Sunday, May 22, 2016

Water Management at Rainbow Drive: In the Buildotech magazine

An article authored by BIOME describing water management at Rainbow Drive  has been published in the Buildotech magazineBuildotech is India's premier magazine on building technology, design and sustainability. The readership of the magazine comprises architects, builders, facility management companies, project consultants, system integrator and system providers. 
 
The softcopy of the article is here

Also available on

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Geomembranes : Conversations with Mr Joshi on 11th May 2016

Farm pond + drains
Mr Joshi along with Lakshmikanth were installing the geomembrane at a farm pond off Kodathi Gate, Sarjapura Road at Mr Ashok's farm camp. They were doing this work  undertaken by TEXEL industries (Sailesh R Mehta. MD  Texel Industries  ..9825329050)

The team
Equipment for welding
Jointing
Anchoring the membrane











Documented below are some details from the conversation. The membrane is made up of 7 layers of HDPE + LDPE yarns + water proof medium. The company has been around for over 30 years now. The sheets are available in 2m * 100m lengths. These are then welded together into 6m x 40m or 6m x 60m pieces that are then installed. They are jointed with a heat blower at 350-400C. Thickness of 0.25mm to 1.25mm. The joining is a critical part of the installation and has to be done by a skilled technician

The company has done over 2000 ponds in the last couple of years. A team of 2 normally handle the installation on site. Most have been in Maharashtra and Gujarat so far. The company is Headquartered  in Bombay

The costs work out to 150/- to 200/- per sqm – including installation, transportation and all other incidentals. The company is also part of the BIS standards committee for geomembranes. The material has done well even in exposed condition when not holding water. The oldest ponds are 10-12 years old. The membrane can also be repaired in case tears develop. No surface preparation is required. The surface has to be kept as smooth as possible and without any sharp objects. Gentle slopes are preferred

The sides of the sheet are anchored with weights/sand bags/mud

The largest implementation is 7Cr liters. Average sizes are 50L to 1Cr liters

No specific innovations have been made for reducing evaporation

A video to demonstrate the welding process 

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Notes from a conversation with a borewell digger Mr Ilayaraja on 10th May 2016


Mr Ilayaraja, borewell  contractor in Doddakannelli. Owns his own rig. From Tiruchangodu, Tamilnadu

Most of the business happens in season (Jan-May) – about 15-20 points per month Dull season : 6-10 points per month

According to him ...
Koramangala/Madiwala : groundwater good
Diary Circle, Bommanahalli, Ecity – tough
Jayanagar – easy
Yelahanka/Hebbal : casing 600ft

Doddanekundi in 2003-2004 depth upto 700ft-800ft now down to 1000-1600ft

Charges as of 2016 May – for digging

1. Upto 250ft : 55/- per ft
2. Next 100ft : 65/- per ft
3. Next 100ft : 75/- per ft
4. Next 100ft : 85/- per ft
5. Next 100ft : 105/- per ft
6. Next 100ft : 125/- per ft
7. Next 100ft : 155/- per ft
8. Next 100ft : 190/- per ft
9. Next 100ft : 230/- per ft

Rainfall Analysis for Yamalur watershed

We had good rainfall (1000mm plus on an average) in 2015. Yet, this summer was harsh for everyone. Would it have helped if we had harvested rainwater? The primary analysis from the project area (Yamalur watershed) observes that there is enough water available for everyone if we do rainwater harvesting leaving excess water to go to the lakes and/or groundwater recharge.  

A watershed is the area of land where all of the water that falls in it and drains off of it goes to a common outlet. Biome Trust has been involved in an action research project called Particpatory Groundwater Mapping in a Yamalur watershed of an area 33.81 sq.km.

