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Status of water use and potential of rainwater harvesting for replacing centralized supply system in remote mountainous areas: a case study

  • Green Technologies for Sustainable Water
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Abstract

The failure of the centralized water supply system forced XY community to become more dependent on uncertain and unstable water sources. The results of surveying 50 households showed that 89.18% of total households depended on water collected from rivers, which contributed 58.3% of the total water volume used for the domestic demands. The average water volume consumed was 19.5 liters/person/day (l/p/d), and 86.5% of households used more than one source; 13.5% of households collected water only from rivers, and 45.94% of families had rainwater harvesting (RWH) for their activities (domestic water demand); however, RWH only provided 9.9% of total water consumption. In this study, basic methods were applied to calculate the storage tanks necessary to balance the water deficit created by drought months. Three levels of water demand (14, 20, and 30 l/p/d) can be the best choices for RWH; for a higher demand (40 and 60 l/p/d), small roof area (30–40 m2), and many people (six to seven) per family, RWH might be impractical because of unsuitable rainfall or excessively large storage tanks.

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Data availability

The dataset used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

The research collaboration among the groups, institutions, and universities of the authors are grateful.

Funding

This research was supported in part by grant from the Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) (grant number: 105.99-2019.25).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Advanced Chemistry, Institute of Research and Development, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, 550000, Vietnam

    Xuan Cuong Nguyen, Thi Thanh Huyen Nguyen & Xuan Vu Tran

  2. Faculty of Environmental Chemical Engineering, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, 550000, Vietnam

    Xuan Cuong Nguyen & Thi Thanh Huyen Nguyen

  3. Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT), Ho Chi Minh City, 700000, Vietnam

    Xuan-Thanh Bui

  4. Key Laboratory of Advanced Waste Treatment Technology, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh (VNU-HCM) , Linh Trung ward, Thu Duc district, Ho Chi Minh City, 700000, Vietnam

    Xuan-Thanh Bui

  5. Faculty of Environmental Engineering Technology, Hue University—Quang Tri Campus, Quang Tri, Vietnam

    Thi Cuc Phuong Tran

  6. Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education, 01 Vo Van Ngan Street, Thu Duc District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Nhung Thi Tuyet Hoang

  7. Instittute of Chemistry and Materials, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Duc Duong La

  8. Department of Environmental Energy Engineering, Kyonggi University, Suwon, South Korea

    Soon Woong Chang & Dinh Duc Nguyen

  9. Center for Technology in Water and Wastewater, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Huu Hao Ngo

  10. Faculty of Environmental and Food Engineering, Nguyen Tat Thanh University, 300A Nguyen Tat Thanh, District 4, Ho Chi Minh City, 755414, Vietnam

    Dinh Duc Nguyen

Authors
  1. Xuan Cuong Nguyen
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Contributions

Xuan Cuong Nguyen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing. Thi Thanh Huyen Nguyen: Formal analysis, Validation. Xuan-Thanh Bui: Methodology, Visualization. Xuan Vu Tran: Methodology, Data curation. Thi Cuc Phuong Tran: Formal analysis, Data curation. Nhung Thi Tuyet Hoang: Writing—review and editing. Duc Duong La: Software, writing—review and editing. Soon Woong Chang: Writing—review and editing. Huu Hao Ngo: Writing—review and editing. D. Duc Nguyen: Resources, supervision, writing—review and editing

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dinh Duc Nguyen.

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Highlights

• The status of current water use in remote mountainous areas is defined.

• The average water volume consumed was 19.5 liters/person/day

• 45.94% families had rainwater harvesting, but it provided only 9.9% of total demand

• The quality of the rainwater tested was suitable for drinking purposes.

• A rainwater-harvesting system was designed with different scenarios and variations.

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Nguyen, X.C., Nguyen, T.T.H., Bui, XT. et al. Status of water use and potential of rainwater harvesting for replacing centralized supply system in remote mountainous areas: a case study. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 63589–63598 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11154-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11154-8

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