International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance

Newsletter n° 05 - March 2005

Dear Rainwater Harvesters,

You are now over 1,000 recipients in over 100 countries. We may try to count you more precisely in April. This edition includes news on the Alternative World Water Forum 2005; World Water Day; CSE's Stockholm Water Prize; RWH tanks for tsunami-hit areas; a SIDA training programme; a grass roots hero; RWH as an urban disaster reduction strategy; the Rainwater Partnership; and dates for your calendars.


Alternative World Water Forum (FAME) 2005, 17-20 March

FAME 2005 in Geneva finished a few days ago. IRHA Secretariat moderated the best attended parallel workshop at the Forum entitled "Integrated Water Resources Management: a condition for sustainable development ". The theme of "Rainwater Harvesting: a forgotten option in development plans," was developed by the Secretariat & their invited guests Rajendra Singh (Indian NGO, Tarun Bharat Sangh) & Meshfin Shenhut (Ethiopian Rainwater Harvesting Association). See www.fame2005.org for more information about the Final Declaration of this event.


World Water Day, 22 March 2005

IRHA secretariat staff attended the Geneva Environment Network roundtable entitled "Water for Life: Expectations for the International Decade of Action 2005-2015". The Secretariat staff put forward the case for using RWH to better promote sustainable use & conservation of freshwater resources during the coming decade.


Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) wins Stockholm Water Prize

CSE will receive the 2005 Stockholm Water Prize for its efforts to build a new paradigm of water management, which uses the traditional wisdom of rainwater harvesting and advocates the role of communities in managing their local water systems.

See www.cseindia.org & www.rainwaterharvesting.org or www.siwi.org/press/presrel_05_SWP_Winner_Eng.htm

"It is clear that the management of water, & not scarcity of water, is the problem in many parts of the world. CSE's work on rainwater harvesting has shown the many ingenious ways in which people learnt to live with water scarcity. The solution, practiced diversely in different regions, lies in capturing rain in millions of storage systems - in tanks, ponds, step-wells & even rooftops - & to use it to recharge groundwater reserves for irrigation & drinking water needs."


Australian Company Donates RWH Equipment to Tsunami Affected Areas

BlueScope Steel (an Australian company) & its employees have donated A$ 1,265,000 to the Red Cross Asia Quake & Tsunamis Appeal. The company made an initial donation of A$ 200,000 in late December, & announced that it would match employee donations dollar for dollar. When the Asia Quake & Tsunamis Appeal closed on 31 January, employee donations had reached A$ 532,000.
The company has worked with architects, designers & aid agencies to prepare designs for emergency aid buildings, & BlueScope Water has manufactured & shipped the first container of 55 rainwater tanks from Australia to Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Plans are underway to ship another container of rainwater tanks to Indonesia. See www.bluescopesteel.com

Also, for an interesting, independent life-cycle analysis of steel, concrete & HDPE tanks, conducted by the Centre for Sustainable Technology at the University of Newcastle, Australia, go to: http://www.bluescopesteel.com.au/au/index.cfm/objectID.B303F6BA-88F6-475D-AEE714D5A6DE2644


Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) training programme

If you are interested in ecological sanitation and a participating in a SIDA-financed, advanced international ecosan training programme managed by the Stockholm Environment Institute; if you are a relevant professional /institution engaged in sanitation, sustainable development, water management, crop growing/gardening & poverty alleviation; then contact Cecilia Ruben on cecilia.ruben@sei.se or visit www.sei.se or www.ecosanres.org
The 2005/2006 training programme targets Argentina, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Jamaica, Mali, Mexico, Mozambique, Namibia, Paraguay, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Venezuela, Zambia & Zimbabwe.


Grass Roots Hero

Srikantaian Vishwanath of the Rainwater Club, Bangalore, India, asked if IRHA Secretariat could give credit to a grass roots hero in the field of RWH, not only to the great & the good from major organisations. Of course! The bulletin is for you, & also a little bit by you. Send IRHA Secretariat information on your RWH publications, conferences, workshops, training courses & grass roots heroes & we will write about them.

