Impacts of Urbanization on Hydrological Systems in India

351 Pages·2023·23.598 MB·English

by  P. Thambidurai, Anil Kumar Dikshit

P. Thambidurai
Anil Kumar Dikshit   Editors
Impacts
of Urbanization
on Hydrological
Systems in India
Impacts of Urbanization on Hydrological Systems
in India
P. Thambidurai • Anil Kumar Dikshit
Editors
Impacts of Urbanization
on Hydrological Systems
in India
Editors
P. Thambidurai Anil Kumar Dikshit
Department of Coastal Disaster Environmental Science and Engineering
Management, School of Physical, Department
Chemical and Applied Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Pondicherry University – Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Port Blair Campus Port Blair,
Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India
ISBN 978-3-031-21617-6 ISBN 978-3-031-21618-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21618-3
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Preface
As urban spaces continue to expand to accommodate a growing population, there
remains a real need to quantify and qualify the impacts of the urbanized areas on
natural processes. Human growth and their livelihood demand large quantities of
safe, fresh water all across the world, leading to shortage and even the severe condi-
tion of drying out surface water sources and depletion of groundwater reservoirs.
Urbanization also causes frequent flooding of habitat areas as well as adds to loads
of pollution. Not only do traditional sources of municipal and industrial nature
cause pollution, fertilizers, and pesticides draining from agriculture, but improper
solid and hazardous wastes also contribute to complex, recalcitrant, and toxic pollu-
tion. Rainfall and precipitation patterns change from evenly distributed events to a
few events of high intensity-low duration or cloudburst, leading to heavy rains or
flash floods. At this juncture, this book intends to introduce the various newer
advanced techniques, modeling, and other programming applications applied to
address the current scenario and the impact of urbanization on the surface water, the
groundwater, and the entire hydrological system to provide possible options/solu-
tions with respect to development and management of water environment.
Development towards urbanization is not an avoidable component in the present
century, and hence, we need a new thought to plan, design, and develop water
resources. Our philosophy should be arranging an adequate supply of water while
providing safeguards against drought, floods, and pollution. The integration of
many different pieces of multi-disciplinary research contributions shall make a
complete guide for future prospective on the current situation of the hydrological
system. The present book contains case studies on various aspects of urbanization
and hydrological issues.
We hope that the book will be useful for a wide range of readers such as research-
ers, educators, municipal and city authorities, decision-makers, government offi-
cials, and NGOs.
Port Blair, India P. Thambidurai
Mumbai, India Anil Kumar Dikshit
v
Introduction
Hydrological systems are concerned with the water in the atmosphere: rainfall,
snowfall, snow, and ice; streams, rivers, and lakes; and groundwater occurring
below the Earth’s surface in pores of soil and rocks. They encompass all processes
such as evaporation from the ocean, precipitating raindrops, land, and water bodies,
and evapotranspiration from crops, vegetation, trees, and forests, followed by the
formation and movement of clouds, then occurrence of rainfall, snowfall, intercep-
tion, infiltration, surface runoff, streamflow, deep percolation, and storage of
groundwater. The natural occurrence, circulation, and distribution of water on the
earth and the earth’s atmosphere have plenty of opportunities coming in contact
with various human activities such as water supply to villages, towns, cities, and
industries; irrigation and drainage of cropland, generation of thermal, hydro and
nuclear power; drought control, flood control, navigation, coastal works, recreation
and pollution due to disposal from point and non-point sources. In this way, there
are numerous pathways, such as urbanization, industrialization, and changes in
climate, by which hydrological systems are getting impacted.
