Rainwater harvesting primarily serves the purpose of collecting and storing rainwater for future use, reducing reliance on traditional water sources, conserving water, and potentially recharging groundwater levels.

It offers numerous benefits, including reduced water bills, self-sufficiency, irrigation, and improved groundwater quality. In the Irrigation Strategy for South Africa, prepared by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF, 2015), it says that: “RWH is the deliberate collection of rainwater from a surface known as catchment and its storage in physical structures or within the soil profile.

Rainwater may be harvested from roofs, ground surfaces as well as from water channel.
For agriculture purposes, it is defined as a method for inducing, collecting, storing and conserving local surface runoff in arid and semi-arid regions (Prinz and Singh, 2001)

RWH can also provide affordable water for household use, agriculture, environmental flows and prevention of flood damage. “ Mwenge Kahinda et al. (2007) define rainwater harvesting as the small scale concentration, collection, storage, and use of rainwater runoff for productive purposes.

Rainwater harvesting refers to as the gathering, storage and usage of rainwater for small-scale productive purposes. It has been recognized at numerous international environments as one of the important interventions vital towards accomplishing the Millennium Development Goals in Africa. It enhances water productivity by alleviating temporal and spatial variability of rainfall and provides access water for basic human needs and other small-scale productive tasks (Mwenge Kahinda et al., 2008).