USE OF RAINWATER INSIDE BUILDINGS: HYDROINFORMATIC TOOLS FOR QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

摘要

For the past few decades the rainwater harvesting subject has gaining the attention of many people, located in countries that suffer from water scarcity or not. Hydrolnformatics tools could play a major role to the public in water utilities issues. This paper presents the results of a project focused on the development of assessing methodologies and tools for five main French cities. The main purpose is to determine the volume of rainwater that can be harvested, stored and used in different cases. For doing so, four approaches have been developed, each one with its corresponding developed hydroinformatic tool of analysis. The results demonstrate that the decision of installing a rainwater harvesting (RWH) system should not be taken only considering ideological factors. This approach do not always profits the environment and is not always financially profitable due to its high installation cost, although there is a real saving on the water bill. The choice must be taken considering three primary variables: local rainfall, catchment's surface (roof) and water demand. There is no optimal combination of these three variables that can lead to a single simple answer. It is necessary to study case by case and to determine the best solution for each situation with the support of hydroinformatic tools.