Marange - Kuziwa Matongo's rainwater harvesting system may not look like
much, but its impact is huge.
Triangular metal gutters run below the corrugated roofs on
all the buildings at his home, transporting water into storage
tanks below.
The spartan system allows Matongo to collect enough water to
get through the dry season - an ever more difficult task in this
arid, sparsely populated area of Zimbabwe's Manicaland province.
"We are harvesting rainwater from our rooftops and I have
three tanks which are almost full," Matongo told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation. "If the rains continue like this, my tanks
will be full very soon. It means enough water for my family
during the dry season."
Such home rainwater harvesting system are becoming a more
familiar sight in this part of eastern Zimbabwe as droughts
intensify and people search for solutions to worsening water
shortages.
Over the past five years, a number of new rainwater systems
have been installed in the area as rains grow more erratic - a
result of climate change and last year's El Niño weather
phenomenon, which brought devastating drought to large swathes
of Zimbabwe.
"We have made a lot of strides in rainwater harvesting,"
Matongo said. "My sister has a 5 000-litre tank at her
homestead. Many people around here are doing likewise."
Big benefit, big cost?
To take him through the dry season, Matongo has installed
one concrete tank and two steel ones with a combined capacity of
more than 10,000 litres. His family uses the water collected
from the rooftops mainly for drinking and cooking and augments
it with water from a borehole well, he said.
Water from the borehole normally is used for gardening and
livestock, as well as bathing and laundry, Matongo said. But the
borehole produces so little water at the peak of the dry season
that storing rainwater has become a necessity, he said.
Nevertheless, rainwater harvesting has been slow to gain
widespread traction in the region of 80,000 people, where much
of the land is barren apart from drought-resistant acacia and
mopani trees.
Only about five percent of households have installed the
systems, largely because most cannot afford them, Matongo said.
He paid for his system, which cost more than $1 000, using
profits from a small business he owns, he said.
While Zimbabwe's Meteorological Services Department has
forecast higher-than-average rainfall in the current summer
growing season, it has also warned farmers to "expect and plan
for one form of drought or another".
Read also: Zimbabwe drought pushes farmers to greener pastures
"There is need to continue with water harvesting programmes
already underway. We should keep in mind that there are
indications of deterioration in the rainfall amounts as the
season progresses," the meteorological department said in its
seasonal climate outlook released late last year.
Rainwater harvesting is being encouraged by Blessing
Zimunya, a traditional leader in the village of Chitora, south
of Mutare city, who said he was urging local people to save as
much water as possible during the rainy season.
"Rainwater harvesting is now very important but many people
do not have the money to buy or build the tanks," Zimunya said.
His three tanks, with a combined capacity of 3 000 litres, cost
more than $900, he said.
"With this past drought, water was very scarce and we have
realised that every drop counts," Zimunya told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation.
Creative options
In addition to harvesting water for household use, there is
a need for people to construct dams to save water for livestock,
said Leonard Madanhire, a villager in the farming community of
Gutaurare.
"Our small dam here is almost (filled in) with sand and as
villagers we are planning to work together to remove the sand
and increase its capacity to hold more water," Madanhire said.
Again, funding is an issue. "We need money to hire a dam
scoop, but we don't have the money. This is the only dam in the
area serving livestock for more than 100 households," he said.
Water harvesting systems can be very effective in rural
areas because a lot of space is available for their
construction, said Peter Makwanya, a climate change researcher
and lecturer at Zimbabwe Open University.
But in many areas, communities "need lots of awareness and
education on how best they can explore opportunities for
rainwater harvesting," he said.
Besides systems like Matongo's, which captures water in
rooftop gutters, Makwanya said people might consider everything
from storing water in sand to collecting it in "rain saucers" -
contraptions that look like upside-down umbrellas and gather
rain straight from the sky.
Lawrence Nyagwande, the Manicaland manager of Environment
Africa, a non-governmental organisation, said rainwater
harvesting should be promoted vigorously to rural communities
while concerns about drought are fresh.
"If it is properly marketed, people will go for it.
Currently, there is a lack of knowledge on rainwater
harvesting," he said.
But Matongo said last year's brutal drought had already
persuaded many local people to harvest as much rainwater as
possible, by any means possible.
"After the drought, we realised the importance of harvesting
the rainwater, and local schools are also harvesting rainwater
for their own uses," he said.