The Potentiality of Integrated Water Efficient System in Mosques of Old Dhaka, Bangladesh: Implementation of Greywater Recycling and Rainwater Harvesting System

Abstract

The crisis of water supply in Dhaka is increasing with the growth of population and the city area. The population density in the city is uneven and Old Dhaka is one of the areas which is over-populated, that led to a gradual worsening of the water crisis situation. Mosques are prominent public buildings of Old Dhaka, and the density of mosques is higher than the rest of the city. These mosques have specific community and financial functions apart from their preliminary function as a space for prayer. Due to their variety of occupancy type, the mosques consume a lot of water, a large part of which is used in ablution. The mosques are potential public buildings for installing integrated Greywater recycling treatment system with less complexity compared with other building typologies. This paper intends to determine the ratio of producing Greywater and Blackwater in a mosque, in order to find out the potentiality of supplementing the demand through recycling and reusing Greywater, integrated with harvesting rainwater by utilizing the available roof area. The potentiality suggests an efficient water system within a mosque by reducing the water supply demand and as a whole, and thereby lessening the dependency on the ground water of Dhaka.