Water is arguably the source of life and in our reality many people in this world do not have access to clean water. Having clean water ensures that we lead healthy and sanitized lifestyles. Clean water, more importantly, is essential in our overall daily activities. These activities include using water for personal consumption, personal hygiene, household cleaning and cooking. Without clean water our overall quality of life would be dismal.

Unfortunately, clean water is not available to everyone. A sufficient, clean drinking water supply is essential to life but millions of people throughout the world continue to not have access to this basic necessity. These cases commonly occur in many third world and un-developed countries. Ongoing problems in these countries are continually holding back availability for clean potable water.:

• Many of the world's poor simply cannot afford the capital intensive and technically complex water supply systems which are widely promoted by governments and agencies throughout the world  
• Communal schemes suffer from a inadequate maintenance due to a lack of knowledge, skill or money  
• Water supplies can become polluted either through industrial or human wastes or by intrusion of minerals such as arsenic or fluoride
• The growth in water need is outstripping available supply resulting in spring damage, dropping water tables and depleted reservoirs  

Fortunately, there are many technologies that are available to improve the overall water quality for many individuals. Cost, climate, technology, hydrology, social and political elements all play a role in the eventual choice of water supply scheme which is adopted for a given situation.Rain water harvesting technologies often are low in cost and only require minimum maintenance. These simple technologies can be applied with minimal materials and community based involvement and construction.

217.5 million people inhabit approximately 11,000 independent islands in the country of Indonesia. These individuals obtain clean water in many different ways and in some cases some individuals do not have access to clean water. Obtaining water in Indonesia predominately depends upon location and resources.

Who/Unicef - world organizations have combined forces to produce a joint monitoring Program for water supply and sanitation.The last updated report was done in July of 2004. According to this report Indonesians obtain water from sources that are piped into wells, piped into yard plots, public tap, Open well in dwelling, open public well, River, stream, Rain water, tanker truck, from bottled water, ext.

These statistics are important to analyze. From these statistics we are able to extrapolate and tabulate certain water collection sources and apply technologies to improve water quality and increase water supply collections.

The Who/Unicef report can be obtained by (clicking here or the link above).

Rainwater collection is minimally practiced in Indonesia. Less than 2.3% of the countries total population actually aquires water through rainwater harvesting.

Landscape architects have an opportunity in times of disasters to contribute and help. Landscape architects can assist aid workers by researching areas of concern and help design in a given landscape to help alleviate problems through design. Similar to other design fields, Landscape architects have the chance to share their knowledge and provide information in these times of need.

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This project is designed to provide information and assistance to those in disaster situations. More specifically, this project will help those in need of assistance in regards to rebuilding or building new water catchments devices to help maintain clean water sources and further more create an overall cleaner water supply for individuals.

This project will convey this design assistance by formulating prototypical design guidelines that will assist in the construction of these cost efficient, low energy water catchments technologies.

Water catchments technologies can be applied to many levels of any given social structure. From large city-wide scales of urban planning to smaller village sized scales of individual dwelling units. This project will focus on the rural scale of a typical "village" type community. We will be looking at three prototypes that can be applied to the scales of the Village/Community Level, Neighborhood level, and individual housing level.

This information will be packaged into a handy pamphlet with hopes of being used as assistance to aid/relief workers in Indonesia and hopefully found useful enough to be applied in other similar situations that would benefit from having the information on how to improve water catchments situations. Simple water catchments technologies are easy, cost effective techniques that can improve the lives of so many, The only problem is if those individuals had the resources and knowledge to create and use these type of technologies.

Rain water harvesting techniques are a renewable resource that is cost effective and easily implemented with the proper guidelines to build these instruments.

Individual Houses/Huts/living structures give an opportunity for small scale water catchments technologies. These systems of water catchments range from having individual piped in water lines, personal wells, to having delivery trucks bring bottled water to individual residence's. (this is an extreme case)

Although these systems of obtaining water are successful and resourceful, these are not always the most cost efficient and accessible ways of collecting water for individual housing units.

After assessing the Census taken by the Who/Unicef joint venture, it states that only 2.3% of the entire country of Indonesia have rain water collection systems. With statistics this low this leaves an opportunity for individuals to reinvest in the idea of using rainwater collection systems in there individual residence's.

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