AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Volume 18 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.3233/AJW210040
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Application of GIS in Rainwater Harvesting Research:  A Scoping Review

Preeti Preeti1* Ataur Rahman1
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1 School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment, Western Sydney University, Australia
AJWEP 2021, 18(4), 29–35; https://doi.org/10.3233/AJW210040
Submitted: 12 February 2021 | Revised: 23 June 2021 | Accepted: 23 June 2021 | Published: 18 November 2021
© 2021 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

The spatial and temporal variability of quantity and quality of water are important aspects of water  resources management. Water demand has been increasing across the globe, but the fresh water supply is limited.  Rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems are increasingly being embraced as an alternative freshwater source. This  study reviews the dynamics of global research on RWH that utilises geographic information systems (GIS). It  is found that the interest and use of RWH utilising GIS have increased over the recent years. However, the full  potential of GIS in large scale RWH is yet to be untapped. We make recommendations for future research on  RWH based on GIS. This includes new software and model development that links RWH with GIS to plan and  design large scale RWH and automated building footprint extraction for estimating RWH potential. GIS can play  a bigger role in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by incorporating GIS with RWH since GIS  can handle large spatial data efficiently, which can help in locating areas that are suitable for rainwater harvesting

Keywords
Rainwater harvesting
GIS
water
SDGs.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing