Water audit and GIS mapping of ward-wise water scarcity will help city administrators to foresee the demands and prepare contingency plans for extreme scenarios, according to water management experts.
Sustainable water management efforts will be undertaken in the city with people’s participation, according to those at the Water Institute of the School of Communication and Management Studies (SCMS).
The institute will prepare a water policy for the Kochi Corporation, and also take stock of the ground water quality modelling and forecast for the city area, said Sunny George, the head of the institute.
During the exercise, the experts will also suggest areas of private investment in the water sector of the city and identify alternative water sources for meeting emergency situations. The city mostly depends on piped water supplied by the Kerala Water Authority, ground water drawn for irrigation, industry and domestic consumption and water supplied by tanker lorries. Rainwater harvesting is another source of water in the city.
Dr. Sunny said that excessive ground water pumping and improper urban sanitation were matters of concern for Kochi. Mathematical modelling of water resources, demand and forecast will be carried out to understand the issues including the extent of salinity intrusion in the area and to suggest mitigation recommendations, he said.
A detailed house based survey has been proposed to understand the status of availability of drinking water in the wards of Kochi Corporation. For analysing the quality of water consumed, 100 water samples will be collected from various sources in different parts of the corporation for laboratory analysis.
Though about 200 MLD of water is supplied by the Kerala Water Authority to the corporation area every day, the actual quantity received at the end is much lesser due to losses in the distribution line, popularly known as non revenue water (NRW). The 50-year-old water distribution network calls for a network evaluation and optimisation of the water distribution network.
Also, a water audit at the city scale needs to be undertaken for understanding the potential water sources, the ward-wise and sector-wise demand for water and the spatial variation of scarcity in the corporation area, according to a document drawn up by the institute.