When solutions go abegging

Thursday 29th February, 2024

The National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB) has requested the public to use water sparingly in view of the prevailing dry spell. This appeal should be heeded if water cuts are to be averted. However, there is a pressing need for action to be taken to lessen the dependence of the public on mains water. This is something the NWSDB, government politicians and policymakers should take cognisance of.

Sri Lanka, which was once known as the Granary of the East, is now experiencing storage problems of all sorts, and most of its agricultural produce goes to waste, as a result. Paradoxically, bumper harvests are a curse rather than a blessing to the growers of perishables.

Another area where Sri Lanka has failed to reap economic benefits due to lack of storage facilities is rainwater harvesting. Solutions to water and energy problems have been staring us in the face all these years. Unfortunately, they have gone abegging. If a national programme is launched to harvest rainwater and harness solar energy, the country will gain enormously, rain or shine.

CEO of the Lanka Rainwater Harvesting Forum (LRWHF), Tanuja Ariyananda, has pointed out at a recent seminar, organised by the Institution of Engineers of Sri Lanka, in Colombo, that if a family of four switches to rainwater harvesting, each member thereof will have access to about 130 litres of water a day, and the water will be free after an initial investment in installing a rainwater collection system. She has said 60 percent of rain in the wet zone of the country is wasted as run-off and in the dry zone about 40% of rain is wasted.

There are about 50,000 rainwater harvesting systems installed in Sri Lanka. A household in Colombo, with a roofing area of 100 sq. m. can collect about 192,000 litres of rainwater a year, LRWHF has said. The amounts of rainwater that can be collected by households with the same roofing area each elsewhere annually are as follows: 147,200 litres in Kandy, 102,400 litres in Anuradhapura, 83,900 litres in Hambantota, 98,400 litres in Jaffna and 300,000 litres in Ratnapura.

Sri Lanka’s focus has been on mega projects. However essential they may be where irrigation and power generation are concerned, there is a pressing need for micro solutions as well; rainwater harvesting, if carried out on a large-scale, can ease strain on the water purification plants and alleviate the country’s water stress, which is taking a turn for the worse owing to climate change.

A private higher education institution in Malabe has recently started harvesting rainwater from a roof area of 5,525 sq. m. and the amount of water collected is adequate to meet 75% of the water needs of the university, according to the LRWHF CEO. Thus, rainwater harvesting has the potential to help reduce the cost of living significantly in these hard times.

Serious thought should be given to introduce laws to make it mandatory for all new buildings to be equipped with rainwater harvesting facilities, and the owners of the existing ones can be incentivised to collect rainwater, through measures such as the provision of soft loans, which will be a worthwhile investment for not only the people, troubled by high water tariff but also the state.