It has been a particularly dry summer. Intermittent spells of rain in May have provided relief yet the Kabini reservoir has no live storage and the K.R.S dam has just 2.4 tmc ft. of water. The relief, however, is that the monsoon has arrived over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
According to the IMD and the KSNDMC (Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre) , it is expected on the mainland and Karnataka by May 30. It is time to welcome the rains of 2017. Officially the south-west monsoon count for the year will begin from June 1 and go on till September 30.
Whatever be the normalcy of the event, those who are prepared to receive the gift of nature will reap rewards. In the coastal areas of the State already preparations are on to protect homes with plastic sheets or the traditional coconut leaf matting placed on the western and southern walls especially.
Roofs must be cleaned and water-proofed at the earliest. Rainwater gutters must have leaves and dust removed. If you have a rainwater harvesting system, now is a good time to clean the filters, the first rain separators and the storage or recharge systems.
Recharge wells and dug wells can have their accumulated silt removed and cleaned. The groundwater flow into them allowed un-interrupted.
Stormwater drains must be cleaned and connected to recharge wells. Lakes should have their large debris and silt traps ready to receive the rains. This is the right time to clean up the ‘rajakaluves’ linking lakes to each other.
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Flooding
The rainfall in June and July is less than that of May and true monsoon in Bengaluru is in the months of August, September and October, yet high rainfall on a single day can cause flooding. Peak rainfall intensity reaches 180 mm per hour for a few minutes in the city.
Subscribing to the rainfall data provided via SMS by the KSNDMC can help citizens take appropriate precautions during heavy rainfall. It would be handy to keep the assistance numbers of the BBMP, the Disaster Management Cell and the Civil Defence people during this time.
Unfortunately, even the developed lakes in the city do not have sluice gates but only overflow weirs to manage flood waters. As a beginning, it would be good to identify flood-prone lakes and ensure that sluice gates are installed at the outlets to ensure partial draining of a lake before a storm rather than managing the flood waters after a storm.
Electrical lines, especially those in the open and linked to borewells, wells, sewage treatment plants, lights etc. should have special attention paid to insulate and protect them from rain and flood waters as electrocution is an added danger in the monsoon.
Similarly, open manhole covers and storm water inlets have proved to be fatal in earlier occasions and an inspection and rectification is called for.
Starting from individual homes, to apartments, to layouts a systematic drive to spot and address issues would help citizens to receive the monsoon positively and take its benefits. That would be water wisdom.
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