We’ve chosen to live in the desert so water is of course a big concern. Drilling a well in the area is not only expensive but also has a low probability of even finding any water. Some people we know who have found water have not been able to use it due to heavy metal contamination from minerals in the soil.
It does rain enough here however to catch enough water for a conservation minded household. With an average of 11″ of rain per year, our 12 x 12 roof should catch almost 1000 gallons. https://water.usgs.gov/edu/activity-howmuchrain.html
Most of the rain comes during the summer “monsoons”.
Our plans are to have rain water collection on every structure but most will be raw stored rainwater to be used for plant and wild animal watering as well as mixing concrete. In order to guarantee potable water for drinking, cooking, and bathing I am using my years of saltwater aquarium experience to design a water filtration and storage system for our property. My long term plans are to have the potable water storage on the middle mesa. The elevation difference of ~ 100′ gives me about 45psi of pressure. This would eliminate the last pressure pump and accumulator tank but I would likely setup a small solar panel + inverter to run the circulation pump and UV sterlizer during daylight hours.
