Sustainable Water Asset Management System for Madurai City

Abstract

This paper deals with the need to sustain the water resource management for Madurai city. Water is essential for sustaining life and at the same time, it is an important component of almost all developmental activities. Effective strategies must consider not only managing the water conservation, but also managing demand better. Sustainable management of water resources is multidimensional and complex process. The purpose of the water management system is to ensure the water storage from available resources. Due to increase in population the management system for present infrastructure is not able to meet their daily need.

Madurai is a major city in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. As per 2011 census, the city had a population of 15.6 lakhs and to the year of 2051 it is expected to be several million.

The study aims to prepare sustainable water management system to Madurai City for assessment of existing water resources present in the city and evolve a solution towards water conservation especially in the monsoon period.

The preliminary analysis is taken to this phase by analysing the source of water available to the city generated in Vaigai dam with the presence of meteorological factors like rainfall, temperature, humidity, evaporation, sunshine hours. From the analysis possible month can be computed to store the water during monsoon period and to improve the water management in that region. The objective of this management system is achieved to next phase by determining the storage of water in Vaigai dam.

INTRODUCTION

Water requirement has increased tremendously because of industrial, agriculture, domestic sectors.

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It is not simply a scarcity of water but an over usage and improper handling of water in all over the country. Water supplies adequate to meet the needs of all sectors and very essential for maintaining and enhancing the welfare of all inhabitants in worldwide. Science and technology have critical roles to play in sustainable water resources.

Indian scenario

India has only about 4 per cent of the world’s renewable water resources but is home to nearly 18 per cent of the world’s population. It receives an average annual precipitation of 4,000 billion cubic metres (BCM) which is the principle source of fresh water in the country. India has about 20 river basins. Due to increasing demand for domestic, industrial and agriculture uses, most river basins are water stressed and not properly encroached. Groundwater plays an important part in India’s economy. It caters to about 85 per cent of rural demand, 50 per cent urban requirements and more than 60 per cent of our irrigation needs. Unregulated groundwater extraction has led to overuse in many parts of the country, causing the groundwater table to plummet, drying springs and aquifers. The current water scarcity and the future impact of projected climatic change underline the need for promoting water demand and supply management in India. Although water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface, only 4% is freshwater and only 0.5% of this water is suitable for human consumption.

Tamil Nadu State Scenario

Tamil Nadu is the southern-most state of India. This state is facing severe water stress for several years. Due to the poor water resources

coupled with changes in the hydrologic cycle, pollution of water etc., The ideal pathways to attain water security to Tamil Nadu are flood management and rainwater harvesting, wastewater management, offseason tillage, saving water in agriculture, desalination, enhancing irrigation efficiency, rejuvenation of water bodies and water sharing. In Tamil Nadu about 126 TMC of water is used per annum for domestic use at about 135 litres per capita per day. In this water about 101 TMC is generated as wastewater and let into the water bodies and open space mostly without treatment. By treating and recycling the wastewater for non-domestic purposes like toilet flushing, cooling, washing, gardening, irrigation etc., about 100 TMC of fresh water can be conserved. By industrial effluent management, the state can conserve about 20% water.

Madurai Scenario

Madurai city has a water supply scheme for 174 MLD (millions of liters per day), but due to improper monsoon and other factor, the corporation able to supply 105 MLD of water to the system. In that 87 MLD of water drawing Vaigai dam. In that 87 MLD of water drawing Vaigai dam. At present, the city supplies an average of 103 liters per capita by once in 4 days. The demand of water for Madurai city is 209 MLD, with available existing water resources. The city corporation supply only 105 MLD of water.

The above scenario’s clearly an indication for further depletion or shortage of water in the coming days. Hence, there is a need to effectively manage the available water resources for coping up the growth of population as well as the industrial requirement along with irrigation needs. The city is lacking in prevention of water at the time of rainfall seasons. Adequate water infrastructure like dams, reservoirs and artificial recharge structures is required to ensure the sustainability of water resources to overcome scarcity problem. In general, the Madurai district is generally suited for construction of various artificial recharge structures such as percolation ponds, check dams and sub-surface dykes.

RELATED WORKS

The world is facing a crisis of flooding, pollution and water scarcity problems due to rapid and uncontrolled urbanization. Globally, it is estimated that 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies. Based on this, several literatures help in achieving and generating more ideas for sustainable water resources management and some more author also done case studies about the conservation of water under the basis of sustained development.

A.R. Alagarsamy., (2016) [5] Here the author discussed about water conservations and government policies act to ensure the availability of water. “Our country is facing a severe water problem, not because we don’t have adequate resources of water, but because of our inability to conserve and manage all the rainwater and available usable water resources in the environment. Here the author brought about by public awareness, education, identification of problems and dissemination of best practices and incentives for action, thereby facilitating conservation of resource and to follow the act generated by the government. The high rainfall experienced during the monsoon has seen flooding in parts of the city in India. The next priority is to allocate water for essential agricultural uses, particularly subsistence agriculture and animal husbandry, as well as ensuring maintenance of ecological flows.

