Abstract: In the face of growing water scarcity due to rapid urbanization, population pressure and climate variability, rainwater harvesting (RWH) has emerged as an effective and sustainable strategy for water conservation and management. One of the most critical aspects of designing an efficient RWH system is the accurate estimation of tank size for storage, which must take into account site-specific parameters such as rainfall intensity, runoff potential, tank geometry and user needs. Traditionally, the process of designing such systems requires manual calculations and technical expertise, which may not always be accessible to farmers, local engineers or planners. To address this challenge, a user-friendly Decision Support System (DSS) was developed in this study for the estimation of tank size for rainwater harvesting systems. The DSS, built on an Android platform using the freely available MIT App Inventor, combines user inputs with mathematical models to calculate tank dimensions for various geometries, including circular, square and rectangular shapes. Users can select key parameters such as desired storage volume, pond depth and side slope, while the application performs real-time computations using standard geometric and quadratic equations. The tool simplifies complex calculations into an easy-to-use interface, enabling the estimation of tank dimensions such as top and bottom radius, length and width based on storage volume requirements.
Keywords: Decision support system, rainwater harvesting, tank size, MIT app inventor
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DOI:
10.17148/IJARCCE.2025.14702
