Promoting the Use of Residential Rainwater Tanks to Mitigate Torrential Rainfall Disasters
NISSEIKOUSAN Inc.
| Publication date | January 11,2019 (Posted on December 8, 2022) |
|---|---|
| Sector | Natural Disasters / Coastal Areas |
Company Overview
Since 2007, NISSEI KOSAN Inc. has operated TOKILABO (formerly Eco-Shop Water-Saving Village), an online shopping site for residential rainwater tanks. With one of the largest product lines in Japan and our great expertise, we have sold more than 40,000 units over the past 10 years. We proudly hold the largest market share in Japan. We have also been committed to volunteer activities to promote rainwater utilization, with Rainwater Harvesting Network and Kansai Rainwater Citizens' Association. Based on our extensive expertise, know-hows, and networks, we have developed a new type of rainwater tank, Rain Harvest with an automatic cleaning function, and aim to further promote rainwater utilization.
Adaptation Initiatives
In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of disasters (such as urban floods) caused by localized and short-term torrential rains, which are referred to as guerrilla rains. As a countermeasure to this issue, installing water storage tanks for each household to temporarily store rainwater can mitigate the concentration of river runoff.
Although many local governments are promoting the use of water storage tanks by providing subsidies for installation costs, the majority of the users are those with high environmental awareness, which is still very few, and the public awareness remains low; the current situation is that the system has not been widely spread to the extent that we can expect mitigation effects.
Therefore, we have focused on the fact that residential rainwater tanks are very effective not only in mitigating the urban floods mentioned above, but also in securing water for daily use in the event of water shortage. We have developed a new type of rainwater tank Rain Harvest with an automatic cleaning function to clean the stored rainwater, and aim to spread the use of them as a useful disaster prevention product for emergencies and mitigate the urban floods.
Climate change raises concerns about the intensifying torrential rains and typhoons, and water shortages. Installation of residential rainwater tanks will also be an effective countermeasure against the effects of such climate change.
