MEIRA FILHO, A. S.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/0828447151503093; MEIRA FILHO, Abdon da Silva.
Abstract:
he rooftop rainwater catchment system for the human consumption is an
increasing practice, especially in áreas without collective water supply, as in a
larger part of the brazilian Semi-arid. The rainwater catchment systems installed in
this area are based on construction of cisterns to accumulate water catched by
means of roofs. In order to contribute for the improvement of the performance of
those systems, this work had the objective of studying the problems that obstacle
the good operation of that important way of water supply and to propose projectual
solutions, adopting appropriate technology to the rural population of the brazilian
Semi-arid. A field research was starting point, accomplished in the rural community
of Paus Brancos, in the municipality of Campina Grande -PB, during the period
from 2002 to 2003. The results showed that 80% of the researched residences
have system of catchment water but only 16% store enough water for provisioning
during the whole year. It was verified that this lower index is due, mainly, to the precarious installation conditions and maintenance of the subsystems of water
transport (gutters and tubes). Considering this data and functional and aestheticformal
aspects, five arrangement alternatives of rainwater catchment systems were
developed, composed by roofs, gutters and tubes. Looking for simplification and
consequent reduction of costs, the gutters supports of were eliminated, resulting
earnings in the performance to comparing conventional systems. To test the
performance of the proposed alternative was developed in the Laboratory of
Ambience and Rural Construction - LACRA/UFCG a reduced scale functional
prototype, whose evaluation revealed an excellent performance, with efficiency
ranging from 86% to 92%.
