The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) team is set to present its interim report on comprehensive flood-control master plan in urbanised river basin in Chennai by August.
The report being prepared through Pacific Consultants Company Ltd. would incorporate recommendations to improve flood management in the fast urbanising Chennai river basin based on the Japanese experience.
A team from JICA recently visited various waterways in the city to learn about the interventions in place and means to improve them. It visited places such as Kotturpuram bridge, Thiruneermalai junction, Chembarambakkam reservoir and the Napier bridge.
Officials of the Water Resources Department recalled that a team of their colleagues along with various other government departments had visited Tokyo and Sapporo cities in Japan last month to understand the effective flood control and use of river spaces. Instead of flood management within the core urban areas, JICA was preparing a master plan on river basin-wise approach.
Japanese model
“We had discussions on how the Japanese interventions could be applied in similar rivers and reservoirs here. They had executed flood control intervention in upper catchment dams in Sapparo city. We visited Civil Engineering Research Institute that is similar to Institute of Hydraulics and Hydrology, Poondi, to study rivers’ behaviour,” said an official.
One of the recommendations discussed was creation of retention ponds in Chennai Metropolitan Area like school grounds or vacant spaces like in Japan. This would help prevent urban floods. Storing flood water in various waterbodies in the upper reaches was another suggestion to control flash floods.
Straight channels near rivers were formed near Ishkari river, Japan, to reduce floods. Similar interventions of micro drains and straight channels was also discussed for Buckingham Canal in Chennai. “We are also planning to use JICA expertise for finetuning SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system being developed for automation of reservoirs operation,” the official said.
The city could use solutions from underground drainage system in Japan to prevent catastrophic floods. Even if system for tunnels and underground storage of flood water cannot be created on a massive scale, small storage system and minor channels can be built like in and around Porur, the official added.
