'Should I Be Worried?' 3 - Drinking Rain

Image from http://www.cloudjuice.com.au/Size_Matters.html

Clouds are usually pictured as wispy fluffs floating about in the skies. But what if you could 'squeeze' them like oranges and get 'juice'? Haha, I'm sure that's not exactly possible. But "Cloud Juice" is the name of an Australian bottled water brand - and quite an appropriate name it is! * This example is quite significant in this series of blogposts for it deals exclusively with the question of whether we can drink rainwater for its safety as well as taste. 

Drinking rainwater is something Professor Han strongly advocates. According to the professor, rainwater is the cleanest water on Earth. Koreans usually assume streams of water deep in the mountains are quite hygienic. Since such water is actually rainwater, the professor argues that Koreans should then have no problems with drinking rain even in industrialized areas. The Korean peninsula has a highly mountainous terrain; thus, it is quite common to see veins of clear water flowing past when up hiking. 

Some of us may have doubts about drinking rain, but the professor holds a strong belief in rainwater. In the book is described a trip to a remote village near the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. Professor Han and his team of several university students built rainwater collecting units in some individual houses to provide the villagers with water for drinking as well as farming and cooking. The villagers needed this new source of water badly- until then, they had to do with Arsenic-contaminated underground water. What I found the most remarkable was the simplicity of the unit: it is easy to set up and requires materials that are not difficult to find. I attached a photo in the book for you to see! The facility can be divided into three main parts: catchment (for collecting rain directly), bucket (for filtration) and series of tubes (for storing rainwater). The simplicity of the apparatus means it can easily be set up by the villagers themselves. Although I am yet to reach a definite conclusion about acid rain, it surely is a much better alternative to the poisonous water . 

Image from the book 'Rainwater And You' 

by Professor Moo Young Han and Chang Rae Kang

Through the explanations of such projects, the book discusses the importance of rain as a resource. All of us are familiar with the environmentally-friendly way rain is used in buildings. But like the rainwater collection units, we may be able to find even simpler solutions to solve the problem of water shortage.

*http://www.cloudjuice.com.au/Size_Matters.html