Rainwater Harvesting Potential in a New Residential Area in North Bujumbura, Burundi

Access to clean and affordable water is one of the fundamental human rights because water is essential to life and a foundation for socioeconomic development of any country in the world. Despite the efforts to secure water supply in Burundi, the amount of water supplied by public utilities does not meet the demand of the population because population keeps increasing with fluctuation of weather conditions. This study selected north Bujumbura that is a sprawling new residential area in the western part of Burundi as a case to investigate the potential of rainwater harvesting in meeting water demand of the country. Based on a long-term average monthly precipitation in the region, the rainwater harvesting potential was assessed as a function of roof sizes, number of households, and runoff coefficients of roof materials. For the entire region of north Bujumbura, the current water supply capacity of the local water company combined with the rainwater harvesting potential resulted in the water surplus of $468,604.1m^3/yr$. Although three communes among them still showed water deficit in dry season, they still got help from rainwater to relieve their water shortage. This suggests that at the regional scale, proper storages and water quality control for harvestable rainwater could contribute to relieving the regional water shortage and allow the population growth.