Runoff from different rain harvesting surfaces in hilly areas and techniques for building water cellars

Rain harvesting surfaces with plastic mulch, highway and country road surfaces and crop field were constructed to investigate water harvesting efficiency in Hongtong, Shanxi provienc. Runoff from different water harvesting surfaces and techniques for building water cellars were discussed. The results showed that runoff from different surfaces were different under the same rainfall condition, from 27 times of observed rainfalls. The runoff from plastic mulched surface, highway, country road and cropped land were 81.4%, 73.6%, 41.6% and 2.7% of rainfall respectively. The former three rain havesting surfaces are good enough for water harvesting. Techniques for the construction of water cellars were described.