Rainwater going to waste

Sir,

As a newcomer to this lovely island, I am reluctant to be labelled as a “know all”, but I have followed the various articles on the water shortage, and the letters to the editor on the same subject. I cannot help wondering if there is an obvious measure which would at least alleviate the problem.

When I lived in England, we had a system which collected all of the rainwater from the roof and stored it in underground tanks. Naturally this water was soft, and it was used for the domestic hot and cold water pipes (but not the drinking water). Because of the amount of rain which falls in England we never ran out of our stock of rainwater.

Obviously the rainfall in Cyprus is far less than in England and is concentrated in the winter months. However, such a system of collecting rainwater would at the very least help to increase the supply of available water, since at the moment much water simply runs off and ends up in the sea.

Normally I object to any government telling me what to do, but I would welcome a law which required every new house to collect rain water in this way.

David Graves-Moore
Pano Stroumpi, Paphos

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.