Now if we overlap the watershed area over a Google map and the administrative boundary map i.e. BBMP ward map; we would see overlaps with the existing BBMP wards. This helped us in understanding that this watershed consists of 6 BBMP wards- HAL Airport, Bellandur, Marathahalli, HSR layout, Singasandra, Begur, Mangmanapalya and some non-BBMP region still under village Panchayats viz. 4 villages in Halanayakanahalli Gram Panchayat (Halanayakanahalli, Chikkanalli, Chikkanayakanahalli, Hadosiddapura), Rayasandra, Choodasandra, Kodathi.

Rainfall data is very critical for it gives an idea of water falling in an area (inflow), how much is percolating, evaporation percentage, etc. The rainfall related data collection involved contacting Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Center (KSNDMC). KSNDMC has installed raingauges in 89 BBMP wards so far and almost all village panchayats have these raingauges. We managed to get 2015 rainfall data (daily and monthly) from KSNDMC except Mangmanapalya (where there is no raingauge and so have used closest ward Bommanahalli for the analysis) and villages Rayasandra, Choodasandra, Kodathi. We’ll keep collecting this information. However, some primary analysis throws some interesting results:


Raw data from KSNDMC:

Month
HAL Airport
Bellandur
Marathahalli
HSR Layout
Bommanahalli
Singasandra
Begur
Halanayakanahalli GP
Jan
3
0
3
2.5
3
2
5.5
24
Feb
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Mar
42.5
43.5
44
36.5
45
77.5
16.5
0
Apr
185
118.5
128.5
139.5
129
127.5
102.5
111.5
May
100
64.5
75
102
92
78
100.5
73.5
June
105
132.5
103.5
77
83.5
96.5
100
120.0
July
68.5
55.5
59
58
58
49.5
47.5
55.5
Aug
131.5
187
96.5
169.5
186.5
184.5
138
186.5
Sep
175.5
210.5
164.5
163.5
137.5
175
175
171.5
Oct
144
148
170.5
121
80
117.5
105
160.0
Nov
269.5
200.5
186.5
215.5
229
182.5
171
201.5
Dec
7.5
7.5
3.5
3
3
7
9.62
9.5
Total
1232
1168
1034.5
1088
1046.5
1097.5
971.12
1113.5

Some quick observations:
  • On an average it rained 1093.89 mm across the watershed with highest annual rainfall recorded at HAL airport station (1232 mm)
  • The lowest was recorded in Begur ward station @971.12 mm
  • November being the rainiest month with 200 mm rainfall on average, followed by September with 171 mm and April and October tied at 130 mm


Total area of the watershed
33.81
sq km
33810000
sq m
Total annual rainfall in 2015
1093.89
mm
1.093
m
Total rainfall endowment
36954330
cum
36954330000
L
Per capita requirement
150
LPCD
Total residential population
123780
Total residential water demand
18567000
LPD
6776.955
ML/Yr
Demand as rainfall
200.4423248
mm
Sustainability/Difference between actual rainfall and annual water demand
893.4476752
mm
This much rainfall is available/in excess for the population in the watershed. So if everyone does rainwater harvesting there is enough rainfall for a year for this much residential population
Assumption is that all the rainfall falling is harvested. Rainfall distribution is uniform in the ward.
The per capita requirement in urban area is always found to be more than 150LPCD from our experience.
Commercial establishments are not considered in this calculation

Based on this data, we want to understand some more details:
·         Runoff available- Based on the land use understanding this information would be easy to obtain
·         Recharge- how much of the runoff can be used for recharge, how many wells would be essential
·         Recharge and borewell yields- to determine the efficiency of shallow groundwater recharge and correlation with borewell yields (if any). So we are collecting Static water level (SWL) data from many borewells in the watershed. We use manual and automatic sensors to facilitate the data collection
·         Spatial distribution of rainfall- Bangalore rainfall is varying at the spatial scale so understanding which areas are the high rainfall/low rainfall would help 
·         Microwatershed level rainfall analysis. This yamalur watershed consists of 8 micro-watersheds


We are still learning to analyze this data and would like to hear from you on how best to put this data to use. We would also like to use better visualization. This is what the Participatory Groundwater mapping action research project is attempting to do.