Texas Water Development Board Rainwater Harvesting Links to the Texas Guide to Rainwater Harvesting and to equipment and services providers. For centuries, people have relied on rainwater harvesting to supply water for household, landscape, livestock, and agricultural uses. Before the advent of large centralized water supply systems, rainwater was collected from roofs and stored on site in tanks known as cisterns. With the development of large, reliable water treatment and distribution systems and more affordable well drilling equipment, rain harvesting was all but forgotten, even though it offered a source of pure, soft, lowsodium water.A renewed interest in this timehonored approach of collecting water has emerged in Texas and elsewhere because of escalating environmental and economic costs of providing water by centralized water systems or by well drilling. The health benefits of rainwater, and potential cost savings associated with rainwater collection systems have further spurred this interest.

Address: P.O. Box 13231 1700 N. Congress Avenue Austin, TX 78711-3231
Website: http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/iwt/rainwater.asp