This book is a preliminary attempt to put together relevant research works on the
impact of urbanization on the hydrological system, including conventional and
modern approaches, in one place. It starts by putting forward the status of the hydro-
logical system in the river basins and urban areas. The most pronounced hydrologi-
cal problems in cities are the results of changes in precipitation and ensuing runoff
from the urban regions. The urban runoff is entirely different from that of rural
areas. However, the substantial increase in runoff causes floods in the urbanized
area, and a significant decrease in runoff results in water scarcity and persistence in
drought conditions. These are generally attributed to the reduction in infiltration due
to the development of built-up areas, roads, and industries or to a reduction in reten-
tion time, resulting in groundwater decline and depletion. The most common opin-
ion expressed by developmental authorities is that due to enhanced urbanization,
more runoff is occurring now, and also, at the same time, less recharge is taking
place. In recent times, rain events have become fewer but quite intense, sometimes
leading to flash floods, cloud bursts, etc. Further, qualitative deterioration of stream-
flow has also become important where urban runoff carries pollutants, fertilizers,
vii
viii Introduction
and pesticides and contaminates different water supply sources. Water pollution
levels are rising as more wastes are being generated and discharged with or without
the due degree of treatment.
There are 17 chapters in this book. For the convenience of the reader, a brief
overview is provided. The focus on urbanization and surface water starts with the
status of the hydrological system in the urban area, i.e., the catchment characteris-
tics and changes in rainfall dynamics. Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 focus on the
impact of urbanization on water resources. The potential sites for rainwater harvest-
ing and artificial recharge for structures such as check dams, farm ponds, and per-
colation tanks were identified in a typical semi-arid river basin in Maharashtra,
India, in Chap. 1. Chapter 2 discusses Pallikaranai swamp land, a freshwater eco-
system situated in the southern region of Chennai, India, which has been signifi-
cantly damaged due to garbage dumping, sewage discharges, and unplanned
urbanization activities. Various plans were evaluated for implementing management
actions to improve the wetland and surrounding aquifer systems. Chapter 3 addresses
the dynamics of land use and land cover (LULC) and its implications in hydrologi-
cal modeling, irrigation management, urban planning, and land and water resource
management for the Chittar catchment in Western Ghats situated on the border of
Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Chapter 4 analyzes how unplanned rapid urbanization,
deforestation, exploitation of flood plain, and lack of proper drainage networks
aggravated the flooding in Patna. It also demonstrated how to work out appropriate
mitigation strategies, which can be implemented to abate future urban floods in
Patna. Chapter 5 focuses on flood susceptibility zonation of Chalakudy Taluk,
Thrissur, Kerala, using a statistical Dempster-Shafer evidential belief function
model to map the flood susceptibility of the region. Chapter 6 is on the Ganga River,
a symbol of faith for hundreds of millions of Indians in its about one million square
kilometer basin. Over the last 100 years, various urban projects have been intro-
duced in the basin. Various multipurpose dams/barrages were constructed on the
river’s mainstream and on its tributaries for hydropower production, irrigation, and
drinking water supply.
Similarly, forest cover changed into agricultural land, and barren land was devel-
oped for buildings to support housing and factories for an increasingly urban popu-
lation of the basin. The effects of anthropogenic activities and anthropogenic
activity–induced climate change have started to degrade surface-water bodies in
terms of their quality and quantity, and in some cases, surface water bodies have
been lost completely. A few suggestions from the sustainable development perspec-
tive have also been proposed. Chapter 7 shows how population explosion, hasty
urbanization, economic and industrial developments, and climate change have led
to growing pressure on water resources. Moreover, an increased number of cities are
relying on remote water resources, inter-basin water transfers, domestic virtual
water trade, and seawater desalination to cope with the rising demands for water.
Strategies such as resilient building and nature-based solutions, including green
infrastructures, aquifer recharge, storm-water management, reducing non-revenue
water, grey water usage, and planning of smart cities, should be implemented for
sustainable urban water management.