Bangalore is the boomtown Silicon Valley of India. It even has an agreeable climate, like California. Unfortunately the nearest source of water is 100km away or about 500m below. Pumping this water consumes 70 million watts of energy/day. A culture of not "mining" water must be introduced as it is getting scarcer by the day & in February got costlier. In this case RWH to recharge aquifers is an ideal means to augment existing water resources.

The 3000 year-old technology of manual well digging came to an end with the advent of the bore well & electrical pumps. Sucking the ground dry, these systems sent groundwater levels plummeting and put people like Muniyappa, a well digger, out of a job for 10 years. He is from the Bhovi tribe of Karnataka & lives in a village about 20km from Bangalore. They know where to locate water, they know the soil & how to dig it, line it with stones & make steps to go down into the well to collect the water.

Muniyappa says, 'Previously I dug wells to draw water, now I dig wells to put in the water.' Both require wells to be properly located, clean water & a porous surface for the movement of the water. Well digging is a risky, manual task especially when the well diggers go to 7m depth, but they have an instinctive understanding of soil & know when not to risk it. Muniyappa & his 4-man team can dig a 1m20 diameter well in 4 days & they have completed 50 wells over the last year.

When the 30,000 wells of Bangalore have been revived & 30,000 recharge wells have been dug, the city will be on the path to "water literacy" & sustainable water management. May Muniyappa & his tribe prosper & may the art of well digging never be lost. Now the trick will be to reduce demand & pollution. The culture of RWH will have to become part of Integrated Water Resources Management if we wish to survive on our small, blue planet.

For more information on groundwater recharge: http://deccanherald.com/deccanherald/mar012005/cbytes2.asp
Or go to www.rainwaterclub.org


Rainwater Harvesting as an Urban Disaster Reduction Strategy

On 21st & 22nd February IRHA welcomed Professor Mooyoung Han (National University Seoul / President of Korean Rainwater Catchment Systems Association / Chairman of the International Water Association Rainwater Harvesting Task Force) & Mr Byoung Hyo Kwon (Chief of the Architecture Division of the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG)). The papers which they presented to UN, diplomatic mission & Geneva water authority representatives will be available on www.irha-h2o.org next month. Where the SMG leads, other Korean cities usually follow so the advanced legislation on urban RWH for disaster reduction should quickly spread across the country.


Rainwater Harvesting in Wetland Areas

Does anybody reading have an example of a RWH project in wetland areas for nature and wildlife? If you do please let us know at secretariat@irha-h2o.org


Rainwater Partnership lobbies at UNEP General Council in Nairobi

The Rainwater Partnership lobbied the UNEP General Council for the inclusion of Rainwater Harvesting in the 13th session of the Committee for Sustainable Development in New York next month. The CSD13 Draft Chair's Text mentions RWH twice, but the IRHA secretariat will continue to work on getting RWH included in further paragraphs, especially in those on Integrated Water Resources Management.

The founding Rainwater Partners are: IRHA, UNEP, IRCSA www.ircsa.org, RAIN www.rainfoundation.org, SEARNET www.searnet.org & CSE www.cseindia.org. However membership is not closed - go to www.rainwaterpartnership.org. There are now over 40 Partners.


Mark your calendar

The Tokyo Asia Pacific Sky Water Forum will be held in Sumida City, Tokyo from 1st-7th August, 2005. This forum will focus on rainwater as a safe drinking water source; an alternative to arsenic-contaminated groundwater and pathogen-contaminated surface water; an emergency option when piped water systems are paralyzed. See http://www.tap-skywater.jp

The 10th International Conference on Urban Drainage takes place in Copenhagen, Denmark, 21st-26th August 2005, and serves to disseminate research results to the international urban drainage community. It is organised jointly by the International Association for Hydraulic Engineering and Research / International Water Association Joint Committee on Urban Drainage. Topics will include: urban rainfall; storm water treatment; and rainfall harvesting and water reuse (amongst many others). Visit www.iahr.org

IRHA Secretariat will be organising a side event at the 2005 World Water Week which will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, from 21st-28th August, 2005. For more information contact sympos@siwi.org or visit www.worldwaterweek.org


If you would like your newsletter in French next month then just send us an e-mail.

Best regards from the IRHA Secretariat staff