1. Rainwater Harvesting (RWH): A quantitative
analysis of world publications during
2001-2012
Adithya Kumari, H, Associate Professor
Hydar Ali, Research Scholar
Mahadevamurthy, M, Research Scholar
Department of Studies in Library and Information Science,
University of Mysore, Manasagangotri,
Mysore - 570006

2. INTRODUCTION
All the known civilizations have flourished with water source as the
base and it is true in the present context too. Availability of drinking water
and provision of sanitation facilities are the basic minimum requirements for
healthy living. Water supply and sanitation, being the two most important
urban services, have wide ranging impact on human health, quality of life,
environment and productivity. Despite the technological advancements, the
global scenario still remains grim, as all the inhabitants of the world do not
have access to safe water and adequate sanitation.
Rapid population growth, combined with industrialisation,
urbanisation, agricultural intensification and water intensive lifestyles is
resulting in a global water crisis. In 2000, at least 1.1 billion of the world’s
people – about one in five – did not have access to safe water. Asia contains
65 per cent of the population without safe water and Africa 28 per cent.
During the 1990s, there were some positive developments: about 438 million
people in developing countries gained access to safe water but due to rapid
population growth, the number of urban dwellers lacking access to safe water
increased by nearly 62 million(6).
Cont...

3. Among the various technologies to augment freshwater
resources, rainwater harvesting and utilisation is a decentralised,
environmentally sound solution, which can avoid many environmental
problems often caused by conventional large-scale projects using
centralised approaches. Rainwater harvesting is a technology used for
collecting and storing rainwater from rooftops, the land surface or rock
catchments using simple techniques such as jars and pots as well as
more complex techniques such as underground check dams. Water is
essential for the environment, food security and sustainable
development.
Cont...

4. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
 To examine the growth of Rainwater harvesting literature
over the period [2001-2012]
 To study the geographical distribution of the research
output
 To study the research profile most productive authors
 To examine the pattern of output according to prolific
Institutions and the impact of the output as seen by
Relative citation Impact (RCI) and Average Citation per
paper (ACPP)
 To study research output in context of different subject
categories.

5. METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES
For analyzing the worldwide Rainwater harvesting
literature, the Web of Science database was used to retrieve
publication data published during the period 2001–2012. We
used the term "Rainwater harvesting" to search through WOS
databases. A total of 370 publications were identified in WOS
database as being Rainwater harvesting research. Finally, the
evaluation was based on parameters including authors, citation,
countries, institutions, growth rate, document types, and subject
areas.

6. RESULTS
Type of documents published
During 2001-2012 scientists contributed 370 items under
7 different document categories. Of these 339 (81.08%) were
articles, 40 (10.81%) were proceedings papers and 17 (4.60%)
were reviews. Remaining 4 document categories were published
as meeting abstracts (5), editorial materials (3), letters (3) and
News Items (2).

7. Growth pattern of Publication output
4 4
18
15
19
26
28
20
45
56
52
83
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Fig 1 - Grouth pattern of Publication output

8. World Output and Ranking of productive countries in
Rainwater harvesting research
Rank Country TP % of TP ICP TC ACPI
1 India 66 17.84 18 412 6.24
2 USA 42 11.35 20 285 6.79
3 South Africa 38 10.27 7 132 3.47
4 China 35 9.46 8 228 6.51
5 Australia 29 7.84 11 105 3.62
6 England 26 7.03 12 61 2.35
7 Netherlands 23 6.22 19 98 4.26
8 South Korea 18 4.87 4 30 1.67
9 Taiwan 14 3.78 4 37 2.64
10 Bangladesh 13 3.51 9 67 5.15
11 Canada 12 3.24 5 86 7.17
12 Spain 10 2.70 4 47 4.70
13 Germany 9 2.43 5 77 8.56
14 Kenya 9 2.43 6 125 13.89
15 Tanzania 9 2.43 7 49 5.44
16 Zimbabwe 9 2.43 5 61 6.78
TP= Total Publications, ICP=International Collaborative Papers, TC=Total Citation, ACCI Average Citation Per Item

9. The most publishing authors
Sl. No Authors TP % of TP TC ACPI
1 VAN RENSBURG LD 11 2.97 10 0.91
2 HENSLEY M 10 2.70 12 1.20
3 BUTLER D 8 2.16 27 3.38
4 HAN M Y 8 2.16 18 2.25
5 HAN M 7 1.89 10 1.43
6 LI XY 7 1.89 57 8.14
7 MEMON FA 7 1.89 22 3.14
8 ROCKSTROM J 7 1.89 80 11.43
9 LE ROUX PAL 6 1.62 9 1.50
10 SAVENIJE HHG 6 1.62 64 10.67
11 TAIGBENU AE 6 1.62 44 7.33
12 WARD S 6 1.62 18 3.00

10. Relative Citation Impact (RCI)
This indicator was developed by ISI to measures both the
influence and visibility of a nation’s research in global
perspective. RCI= A Country’s share of world citation/Country’s
share of world publication. RCI=1 indicates that country’s citation
rate is equal to world citation rate; RCI>1 indicates that country’s
citation rate is higher than world’s citation and RCI<1 indicates
that country’s citation rate is less than world’s citation rate (3). In
the present case the indicator has been used for examining the
impact of performing sectors and most prolific institutions and
the country has been replaced with performing sector or
institution.

11. Most prolific institutions and the impact of their
output
Rank Author Affiliation TP % of TP TC RCI ACPI
1 University of the Free State, South Africa 28 7.57 28 0.21 0.40
2 Seoul National University, South Korea 15 4.05 28 0.39 1.87
3 UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Netherlands 12 3.24 66 1.15 5.50
4 Chinese Academy of Sciences, China 12 3.24 81 1.42 6.75
5 Lanzhou University, China 9 2.43 113 2.63 12.56
6 DELFT University of Technology, Netherlands 8 2.16 68 1.78 8.50
7 University of Exeter, UK 8 2.16 27 0.71 3.38
8 Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain 7 1.89 22 0.66 3.14
9 Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania 7 1.89 46 1.38 6.57
10 Indian Institute of Technology, India 6 1.62 54 1.89 9.00
RCI= Relative Citation Impact

12. Subject-wise break-up of publications Rainwater
harvesting
Sl. No. Web of Science Categories TP % of TP
1 Water Resources 220 59.46
2 Environmental Sciences 109 29.46
3 Environmental Engineering 63 17.03
4 Multidisciplinary Geosciences 55 14.87
5 Engineering Civil 53 14.32
6 Agronomy 51 13.78
7 Meteorology Atmospheric Sciences 30 8.11
8 Chemical Engineering 12 3.24
9
Public Environmental Occupational
Health 12 3.24
10 Limnology 11 2.97
11 Multidisciplinary Agriculture 9 2.43
12 Architecture 7 1.89
13 Soil Science 6 1.62
14 Construction Building Technology 5 1.35
15 Ecology 5 1.35
16 Environmental Studies 5 1.35
17 Plant Sciences 5 1.35
18 Forestry 4 1.08
19 Microbiology 4 1.08
20 Other Subjects 38 10.54

13. Findings and conclusion
Scientometric techniques are being used for a variety of
purposes like determination of various scientific indicators,
evaluation of scientific output, selection of journals for libraries
and even forecasting the potential of a particular field. The
present study reveals that the highest number of articles are
appeared in the area of in Water resources. Similarly most of the
contributions are from India with 17.84%, while foreign
contribution is less. The study revealed that the highest
contributions were from University of Orange Free State and
Seoul National University with 15 (4.05%) each.

14. References
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