Namdari, F., et al., (2017) [4] Here the author discussed the ideas of conserving water. Optimal use of traditional methods (such as dams, canals, wells, springs, etc.) and use of modern methods (such as plant, the use of artificial wetlands, etc). Methods of water management in agriculture such as the use of pressurized irrigation, drip irrigation and planting crops according to priorities. Prevent evaporation and transpiration through traditional channels, can be used in the management of groundwater resources. All the people should believe and maintaining the balance of nature, not only as a tool that meets human needs looked at. Wastewater and agriculture, all the measures that should be in the area of environmental management and treatment activities in the water sector should be taken.

N. Muthukumaran et al., (2015) [8] Effective collection and treatment of urban wastewater is a critical problem in a developing country like India. There is a need in achieving the concept of recycling the wastewater and to frame a suitable water management resources to a city. The case study taken by the author here is tiruchirappalli. This research paper highlights the present wastewater treatment and management aspects of the city. The suggestions could be made for utilising the treated wastewater for growing greens, vegetables and for agriculture. If quantum number of wastewaters is collected, then it can be diverted into nearby agricultural area by recycling and reuse to get better agricultural development.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

From the analysis of the work it indicates that, there is shortages in water preservation and fails to handle it properly. The meteorological factors like rainfall, temperature, evaporation, sunshine hours and humidity are collected and analysis of this factors are completely achieved to next phase and some meteorological factors like rainfall and temperature are evaluated that how to store the water in the rainy seasons.

Here the meteorological data from the year of 2000-2015 is collected and analysis is carried out for this year. To this work the rainfall is computed by trend analysis, how much of average rainfall is generated for every month and year, average dependability rainfall is analyzed under frequency analysis method. Hence the temperature is gradually decreased in winter where highest temperature occurred at summer. The temperature may be increasing due to industrialization, greenhouse gases and CFC. The examination of temperature is important for short-term planning and future climatic conditions. Even the minimum changes occur in temperature also cause various deviations in rainfall storage. From the rainfall analysis, the month of October is influenced more by rainfall and the storage of rainwater under specific northwest monsoon period along with the temperature evaluation are computed and to this specific period the storage capacity should increase to the Madurai city. Therefore, the effective water asset management plan is taken along with the determination of population forecasting.

The analysis of Relative humidity, evaporation, sunshine hours, Vaigai inflow and outflow are computed to next phase

CONCLUSION

Assets deteriorate, the performances of the assets are affected. There are many factors that will affect how much life a given asset has. Factors such as poor installation, defective materials, poor maintenance, and corrosive environment will shorten an asset’s life, while factors such as good installation practices, high quality materials, proper routine and preventative maintenance, and non-corrosive environment will tend to lengthen an asset’s life.

Some of the suggestive measures can take to store the water efficiently at the time of monsoon period.

• Protect wetlands and introduce plant trees (reduces the impact of climate change on flooding)
• Series of stone bunds built one behind the other (hence it is effective than modern concrete dams)
• Rainwater harvesting is one of the oldest methods, these can conserve and recharge the ground water, construction of new lakes, ponds in open areas and desilting of lakes in a regular interval, using paver blocks instead of flexible or rigid pavements.
• By adapting these measures there can store the water deficiency in future. Some measures can be taken for effective management
• To restore the existing water bodies and augment storage capacities of surface and ground water bodies.
• Improvement of tank systems in the selected areas including restoration of tanks
• Improve storage capacity of water bodies

REFERENCES

1. A.R. Alagarsamy., (2016). Planning, F. O. F., Study, C., & Madurai, O. F. WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN.
2. Namdari, F., & Bakhshi, S. (2017) . Water resources management in drought conditions. (February 2014).
3. Muthukumaran, N. and N. K. Ambujam. (2015). “WASTEWATER TREATMENT AND MANAGEMENT IN URBAN AREAS – A CASE STUDY OF TIRUCHIRAPPALLI CITY , TAMIL NADU , INDIA.” 15–17.
4. Sahely, Halla R., Christopher A. Kennedy, and Barry J. Adams. (2015). “Developing Sustainability Criteria for Urban Infrastructure Systems 1.”
5. Cecilia Tortajada (2015) ‘Water Management in Singapore’in international journal of water resources development’Vol. 22, No. 2, 227–240,
6. Hossain (2015) ‘Water Supply and Demand Gap Analysis: A Case Study on Jessore Pourashava, Bangladesh’ ,’ Journal of Bioscience and Agriculture Research’ Vol. 02(01): 08-04.