干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is perhaps the most ancient practice to meet water supply needs. It has received renewed attention since the 1970s as a productive water source, water savings and conservation means, and sustainable development tool. In RWH, it is important to know how much water can be harvested at a given location from a given catchment size, whether the harvested water meets the intended water quality, whether the RWH system is economically viable and whether the state regulations favor the RWH. Furthermore, the selected RWH system should be suitable to local rainfall and field conditions, downstream impacts, and socio-economic and cultural characteristics. In this regard, this paper provides an overview of the special issue on Rainwater Harvesting: Quantity, Quality, Economics and State Regulations. The selected papers cover a wide range of issues that are relevant to RWH such as regionalization of design curves, use of spatial technology, urban agriculture, arid-region water supply, multi criteria analysis and application of artificial neural networks.