Cement, Energy and Environment

t - • Efficient Rain Water Harvesting System to Improve Ground Water Table and Quality- ACase Study at JK Lakshmi Cement Ltd. Durg Project Cg. Dr. Satish Mishra Dy. General Manager (Environment & Safety), JK Lakshmi Cement Ltd, Durg CG ABSTRACT Groundwater is a precious commodity with limited extent and the water demand in India is under tremendous stress. The increased water demand due to uncontrolled population growth leads to over exploitation of ground water which exceeds the recharge rate. The water table is declining at an alarming rate calls for urgent need of artificial ground water recharge to increase the ground water level in urban as well as in rural areas. Considering the importance of water JK Lakshmi Cement Ltd. village Malpuri Khurd, Khasadih PO Ahiwara Dist. Durg Chhattisgarh have come up with a new rain water harvesting system fabricated and designed by Furaat Earth Pvt. Ltd. , JK Lakshmi Cement Ltd have installed this new system which has dual advantage of ground water recharging and treatment of water simultaneously. Fortunately an average annual rainfall of the study area is about 1300 mm. A rainwater harvesting unit with an area of 11649.8 m 2 at plant & 26250 m 2 at mines is installed and the calculated surface catchment area through conventional rainwater harvesting at mines area is 52275 m 2 . The hydro-geological study which is conducted in this area after rain water harvesting shows that it charged total 120564.92 m 3 of water annually and the average increase in the ground water level is 10-15 m. The study also shows that the ground water quality of this area has improved. This article discusses in detail the comparative studies on the rain water harvesting capacity of the new system and conventional one . KEYWORDS: Artificial recharge, Ground water, Rainfall, Rain water harvesting (RWH). I. INTRODUCTION Rain water harvesting/ collection for self use is an age old system, but it was followed by only miniscule people as in those days there was no pollution, no industrialization and no dearth of fresh water. As the pollution grew needs also grew, in the process, industrialization growth increased leaps and bounds resulting in more Dr. Shanta Satyanarayan Ex Deputy Director, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur water usage. Depleting ground water level, shortage of fresh water woke up the people from their deep slumber. Importance of conserving water sources creeped in to the minds of scientific community which resulted in the emerging of rainwater harvesting systems . Rain is the main source of fresh water free of pollution and its proper management will definitely reduce fresh water scarcity and full fill everyone's needs. Few decades ago in the state of Tamilnadu rainwater harvesting was made mandatory for every sector namely schools, hospitals, huts, multi storied bui ld ings, industries and every other dwellings. Gradually this technology has picked up momentum and its awareness/ importance has been understood. Out of the total volume of water available on the surface of earth, only 2% is fresh water, which is used by the humans, industries and for agriculture. Fresh water available in different forms as it is available in earth is indicated in Table 1. Table 1. Water Distribution of fresh water "Sr. .. . Water Ty.pe ' . V~lunie % of Total·· ·· No . · · · (1 OOOKm 3 ) · . Global · · Volume · J I '• • ' • 1' Glaciers 24000 85 2. Ground Water 4000 14 3. Lakes and 155 0.6 Reservoirs 4. Soil Moisture 83 0.3 5. Atmospheric 14 0.05 Water 6. Rain Water 1.2 0.004 7 Total 28253.20 100 (Source: Oiwedi, A. and Bhaduria, S., 2009). Water scenario of India is gloomy when our country became independent i.e. in 1947, per capita of water was 6000 m 3 which reduced to 5177 m 3 in 1957 to present level of 1869 m 3 (Diwedi, A. and Bhaduria, S., 2009). This reflects our unscrupulous usage/wastage of water. It is