Parched Goa College Looks to Rainwater Harvesting

By Frederick Noronha

GOA, India, April 7, 2003 (ENS) - Take 3,000 students, a 70,000 square meter campus and a largely barren hilltop. Put together, the result is a water shortage that cannot sustain even the few colorful plants that could give the college a better learning environment.

So the most prominent educational center of India's smallest stage Goa, St. Xavier's College, decided to be pro-active about water. The college is actively scouring for some rainwater harvesting solutions that could show the way to others in a state where the annual 3,000 millimeters of rain largely goes to waste and runs off into the Arabian Sea.

On a recent sultry Sunday morning, scientist Sekhar Raghavan from the southeastern Indian mega-city of Chennai criss-crossed the football ground, looking closely at the storm water gutters and water tanks. Then, he guestimated the amount of water that could be trapped on the terraces of three major building blocks.

Rain clouds loom over Goa's ubiquitous coconut trees. (Photo © Frederick Noronha)

"Our college building was ready in 1968. Then, the local landowning cooperative had given a small plot of land out of the local common land resources, with a spring, from which water used to be brought up. Slowly our numbers increased and the old solution didn't work," says college CEO and principal Newman Fernandes.

"Our aims are three fold. Firstly, we would like the college to get access to water," says Fernandes., who earlier nurtured the Rosary College in Navelim and has taken over at Mapusa during the past academic year.

"Secondly, we need to re-charge the local waterbed, even if we don't directly benefit. Finally, we need to start arresting water from just getting wasted and running into the sea," he adds.

At age 55, Raghavan sees the groundwater resources like a bank from which everyone has been withdrawing, without bothering to "deposit in." Says he, "No sincere attempt is being made to replenish the ground water table with rainwater during the monsoons."

Like Goa, his home town of Chennai suffers from the adverse affects of development. "Till about 30 years back, the areas around our homes and offices used to be unpaved, and rain falling there would percolate into the soil and remain there to get drawn through shallow open wells," he recalls.

In nearby Mapusa too, the bitumen and concrete has made keeping the rain water difficult, and so has the proliferation of flat complexes, blocks of apartments built of hard materials that do not absorb the rain.

But Raghavan's group, called the Rain Centre, says a number of solutions are possible even in urban areas. For instance, rooftop rainwater harvesting, and driveway runoff harvesting.

Such solutions can cost from Rs 3,000 (US$63.43) for an independent house, to Rs 30,000 (US$634) for a flat complex. Once put in place, the harvesting structures do not need any "serious maintenance," and so there's little recurring expenditure, says the Rain Centre.

In a house, residents can divert rooftop water to an open well, build a re-charge pit or re-charge well, which is costlier, but better for rainwater harvesting. Some residents divert rooftop rainwater to sumps for immediate use, or storage in source well or bore wells.

"In coastal areas, rainwater harvesting is very important, since what is not harvested runs and falls into the sea without in anyway being beneficial to the residents," says the Rain Centre.

Harvesting is based on commonsense, Raghavan says. Anyone can have good ideas, not just the experts. He suggests trapping water, gutters and strategically placed drains so the water ends up where it is needed.

"This," he says pointing to the terrain, "is some kind of powdered weathered rock. It is still favorable for [rainwater] harvesting. Only if the terrain is of hard rock, one has to look for fissures."

Chennai, which gets its rain from the northeast monsoons, is in some ways like Goa, which is influenced by the southwest monsoons. "On some days it rains so heavy, up to 20 centimeters a day, that nobody can harvest that," says Raghavan.

When the monsoon rains sweep Goa, much of the rain runs off into the sea. (Photo © F. Noronha)

The Rain Centre was officially launched last year, with support from the Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment, and an IIT alumni now in the US.

"If people can invest eight or nine thousand rupees in a color TV, in what way is investing in rainwater harvesting inferior?" asks Raghavan. He shows photos of re-charge wells put up along the road, to avoid flooding and boost groundwater levels, with sponsorship from phone company Touch-Tel.

In this Internet age, where ideas travel thousands of kilometers at the speed of light, a lot is possible.

St. Xavier's College is thinking of creating a 1,000 tree project, entrusted to its botany department. "We want to plant every local tree species, including the amade, jambul and adao which are getting scarce now," says Newman.

Tanks being built in the area are to be completed in what is perhaps the driest place in Mapusa. Botany students, suggests Raghavan, could help with a census of trees in the campus.

"Goa has a lot of potential for water harvesting. It has a lot of rain, and also suffers from water shortages," says Raghavan. "Goa is not rain scarce, but water scarce."

"We stop thinking about the importance of water. "When people think of water, they think of a tap. Often they stop there," says Raghavan.