ANNOUNCEMENTS
This study is aimed at understanding the relationship between urbanization growth and surface run-off generation, thus to explore the scope of rainwater harvesting potential in the study area of Nainital. The rapid urbanization due to increased tourists’ inflow, population, growth in infrastructure facilities has made the town susceptible to the risks of change in climatic conditions. The rapid urbanization has paused a threat to water security in Himalayan towns. The current challenge in this century is to control the shortage of water through Rainwater Harvesting Structure and making it sustainable as well as viable for the end-users. The study combines the approach of Remote Sensing technology and Geospatial techniques to understand the changes in Land Use/Land Cover pattern of the tourist town Nainital over the year 1990 to 2020 covering four decades. The SCS-CN method has been used to generate surface run-off from the rainfall data available between 1990-2010. The surface run-off has been generated according to the Land Use/ Land Cover and soil group for the Nainital town. The rainwater harvesting potential for different scales has been calculated season-wise and compared with lake supply data for those seasons to estimate the volume of water that can be stored using rainwater harvesting (RWH) structures in the built-up area so as to reduce the supply from the lake. One RWH Structure has been designed for a commercial property, estimating the volume of water that can be stored according to the area of the rooftop.
Key-Words: Rapid Urbanization, Himalayan towns, Water Security, Remote Sensing, Surface Run-off, Rainwater Harvesting Structure.
