Floodwater draining into sea will be tapped for Chennai

Telemetric river water level recorders will be installed

Soon a portion of floodwater that regularly gets drained into the sea could be saved to augment Chennai’s water supply.

The State Ground and Surface Water Resources Data Centre of Water Resources Department (WRD) will install telemetric river water level recorders in the five rivers falling in the Chennai region. These recorders, which will be fixed at points close to where the river meets the sea, will measure the water level.

Officials of the WRD’s Centre said that once floodwater crosses the point where the recorders are fixed, they will send alerts to engineers. It is then up to the engineers to make sure that the surplus floodwater is diverted to other waterbodies located upstream. By doing so, the water that otherwise gets washed out can be stored and used to augment supply for the city.

The department will fix the equipment near Nandambakkam along Adyar river, Vallur anicut along Kosasthalaiyar river, Lakshmipuram along Araniar river, Chetpet along Cooum river and Panangkattucheri close to Kalpakkam along Palar river.

Besides, the equipment will be installed on 44 sites across the State as part of the Rs.4-crore project.

Annually, a minimum of 1,000 million cubic feet of water, which translates to a month’s supply of drinking water for city, drains into sea through Adyar and Kosasthalaiyar rivers, an official informed.

The equipment will comprise a sensor to record water flow, a data logger that could store data for up to one year and a modem to transmit data to the monitoring room at Taramani and its website. A telemetric rain gauge that would provide data round-the-clock would also be installed. The project will be completed by May next.