harvesting is the principle of collecting and using precipitation from a catchments surface.
An old technology is gaining popularity in a new way. Rain water harvesting is enjoying a renaissance of sorts in the world, but it traces its history to biblical times. Extensive rain water harvesting apparatus existed 4000 years ago in the Palestine and Greece. In ancient Rome, residences were built with individual cisterns and paved courtyards to capture rain water to augment water from city’s aqueducts as early as the third millennium BC. Farming communities in Baluchistan and kutch impended rain water and used it for irrigation dams.
Water harvesting means capturing rain where it falls or capturing the runoff in the villages and towns. Simultaneously, it means taking measures to keep that water clean by not allowing polluting activities to take place in the catchment area. In general, water harvesting is direct collection of rain water.
Water harvesting can be undertaken through a variety of ways. These are:
Capturing runoff from rooftops.
Capturing runoff from local catchments.
Capturing seasonal floodwaters from local streams.
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