Performance of domestic rainwater harvesting systems at regional scale

The regional scale performance of domestic rain water harvesting tanks are analyzed in this paper. The analysis is based on the daily water balance simulation of the storage tank using the yield-after-spillage algorithm as tank release rule. Water balances are applied to a number of rainfall gauging stations in Sicily, the larger island in southern Italy. A dimensionless methodology that was recently developed by the authors is here applied to describe the effects of the intraannual character of the rainfall patterns in the harvesting systems. As result, easy-to-use regional regressive models to evaluate the water-saving performance and the discharged overflows from the tank are provided. The regional models showed good fits between model predictions and simulated values of both water savings and overflows from the tank.