We had been to Sir. M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park in Jayanagar as a part of our project on water conservation and water scarcity. This theme park helps the people understand about water scarcity and about rain water harvesting and how it can be done on a small scale in houses or apartments.

Rain water harvesting is nothing but a simple technique of collecting and storing the water from the rain for immediate use or for recharging the ground water table.

Rain water harvesting helps people through the dry months of the summer with ample amount of water if used responsibly. It is one of the most important ways out for us as a Nation want to fight water scarcity!

The global average amount of water a person uses per day is around 200 litres. In India on an average a person gets only 135-140 litres per day due to the dearth of water. If a person changes his lifestyle to mindful water usage, then on an average s/he will only need about 70-80 litres of water in a day.

The amount of water a shower or tap uses per minute is 15 litres. On an average a person uses the shower for nearly 5-6 minutes this means he uses 75-90 litres of water in one shower. Whereas an average bucket of water holds 15 litres of water. By using a bucket for our bath, we annually save 22,000 litres of water! While flow- aerators and mist type shower heads save 10,000 litres of water annually.

30% of the total water used by a single person is for toilet flushing (western style closet) i.e. every year a family of four uses about 75,000 litres of water only for toilet-flushing purpose.

Did you know that a front load washing machine uses around 70 litres of water per wash while a top load washing machine uses 140 litres per wash? A front load washing machine can save 200 litres of water per week of washing or 10,000 litres of water annually.

This was some of the information that we as a team were able to get from this theme park run and maintained by BWSSB. There were also many ways in which one can do rain water harvesting at home with simple techniques as shown in the park. It is worthwhile to visit and there is certainly a lot to learn and grasp about water scarcity, rain water harvesting and sewage treatment.

Anagha

Apprentice @ Skills Beyond Education