Water Conservation in Urban Areas: A Case Study of Rain Water Harvesting Initiative in Bangalore City

The challenges of urbanization are manifold and pose an unprecedented impact on the infrastructure demands. Demand on key services like water, sanitation, transportation, housing increases in high proportions. Specific to drinking water, compared to the other sectors, the requirement of potable water is small; rain water could be a potential resource to meet the requirements. Climate change could bring in higher fluctuations in rainfall patterns which the urban infrastructure may not be able to accommodate. Bangalore, the capital city of Karnataka, is India’s sixth most populous city and fifth most populous urban agglomeration. Of the many challenges that urban Bangalore face, water is one of the critical issues. In view of this, Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) has been made mandatory based on the Bangalore Rainwater Harvesting Regulations, 2009. In this backdrop, a study was carried out to explore the adoption and implementation of RWH in Bangalore by capturing people’s perceptions, socio-economic and institutional constraints.