90
trees over 5000 Feddans (2.5 Feddans equals 1 ha) and conserving 10,000 Feddans
of soil. The overall beneficiaries of the project were 139,000 people.
12 Challenges and Opportunities in Operationalizing Water
Harvesting
The biggest challenge with rainwater harvesting is its exclusion in water policies in
many countries. In many cases, water management is based on renewable water
from surface and groundwater with little consideration of rainwater. Rainwater is
taken as a ʻfree for allʼ resource and there had been an increase in its use over the
last few years. This has resulted in over use, drastically reducing water available for
downstream users including ecosystems. This has introduced water conflicts in
some regions of the world. For sustainable use of water resources, it is critical that
rainwater harvesting is included as a water source along with ground and surface
water (UNEP-SEI 2009 ).
There is a lack of awareness and information sharing with regard to water har-
vesting. In fact, in many areas, water harvesting does not penetrate the grass-root
level. Media can be used to disseminate information to everyone. In some cases,
insufficient maintenance has constrained the adoption of water harvesting. Poor
households face obstacles due to the lack of capital investment. Borrowing is diffi-
cult as scheduled bank procedures do not make it easy for the poor. Community
self-financing schemes, if introduced, may facilitate the funding of rainwater har-
vesting technologies. Lehmann et al. ( 2010 ) reported that many countries such as
Germany support the construction of rainwater harvesting systems for drinking and
the promotion of decentralized seepage. The State Government of Delhi in India has
introduced a financial incentive to promote rainwater harvesting. In Japan, a subsidy
is provided to encourage people to install rainwater harvesting systems. For exam-
ple; the Government of Sumida City offers subsidies up to 1 million Yen per rain-
water utilization project. Other cities including Okinawa Prefecture, Takamatsu
City, Toyota City, Kamakura City and Kawaguchi City have begun subsidizing or
loaning funds to install rainwater systems. The success of the Gansu rainwater har-
vesting project has seen the construction of 12 million water tanks and small ponds
in China storing 16 billion m^3 of water benefitting 36 million people and providing
supplemental irrigation to 2.6 million ha to dryland supporting another 30 million
people (UN-HABITAT 2015 ).
Water harvesting could be divided into systems that are managed by (i) individ-
ual households (rooftop, microcatchment, rainwater cistern etc.), (ii) communities,
where communal management is important for operational management and sus-
tainability, and (iii) the public sector including large-scale water harvesting dams.
The first step to operationalize water harvesting could be the inclusion of water
harvesting in the country’s annual and mid-term development plans. The first two
A. Yazar and A. Ali