Rainwater tanks instead of soak pit
In many cities where more that 40% of the Erf is covered with building or hard surface the cities require some form of rainwater/storm water attenuation system. Traditionally it was require to install a soak pit with a volumetric size of 1 cubic meter for every 40 sqm of hard surface area.
Covert a soakpit into a rainwater recovery tank
New developments in Durban require the installation of a soak-pit, soak-away or rainwater attenuation system in order to reduce localized flooding during periods of hard rainfall. As an alternative rainwater harvesting tanks can be installed. This offsets the cost of installing a soak pit and allows the property to reduce their utility bill by harvesting rainwater.
Home and business owners find it difficult to justify this expense in building without there being a financial recovery benefit for the property. According to the local bylaws a property requires 1000l of rainwater attenuation or soak-pit for every 40 square meters of hard surface on the property. You require to install 1667l of rainwater harvesting storage for every 40sqm meters of hard surface are on the property.
Rain water harvesting to augment ground water
Many rural properties and industrial operations make use of boreholes to extract water from the water table to be used as a source of potable or industrial water. In many instances the extraction rate exceeds the rate of replenishment. Ultimately the water table will continue to drop and the borehole will dry up.
Rainwater harvesting can be used as an effective means to augment the water supply in ground water.
There are a number of steps that can be used in combination to augment ground water.
