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Sekhar Raghavan’s story begins within the Nineteen Nineties as a resident of Besant Nagar, Chennai. As builders paved driveways and compounds on this neighbourhood near the seashore, Sekhar seen that the extent of water within the shallow wells fell and have become brackish. Even borewells had been starting to run dry.
As a resident of the world because the 70s, Sekhar had valued easy accessibility to prime quality consuming water. His 6-apartment complicated had its personal shallow nicely and water percolated simply via the sandy soils, all the time staying simply a few toes under the floor in the course of the monsoons.
With the advantage of commentary and research, he was satisfied that the change in water was because of the many new infrastructural developments which, in impact, sealed the soils. This made the water keep on the floor earlier than evaporating or reaching the ocean.
The issue, in his view, may very well be addressed by harvesting rainwater regionally, replenishing the aquifers that are each excessive up — utilizing the soil’s water-holding capability — and likewise deeper down within the rock crevices and caverns.
To usher in extra public assist, he started a door-to-door marketing campaign in 1995 to persuade the locals and the municipality that rainwater harvesting was important. He promoted recharging the dear groundwater aquifers relatively than solely utilizing concrete tanks to retailer rainwater as a result of with out replenishing them, they turned weak to seawater intrusion which may very well be deadly to these water shops.
He argued for growing the permeability of strong surfaces — permitting water to percolate into the soil round new and outdated developments — supplying shallow wells, and enabling deeper aquifer recharge with rainwater to assist borewell extraction.
“That is how water was managed till the mid-Nineteenth century when Chennai largely relied on groundwater sourced via shallow wells,” Sekhar says.
A protracted highway forward
At first, Sekhar’s concepts fell on deaf ears. When he tried to speak to residents, the safety guards turned him away. Apparently although, they appeared to have a greater understanding of the issue than their employers.
The higher-off city inhabitants didn’t make the connection between rainwater percolation and groundwater, nor did they recognise the severity of the state of affairs. In any occasion, they noticed it because the Authorities’s responsibility to produce them with water.
Nevertheless, in 1998, he had a breakthrough – after 3 years of drought was Chennai’s ‘Floor Zero’ (when some went with out water for days). The editor of the Adyar Occasions gave him house to jot down an article and embrace his telephone quantity.
He started to obtain questions from residents within the Adyar-Mylapore area in search of steering on implementing rainwater harvesting measures.
His efforts acquired impetus in 1994, when the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalithaa, instructed the Chennai Metropolitan Improvement Authority to challenge a notification that required builders to indicate what provisions had been being made for rainwater harvesting earlier than planning a brand new constructing.
The notification elevated consciousness of water conservation wants. Nevertheless, in keeping with Sekhar, hardly any builders built-in enough schemes. Enforcement was tough. Nevertheless, one of many few builders who did take discover helped develop a recharge nicely strategy for replenishing aquifers.
This concerned diverting water from rooftops via pipes after which into the bottom via 15-foot-deep wells of a diameter of 5 toes.
Within the mild of restricted impacts, Jayalalithaa continued to be dedicated to motion, strengthening the principles in 2002-03 which required each new and outdated buildings to have recharge and rainwater harvesting techniques compulsorily. This time, the brand new municipal requirement additionally said exactly what wanted to be accomplished – both divert rainwater into open wells or into the recharge wells.
How the efforts solidified
Round this time, in 2002, a US-based man named Ram Krishnan heard about Sekhar’s efforts and determined to again him. That’s how the Akash Ganga Belief was shaped. Sekhar had been described as a lone crusader when interviewed by “All the way down to Earth” in 1998, however this was now to alter.
He turned the primary trustee of the Belief and the director of the ‘Rain Centre’ that was initially established in Santhome. Now in Adyar, it’s a demonstration of what might be accomplished. He was happy to have the worth of the brand new centre recognised with the inauguration being attended by Jayalalithaa herself.
Sekhar provides that the outcomes of the brand new municipal necessities quickly turned obvious. After a superb monsoon in 2005, an Akash Ganga survey discovered that groundwater ranges went up by 20 toes.
“My view is that rainwater harvesting shouldn’t be a bureaucratic or a tutorial train however a folks’s train. That’s the reason the Akash Rainwater Belief runs the rain centre so everybody can be taught what might be accomplished,” says Sekhar.
Drawing on the town’s heritage
Nevertheless, persevering with water stress demanded extra intensive measures. To amplify the outcomes, supporting different cities was additionally changing into a should.
In 2018, the Metropolis of 1,000 Tanks Consortium was shaped, its title reflecting Chennai’s wealthy historical past of water administration. It aimed to pilot and doubtlessly scale techniques this time, not just for harvesting rainwater, but additionally for recycling wastewater from sewage techniques and purifying black & gray water utilizing “nature-based options”.
How did the Metropolis of 1,000 Tanks come about?
Sudheendra, an architect from Madras Terrace Architects, a agency centered on eco-friendly structure and executing city water tasks which performed a key function in bringing about these modifications, explains.
Following a worldwide initiative – Water as Leverage (WaL) for local weather resilient cities by Henk Ovink, Particular Envoy for Worldwide Water Affairs, Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Administration, a contest was introduced for pilots in 3 cities in 2017.
Chennai, Khulna in Bangladesh and Semarang in Indonesia had been recognized nearly as good cities to develop a mannequin to unravel the world’s urgent demand for water. A agency from the Netherlands, Ooze Architects, noticed the potential to scale up motion in Chennai.
They knew in regards to the metropolis and had labored with Shilesh Hariharan from the identical agency as Sudheendra. They teamed up with a collective of architects and urbanists from the Netherlands & India, known as it Metropolis of 1,000 Tanks, and developed an progressive proposal to revive the historic 1000’s of tanks which had been initially current in and round Chennai.