Introduction ix
From Chap. 8 onwards, the impacts on groundwater systems have been dis-
cussed; Chap. 8, titled “Groundwater Scarcity in Urban Areas is a Major Issue: Case
Studies from West Bengal,” deals with the case studies on identifying water scarcity
in the two hard rock cities of West Bengal, namely Purulia and Bankura. It is to be
noted that water is becoming scarce at present, and in the near future, the sources
may dry up. Also, some suggestive measures for overall balanced groundwater
development in the short term and long term are discussed to preserve water. The
impact of urbanization and river morphology on groundwater system in Patna Urban
Area, Bihar, India, is discussed in Chap. 9. Here, a numerical groundwater flow
model has analyzed the impact of increased groundwater demand due to vertical
urban growth and a shift in the course of the river Ganges in the Patna Urban Area
(PUA). The simulated results with the existing stress conditions on the aquifer sys-
tem indicate that there is a 0.5 m/year decline in the hydraulic head of the deep
aquifer in the central parts of PAU. Chapter 10 covers concentrates on key issues
and feasibility of aquifer storage and recovery. This study aims to comprehend,
identify, and improve the global understanding of groundwater remediation meth-
ods based on the dilution of contaminants. Chapter 11 is titled “Temporal Prediction
of Groundwater Levels: A Gap in Generalization.” This study tries to identify the
performance of two well-known predictive algorithms, which have their footprints
both in data-driven and data mining models, namely a) artificial neural network
(ANN) and b) support vector machine (SVM). The results inferred that even though
the study of groundwater wells is pertaining to the same basin (where climate and
lithology are almost similar), the algorithms may not be generalized for the domain
application. The above observation may be due to the draft and land use pattern
variability. Chapter 12 discusses the suitability of groundwater for drinking and
agricultural use in Patna district, Bihar, India. The chemical characteristics of
groundwater samples in the Patna district were obtained from the Central Ground
Water Board 2021 report for a total of 37 locations. Although most of the parame-
ters were within the range, parameters such as coliform value and arsenic content
are also equally important and need to be measured before declaring groundwater fit
for drinking. Chapter 13 is titled “Groundwater Potential Assessment using GIS-
based Weighted Linear Combination Technique: A Case Study of Hard Rock Terrain
Around Bhopal City, India.” An integrated knowledge-based weighted linear com-
bination (WLC) method was applied for the assessment of groundwater potential
and grouped as very good, good, moderate, and poor. Chapter 14, titled “The Effect
of Urbanization on Groundwater Quality and Hydrochemical Characteristics,” pres-
ents an effort made to understand the impacts of urban growth on groundwater qual-
ity and its variations vis-à-vis hydrochemical characteristics in the Ennore coastal
aquifers, Chennai. Ninety-five groundwater samples comprising the surface bore
wells and dug wells for dual seasons (pre-monsoon and post-monsoon) were col-
lected between August 2019 and January 2020. In general, groundwater was found
unsuitable for drinking and domestic utilities, with fewer exceptions irrespective of
seasons in most locations. Chapter 15 discusses groundwater contamination in parts
of northwestern Hyderabad from a hydrogeochemical and geospatial perspective.
The groundwater of the area is polluted due to the existence of industries for decades
x Introduction
together. Spatiotemporal dynamics of groundwater recharge in Dras sub-basin of
the Upper Indus River Basin, Western Himalayas, has been studied in Chap. 16. The
spatiotemporal variance of isotopes δ18O and δ2H were studied to understand
groundwater recharge dynamics in the study area. The results indicated meltwater
derived from high altitudes dominates the groundwater recharge. The global climate
warming observation suggests the dependence of recharge on meltwaters obtained
from snow and glacier melt in the Dras sub-basin. The study further indicated that
variation in precipitation pattern, form, and shift in regional glacier mass might
negatively influence the local and regional groundwater resources and, eventually,
the social and economic aspects of the region. Finally, Chap. 17 presents the impact
of urbanization on groundwater in changing climatic scenario with a case study at
two locations in the National Capital Region (NCR). Faridabad and Manesar have
witnessed an intense increase in population and rapid urbanization due to industri-
alization and considerable migration. The average temperature of the area has
increased by 2 degrees with a corresponding increase in rainfall intensity along with
a reduction in rainy days while maintaining the overall average rainfall of the area;
the groundwater level is depleting at 0.7 m/year, and average groundwater electrical
conductivity (EC) has increased. There has been land subsidence in a few patches.
The reader is suggested to read through all chapters of the book or only the ones
that might interest them.
P. Thambidurai
Anil Kumar Dikshit
Acknowledgments
The editors are thankful to all the authors for contributing their chapters to this
book, and for their unfailing commitment and cooperation.
xi