How a holistic approach to water management in Dholera is proving to be a money saver
India has witnessed unprecedented population growth in recent decades. As many as 1.3 billion people live in India today with a quarter of them living in cities. In the next two decades, 225 million more people are estimated to live in Indian cities. This naturally means there is bound to be an acute pressure on water resources of the country. In general, India’s complex hydrology calls for a holistic water management approach. Water is an essential element for drinking, irrigation, industrial usage and so many other aspects that its appropriate management is a pressing need in our country. There has to be solid and smart planning to address the hurdles in ensuring there is adequate water and wastewater treatment plants along with water supply both for potable and non-potable use. Water specialists believe that with half of India’s annual precipitation falling in just 15 rain-soaked days, droughts and floods may likely remain a fact of life in the country. The way out is to fundamentally change the way things are managed. Especially when it comes to smart cities that hold a solid promise to the future of our country, smart water plays a very integral role. Smart water is one of the six components that define a smart city along with energy, mobility, buildings, public services and integration. Smart water generally refers to a holistic approach to managing this valuable resource, and the infrastructure systems surrounding its sourcing, treatment and delivery. In recent times, one of India’s first and largest Greenfield city Dholera is at the forefront in following a holistic water management system and implementing smart solutions. As a smart city, Dholera has been working towards prudently maximising the readily available renewable sources through the combination of innovation and social responsibility. Its water system models are at par with international standards and process like Denmark, Singapore, Copenhagen, which have the world’s best systems. Understanding that recycling and reusing of treated wastewater are an important part of the sanitation cycle, Dholera has been working towards solutions to deliver acceptable quality water supply. The water balance in Dholera is looped in such a way that 90% of the wastewater is being recycled back to the system after treatment. This has helped not only in reducing the burden on potable water but also on reducing the capacity of the Water Treatment Plant to half -- 150 MLD as against the planned capacity of 300 MLD for entire Dholera city. This has saved an approximate cost of Rs 700 crore which consists of WTP, storage infrastructure, pump stations, potable and transmission pipelines which were planned across Dholera. Dholera has also been focussing on the two prime aspects of water management -- Storm Water management and rainwater harvesting. The city is on course to offer the best of the storm-water infrastructure and is in the process of creating an engineering model for all the upcoming smart cities. The main objectives of storm water drainage planning are to drain the storm runoff from Dholera during rainfall and manage the storm water entering the region from other areas. This is required to minimize flooding and water logging, to provide flexibility for development in phases and to provide fully gravitational storm water drainage whenever possible by utilizing the natural topography of the area considering the high flood level of the receiving water body. Another key objective is to manage the quantity of surface stormwater drained into the system because of urbanisation and monitor its quality to reduce downstream environmental impacts. The storm water drainage system in Dholera has been conceptualised to cater the surface runoff within the project area by gravity flow. Storm water drains have been proposed on both sides of the road and the surface runoff is collected from the catchment areas to be discharged by major outfalls into natural streams, rivers and creeks and open land lying in the CRZ along the Dholera boundary. Efforts have been put in to optimize the design to reduce the time of concentration and size of box drains. The optimization has further given rise to the canal which in turn became a rain water harvesting idea. Considering the new design philosophy, all the storm water runoff is diverted to the canal. The proposed canal has helped in reducing the length of the storm water network to 78 km and reduction in overall cost by Rs 600 crore which is almost half of the cost of the earlier designs. This model will also help in recharging the ground water, and, hence, in reducing the salt water ingress in inland area of the city. If the green belts of the canal banks are strictly maintained, with appropriate regulations of city development, the canal can act as a place for entertainment of the citizens who will live in Dholera. The provision of an additional strip of land parallel to the canal would lend itself to use for walkways, jogging and cycling tracks etc. Besides, Dholera City will also be monitored and controlled by an advanced RTM and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. Integrated RTM–SCADA system monitors and controls both hydraulic and wastewater quality parameters to improve the operational efficiency. The system automatically controls pumps and valves and has security alarms if any of the monitored water quality parameters fail to comply with the potable and recycled water quality standards. SCADA system is also extremely beneficial to detect water losses. Integrated SCADA system provides many operational benefits like improved water quality, decreased operational costs, reduced customer complaints, reduction in water losses, and modelling capability. For a Smart City to be successful, adopting a sustainable mindset is as essential as deploying smart technological innovations. Smart Cities like Dholera have been designed to manage water resources in a sustainable manner. The city will actively follow a model that requires implementing smart programs for reducing leakages and minimising other losses of water from its works to an economically sustainable level.
Tags : EXPERT ZONE Smart City Dholera City Greenfield city water drainage Storm Water management Data Acquisition system RTM–SCADA system Supervisory Control operational costs smart technological innovations