Rainwater catchment systems: An overview of the Italian situation

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the Italian situation concerning the use of rainwater catchment systems analysing the topic from different points of view. Daily rainfall data from more than three hundred meteorological stations, located homogenously on the Italian peninsular area, were collected and analysed. The efficiency of the rainwater tanks of different volumes in each station was tested. In the analysis, the different conditions were compared taking a typical user as point of reference, characterised by the typical demand of each regional area. To decide the value of demand, the total demand for drinking water was considered first and then the percentage that could be replaced by rainwater was analysed. To deal with the problem from an economic point of view a fundamental step was a research on the inhomogeneous prices of drinking water in Italy, in addition to the study of the cost of the system. Finally, through a questionnaire given to several firms working in the hydraulic installation sector throughout the country, interesting information was gathered on the diffusion of rainwater catchment systems, their use, market conditions and the methods actually adopted to calculate the tank size.