In many areas of the world, rainwater has been collected and consumed by people. Our research aims to assess the use of rainwater and the impact of operation and maintenance activities of the rainwater system on drinking water quality in rural areas where there is no access to a public drinking water system. Through the questionnaire, direct visits, interviews and sampling of water at surveyed households (HHs), it was found that 100 and 98% of surveyed HHs used rainwater for drinking and cooking, respectively. Nearly, 80% of them were aware of the necessity of frequent reservoir cleaning as well as first-flush removal. Cleaning the water reservoir had a significant impact on water quality, in particular the total dissolved solids (p-value < 0.05). The use of strainers and more frequency of cleaning the catchment roofs and gutters would make the lower turbidity in water. However, the use of strainers would reduce the dissolution of oxygen in the reservoirs. A recommendation on the frequency of maintaining the rainwater harvesting systems was proposed after assessment of the operation and maintenance behaviors at surveyed HHs.
Designing green buildings has become a common trend in many developed countries as a way to promote energy savings and environmental protection. In Viet Nam, the number of certified green buildings remains few, mainly applied LOTUS – the green building rating system introduced by the Vietnam Green Building Council in 2009. It is mainly due to the length of time it takes to design and evaluate green buildings. Applying the Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the design and evaluation of green buildings will address this shortcoming. The integrated BIM-Green Buildings solution kit efficiently provides the architects and engineers with a tool to make preliminary estimation of the green building scoring in term of water efficiency in their design phase; thus they can actively evaluate their performance against key green building criteria and accordingly adjust their designs to meet the criteria at the desired level. This software therefore saves designing time and facilitates the selection of suitable designs.
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