In this blog, I will introduce you to the process by which the drinking water facilities and distribution networks got more or less destroyed in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. And also how various aid organizations and their environmental engineering unit with the help of citizens of Haiti brought about the rain water harvesting system, an alternative way to gather water to be used for domestic and other use.

Early 2010, an earthquake of a moderately high magnitude struck the main source of drinking water supplies and distribution networks in Port-Au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. After the occurrence of the earthquake, the emergency response and humanitarian assistance organizations began developing ways to help bring about a reasonable amount of standards for hygiene and water. For water, which is a very important aspect, the rain water harvest was used to revive a considerable amount of water back to be used.

Rain water harvesting is a very useful method of water collection in the sense that it has been used for a very long while in Haiti because of the abundant rainfall available. It all set up with the availability of some materials such as a roof area, gutters, drains, storage tanks and pressure boosting system. Its requires minimal capital and also does not cost a lot to maintain therefore it is affordable. This system also helps evade/prevent erosion as it diverts heavy rainfall to the storage unit. There are factors that affect rain water harvest though, these factors are

1. CONSUMPTION: This is the total number of use by the number of users and it is all added together and the average is gotten.
2. COLLECTION AREA: This is the projected area of the roof that will be used to collect the rain water, the bigger the collection areas are the more water available.
3. HARVEST COEFFICIENT: This is a record of water that avoided collection due to loss by leakage or spillage or were not at all good for use.
4. RAINFALL DATA: This is data collecting and examined after a long while of collection of answers. This data include: volume of rainfall, intensity of rainfall, duration of rainfall and also the frequency of the rainfall.

With  all these collection of rainfall water, there also treatment of these kind of water. This was the water families used for domestic activities and also used in drinking so calculations based on the amount of water collected and the amount of families per unit was taken to make it easier for treatment.

Finally, the main objective of the emergency response unit was to provide first world type drinking water, but this wasn’t possible because of the occurring disasters, funds and also the compact space of the environment for work. Therefore they had to do all that they could and was also accepted by the UN. And although the water being used was not as pure as the ones used in a properly setup city/area, because of the lifestyles of the residents of Haiti  they could tolerate 20-30 CFU of water.