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Impact of Installing Rainwater Harvesting System on Urban Water Management

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Abstract

The urban-scale impacts of the use of Rainwater Harvesting Systems (RWHS) are little explored within the Brazilian urban and climatic reality. Thus, the objective of this work is to verify the impacts of these systems in reducing runoff and the demand for drinking water, through a case study carried out in a neighborhood in the city of Goiânia-GO. In order to carry out the study, the land use characteristics of the studied region were studied from satellite images, with three batch patterns being defined as study scenarios. The daily residential demand for non-drinking uses of water was calculated from the standard lots and the annual rainfall pattern in the city of Goiânia, which was also characterized by taking a 30-year historical series of daily rainfall data. With these data in hand, daily water balances were calculated using Excel, for commercial reservoirs of 1, 5 and 10 m3, in addition to reservoirs with ideal volumes obtained from the NETUNO software. Two balance models were tested and compared and, from them, analyzes were made of the potential for reducing the annual consumption of drinking water in the neighborhood and hydrological simulations were run to verify the flow damping, with the support of the SWMM program. In general, the RWHS use has positive aspects: it reduces the drinking water demand in the neighborhood (up to 37%). However, when analyzing the reduction of peak flows in the drainage system, it is only significant in scenarios with larger reservoirs, confirming its marginal role in stormwater management.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) Foundation for the master research scholarship.

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by the Federal Government of Brazil through the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) Foundation for the master research scholarship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, GO, 74605-220, Brazil

    Sara Lopes Souto, Ricardo Prado Abreu Reis & Marcus André Siqueira Campos

Authors
  1. Sara Lopes Souto
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  2. Ricardo Prado Abreu Reis
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  3. Marcus André Siqueira Campos
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Contributions

Msc. Sara Lopes Souto - Data Collection Researcher and Manuscript Writer. Dr. Ricardo Prado A. Reis - Manuscript Writer and Reviewer Researcher and Research Advisor. Dr. Marcus André Siqueira Campos - Outline of Conceptual Framework, Manuscript Writer, Reviewer Researcher and Research Advisor.

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Correspondence to Marcus André Siqueira Campos.

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Souto, S.L., Reis, R.P.A. & Campos, M.A.S. Impact of Installing Rainwater Harvesting System on Urban Water Management. Water Resour Manage 37, 583–600 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-022-03374-z

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