Assessing the potential of rainwater harvesting system at the Middle East Technical University – Northern Cyprus Campus

Date

2015-8

Author

Harb, Rayaan

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Rainwater harvesting system (RWHS), where runoff from roofs and impervious areas is collected and utilized, is a prominent solution to deal with water scarcity by conserving available water resources and the energy needed to deliver water to the water supply system. The impact of climate change on water resources can also be reduced by rainwater harvesting. RWH is becoming an important part of the sustainable water management around the world. The Eastern Mediterranean countries with semi-arid climate obtain low precipitation and high temperature. Therefore, applying RWHS will be very beneficial in these areas to provide non-potable uses such as irrigation and household use. This study investigates the potential of RWH in the METU-NCC. Two approaches for runoff calculation were compared, the traditional Soil Conservation Service (SCS) method and the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) using monthly and hourly rainfall data from 1978 to 2009. A RWHS was proposed to assess the potential of rainwater harvesting. The reservoir locations of the system were chosen with their relative irrigation areas and their volumes were calculated after computing the irrigation consumption of the campus. The study was not aimed at optimizing the system rather the system serves the purpose to show if there is a potential in RWH. The tank volumes were found to be 2300 m3 , 3500 m3 and 1100 m3 with efficiencies of 37.8%, 41.3% and 90.5% respectively and 41.2% of the campus irrigation was met. According to the findings, there is potential for collecting rainwater for irrigation purposes on the campus.

Subject Keywords

Rainwater Harvesting System, Reservoir Volume, Rainfall, Northern Cyprus

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/69837

Collections

Northern Cyprus Campus, Thesis