Economic Evaluation of Rain Water Harvesting Systems

A growing fraction of the human population will face water scarcity in the coming decades and this will be more acute in the rural areas of the arid and semi arid regions of the world. In this context the role of rain water harvesting systems which includes collection and storage of rain water that runs off a natural or human made surface has greatly increased. It has been observed that during rains the surface water is wasted as runoff and the groundwater table is fast declining as years go by. The water demand in the Tamilnadu Agricultural University main campus was assessed and technically feasible and economically viable agricultural and non-agricultural rainwater harvesting systems were suggested. The economic feasibility of water harvesting structures were evaluated on the basis of expected net return method, benefit-cost ratio and internal rate of return