Right way of water harvesting important: Experts

Tribune News Service
Amritsar, July 20

Only 3% of the water on the planet is fresh. Of this, most is ice and only 1% of it (i.e. 0.007% net of the total water on Earth) is potable. One might have read, heard or referred to this fact a number of times, yet when it was repeated by experts at a workshop on water harvesting held at Khalsa College of Engineering and Technology, it did make one ponder again.

Adressing the workshop were Hydro Geologist Amar Joshi, an international renowned expert in rainwater harvesting, and Rawal Singh, architectural historian and the author of the Sikh Architectural Practices with accent on the Golden Temple. Deputy Commissioner Shivdular Singh Dhillon was the chief guest. Representatives from the SGPC, several NGOs, faculty & students of KCET and residents participated. With the current crisis of dwindling groundwater and natural resources taking the centre stage, water harvesting and its implementations are discussed at large.

In his address, Rawal Singh showcased the topography of Amritsar, including the troughs and the ridges. He stressed the need to safeguard the lowest point, the sarovar at Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) whose depth is 17 metre lower than the highest level of the city, and the need for efficient discharge of rainwater. He said that a 300 square yard constructed area has the potential of harvesting of over 125 lakh litres in an year from rainwater in the city alone.

Amar Joshi highlighted the dire need to segregate clean rooftop flows, collecting them, putting easy to use vertical filters, and introducing them to existing home tubewells to get fresh water and recharge the area. “Punjab was deficient by 50% in its June quota of rainfall, and yet by second week of July was 10% in excess. The natural resources of water should not be wasted. The groundwater runoff needs more efficient filtration systems and recharge pits, which are not difficult to implement either. We need to work on simple solutions for villages, farms, wastelands and institutions as well,” he said.

Gunbir Singh, president, DF, stressed on more active citizen participation in water harvesting, with initiatives like PAANI Collective to coordinate the requirements of individuals and institutions, to implement customised solutions by these experts. “The Paani Collective, a decade long initiative to harvest and refill natural aquifers has found support from WWF and various corporate bodies. It realises that entire Punjab is in RED Zone with resources emptying out. Degraded water is being wrongly introduced directly into aquifers at farm and industrial levels through tubewells,” he said.