10th International Rainwater Catchment Systems Conference
"Rainwater International 2001"
Mannheim, Germany - September 2001

Section 1: Rainwater Harvesting in an Urban Context

Paper 1.6

Internet Survey on Local Governments Subsidizing Rainwater Utilization

Ryoko Shintani, Ichiro Kita, Hiroshi Itagaki, Kouichi Takeyama and Kitamura Kunihiko
Faculty of Agriculture
Gifu University1-1 Yanagido
Gifu City, Gifu 501-1193
Japan
email: hiroshi@cc.gifu-u.ac.jp

Recently, the internet has been so popularized that we use it very easily almost everywhere, such as offices, home, etc. As users of the internet increase in number, the information available on websites increases. With such a background, internet surveying is considered to be a new and very useful method, because it can economically conduct a survey on many subjects in a short period and in addition, it can quickly process the data for totals.

In urban areas, inhabitants often suffer from water shortage, exhaustion of ground water and floods caused by the excessive coverage of ground surfaces by artificial structures, concrete buildings, paved road, etc. One solution to these problems is to introduce facilities which store rainwater and promote rainwater penetration. Rainwater utilization facilities are very useful in preventing urban flooding, saving water and the conservation of ground water, therefore public buildings have been equipped with them. In order to increase their effect, rainwater use facilities need to be diffused further and be spread to private offices and houses. However, people hesitate to install them until they are sure of obtaining benefits commensurate with their expense. Thus, subsidies for installing rainwater use facilities have been offered by local governments to promote their further diffusion.

In this research an internet survey, concerning the availability of subsidies for rainwater utilization facilities, was conducted on local governments with websites.

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