Designing School Rainwater Harvesting Systems in Water-Scarce Developing Countries

Published on August 18, 2024

Many schools in water-scarce [KA1] [JG2] developing countries have insufficient and unreliable water supplies. This is being exacerbated by climate change and aging and poorly maintained water infrastructure. A lack of clean water increases the risks of diarrhoeal disease and concerns about health can result in school closures, affecting education outcomes as valuable teaching and learning time is lost. In these situations, rainwater harvesting systems can provide an alternative clean water supply that enables schools to continue to operate safely. However, there is limited research and guidance on school rainwater harvesting systems. In addition, there are also misconceptions about rainwater harvesting. These include that rainwater harvesting systems cannot provide sufficient water to meet needs, water produced is dirty and systems are unaffordable. This chapter addresses this context by showing how rainwater harvesting can provide sufficient, and affordable water supplies to schools in water-scarce areas. It may be of interest to school governing bodies, teachers, design professionals and government officials who want to develop rainwater harvesting systems in schools.

[KA1]Please replace with a scientific, geographical term to avoid ambiguity. E.g. does this mean arid, semi-arid zones, or water-scarce/stressed areas?

[JG2]Thanks, done.

Eighty-eight per cent of deaths caused by diarrheal disease are attributed to a lack of water and inadequate sanitation (WHO 2009). Nearly all these deaths are in developing countries and 84% are children. Inadequate water supplies and poor sanitation is one of the main causes of child mortality and it is estimated that 443 million school days are lost per year from water-related illnesses (UNDP 2006). Schools need water for drinking, cleaning, and flushing toilets (if they have water-borne sanitation) (Jasper and Bartram 2012). A lack of water usually means schools must close and children are sent home. Teaching and learning are disrupted leading to poorer educational achievement and outcomes (Harbison and Hanushek 1992; White 2004). It is therefore important that schools that have unreliable water supplies or water shortages investigate how water supplies can be made more reliable, sufficient, and resilient.

One of the most effective ways of achieving ways of developing a more resilient water supply is through onsite water storage and rainwater harvesting (Thuy et al. 2019). Onsite water storage enable schools to operate when there are outages from municipal supplies. This storage can be fed from municipal systems, rainwater harvesting, or both. As rainwater is effectively free, schools can benefit from reduced costs. Rainwater harvesting systems reduce the reliance on external water supplies and enable schools to use their supply to supplement or meet their requirements. In areas with reliable local water supply systems, rainwater harvesting systems may provide a supplementary or backup system whereas, in drought-stricken areas, rainwater harvesting systems may be the sole supply of water (Cook, et al. 2013).