Feature

Innovative Approach towards Storm Water Management

Posted on 21 January, 2010 | Tags: Rain Water Harvesting

As a result of climate change there has been a drastic change in rainfall pattern and handling unprecedented shower is a big challenge for cities. GSFC too faced the problem of water logging and flooding in the industrial as well as residential premises because of the unexpected rains. Experts chalked out and implemented an appropriate plan to handle the storm water.

Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited (GSFC), situated on the National Highway number eight is spread over an area of approximately 330 hectares covering industrial complexes, office units and residential township. The Dashrath village in the NorthWest, Bajuwa village in the East and National  Highway on the West direction surrounds GSFC.

Nature's Fury
The city receives about 990 mm of average annual rainfall. However, over a period of last five to six years, probably as an after-effect of climatic changes, the rainfall pattern has changed drastically resulting into major spells of showers in short duration of time shrinking the season of monsoon to virtually weeks and days. This uneven distribution of rainfall has essentially made the management of the storm water a big challenge with cities receiving huge quantity of water in a span of few hours, viz the city of Vadodara in last five years has been receiving above normal rainfall with the increase reported in the range of 25 percent to almost 100 percent.  This inadvertent seasonal change has been responsible for disruption of normal life flooding the towns and cities.
   GSFC excessively has been no exception to the nature's fury. In actual fact the issue of water management assumes even bigger challenge with the runoff water flowing in and entering GSFC premises from the adjoining village ponds and from the highway. As a result, it had to face problems of water logging and flooding in the industrial as well as residential areas bringing the production moreover bringing the normal life to standstill. Since this was becoming a kind of perennial problem, its management decided to address this issue with the twin objectives of management of the storm water and harvesting as well as conserving of the same by recharging the underground aquifers.

Environment Ethos
Formerly, as a part of corporate commitment towards clean environment company, some water conservation measures were undertaken on pilot scale focusing more on the demonstrative value of water harvesting. A roof top water harvesting structure and well recharging by GSFC Science Foundation at Vigyan Bhavan Office premises and other such well recharging structures at various locations in GSFC. Since the efforts were more on the technology exhibition side, these structures were harvesting and recharging approximately about 5.0 to 6.0 lakh litres of water annually.

Preparing the Blue Print
However, since water logging and flooding were becoming a sort of regular features every monsoon, the management decided to develop a comprehensive storm water management plan. Accordingly, the technical team of GSFC and Science Foundation jointly with the professional of Water and Sanitation Management Organization (WASMO), Gandhinagar prepared a Master Plan over a period of one year identifying the problem areas and with the recommendation of installation of area specific water harvesting structure to avail the maximum benefits in terms of storm water management and conservation with recharging of the same underground. Further, in order to harness the larger volume of runoff water, some open ponds were also dug up to add value to the overall conservation plan and also beautify the landscape.
Area specific water harvesting structures included recharge wells and 'Furaat' system structures, which is basically a water intake structure with the   advanced filtration system. The design involves twin model system with one being the filtration unit and the other recharging unit.
The plan involves a total of 13 recharging wells with six being the Furaat system wells and seven recharge wells.
Entire scheme of Master Plan was implemented in duration of two months time and the selected locations in order to avail the benefits of monsoon rains of the current season.
During the regular monitoring, it was observed that all the structures functioned to the best of their ability and as per the expectation. The following table describes the rough estimate of the harvesting potential of all the water harvesting structures put together
As per the weather records, State of Gujarat received above normal (~20 percent) to normal rainfall during the last monsoon of 2009. Therefore, it may be assumed that about 2.0 Mm3 of water was harvested and recharged by GSFC.

- Dr K D Bhatt is CEO GSFC Science Foundation
Email:vigyanbhavan@gsfcltd.com