“SPONGE CITY” CONCEPT TO REDUCE STORM WATER IMPACT: A CASE STUDY OF AHMEDABAD CITY

Water Resources Engineering

The recent increase in urbanization has led the Ahmedabad city to rapid increased impermeable surface area. These transformed areas have altered the natural hydrology. As a result of which many areas are facing severe flooding, runoff pollution, water-environment deterioration and ecological damage. Traditional storm water management methods are not capable of completely meeting the goals of sustainable urban development. Thus this study aims to explore and evaluate the new concept of ‘Sponge City’. Sponge City is a new concept of urban storm water management, which provides a natural and low impact way to manage storm water. The study aims to identify a particular micro-catchment area and assess the runoff it produces. Additionally, it will examine the use of Sponge City technology to mitigate urban flooding. The objective is to enhance the permeability of the catchment area, allowing for improved rainwater absorption and a reduction in total runoff. Area located in between New Vadaj and Naranpura ward of Ahmedabad city in Gujarat is of one such urban catchment taken up for the reconnoiter. This area is facing problem of waterlogging during every rainy season. Using geo-informatics tools the characteristics of the Study area and catchment area are evaluated. Subsequently, runoff calculations done for the study area under consideration. Various features of sponge city have been studied and indicated though digitization by the using geo-informatics tools. Sponge city concept has been applied to this catchment with variations of different features. The sponge city feature application has shown ability to reduce 60% to 80% of runoff generated in catchment area.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.