Coleta e armazenamento de água da chuva em cisterna, seu tratamento e aplicação em hortas urbanas

Abstract

The water scarcity is an issue that increasingly affects populations, even a country like Brazil, where the freshwater sources are abundant. Anthropogenic activities and climate crises that cause long periods of drought, environmental degradation, high demand, as well as loses in the distribution systems, lead to water unavailability. The implementation of a system for the use of rainwater through cisterns arises as an alternative for the water scarcity, or for the reduction of the uses of drinking water provided by the concessionaires, and additionally, rainwater can be used for vegetable crops irrigation. Based on this, the objective was to build a system of rainwater use for irrigation of urban gardens, which are means of growing vegetables that require the use of good quality water for irrigation, therefore, public supply water is normally used for this purpose. In face of that, a rainwater harvesting system must be coherently planned and dimensioned, where studies of hydrological series, regional water availability, calculations and means of construction guided by regulations and consolidated manuals, and especially the treatment and analysis of the stored water are necessary. Thus, the harvesting was carried out through the roof of an urban residence, where the collected water was conducted through gutters, intercepted by filters and systems of elimination of the first rain millimeters, and then conducted through pipes to a storage cistern. The rainwater harvesting system demonstrated to be easy to build, being essential to apply a treatment to the stored water, so that it reaches all the analyzed standards, resulting in good quality water with applicability in irrigation of urban gardens.