The varied multi-disciplinary workforce included city designers, architects, engineers, in addition to ecologists, coverage researchers, engagement specialists, and cultural and tutorial establishments from OOZE Architects & Urbanists, Madras Terrace Architects, IIT Madras, Care Earth Belief, Eco Village Worldwide, Functionality Panorama, IRCDUC, Urayugal Social Welfare Belief, Rain Middle, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai, Chennai Resilience Centre, Paperman Basis.
The workforce developed a technique and a set of tasks that provided a holistic answer to the issues of water shortage, floods and sanitation, figuring out the inter-relationship with the present manner of planning or constructing cities.
They performed a number of workshops and conferences working with WaL and the Authorities of Chennai.
The underlying message was that if all of the rainwater that falls on Chennai is captured then there might be adequate water, in truth greater than is required, to finish shortage. Nevertheless, as 80% of the rain falls in round October-December in about 20 days, capturing it relatively than flooding the town or squandering it to the ocean is tough.
On account of this engagement, many authorities officers turned conscious of the necessity for a greater water administration system. Now, 50+ water our bodies in and round Chennai have since been restored by the Higher Chennai Company, Public Works Division and lots of different NGOs, some with funds collected from Company Social Accountability budgets.
Recycling Water – Nature-based Options
The second answer that the Metropolis of 1,000 Tanks advocated is extra radical but additionally part of Chennai’s heritage. That is higher administration of sewage wastewater, treating it in a decentralised method utilizing nature-based options as an alternative of sending it out into the ocean.
Banana and Canna are glorious examples of crops which perform the therapy, guaranteeing the water can subsequently safely be allowed to infiltrate into the bottom.
Recognising the potential, a pilot challenge was launched, funded principally by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Administration and contributions from the Goethe Institut, Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai and Wipro Basis.
The scheme often called the Water Stability Pilot includes Little Flower Convent College for the Blind & Deaf. The workforce discovered that the campus of the varsity had three predominant water points: sewage overflow, floods throughout monsoons, and drought throughout summer season months.
They got here up with a holistic strategy.
Earlier than sending the waste water to the crops, a settler (or a septic tank) permits all sludge to build up for about 24 hours after which an anaerobic digestion system is used to deal with the sewage out of which, a secondary handled sort of water arises. It’s wealthy in vitamins – particularly nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium which crops love and take up to develop.
That is the place the principle component of the brand new type of wastewater therapy, known as constructed wetlands, come into play. These wetlands, albeit constructed, mimic pure wetlands equivalent to marshlands that are important for retention, purification and infiltration of runoff floor water.
Equally the handled water from these constructed wetlands is infiltrated within the floor within the neighbourhood which finally finds its manner again into the aquifer.
The outcomes of the pilot programme had been revealed in July 2023 and had been encouraging with the water high quality being good, higher than the usual required for discharging it into the backyard.This sort of therapy (high quality of water let into the bottom) includes water discovering its manner down via the layers of sand which implies that the pure micro organism out there within the soil cleanse the water and restore it earlier than the water enters the native aquifer and thus the recharge is full.
This types a closed loop system and due to this fact permits self-sustaining communities when it comes to water to start out thriving. That is the premise for the way forward for water.
“The Water Stability challenge reveals what WaL is all about, a game-changer strategy; people-centred and community-led fixing the world’s most urgent water challenges. The pioneer challenge in Chennai proves the worth of community-led, nature-based options’ by design, that may paved the way forward for upscaling and replicating – spreading from the town and the Ganga basin to the world. We will even put the UN Water Motion Agenda into observe,” says Henk Ovink, first particular envoy for Worldwide Water Affairs of the Netherlands.
“We’ve got seen erratic unseasonal rainfalls, generally in extra of 100mm in a number of hours and a number of instances in a 12 months. Persons are starting to expertise the fact of local weather change and the notice of the necessity for higher water administration is excessive. Now’s the suitable time for individuals who personal or handle land to put money into water initiatives to make sure large-scale storage adequate to make sure the well-being of residents of the town,” says Sudheendra.
Classes for the folks and policy-makers
Sudheendra feedback that in his view, the unique authorized modifications introduced by Jayalalithaa’s authorities had been impactful.
“Although it was tough to implement this method in particular person homes, all constructions (residential, industrial or academic) constructed after this date have rainwater harvesting techniques to some extent. A few of those that believed within the strategy put in rainwater harvesting systematically with underground sumps which retailer massive quantities of rainwater. This may be seen in Ramakrishna Mutt and Vivekananda Establishment in Mylapore which proudly show the system,” he says.
Sudheeendra says that in the present day rainwater harvesting is regarded in Chennai as a fundamental inexperienced measure. Many newspapers have written in regards to the success in surmounting each the water scarcity and addressing flooding challenges via this widespread observe.
He credit Sekhar for the function he performed and values his bore log of the rainwater harvesting techniques he has suggested for, applied or been part of, offering information that reveals a leap within the water desk seemingly associated to rainwater harvesting techniques.
These tales present what might be achieved on one’s personal and likewise as a collective. The outcomes are technological approaches in addition to societal engagement strategies which have the potential to be extensively used significantly if backed by coverage at a metropolis or different stage.
Each Raghavan and Sudheendra are of the view that with some coverage nudges, these inexpensive optimistic actions might be mainstreamed. Challenges stay; for instance, wastewater therapy by industries is already a authorized requirement, however permitting handled water for use to recharge the aquifers is just not regular.
Nevertheless, as Sudheendra says, good coverage by itself won’t create change. Laws want each enforcement and buy-in. Architects, builders and the unusual family should recognise the advantage of growing entry to native water provides. Securing water provide for a “dry day” as one might say is significant. As these dry days develop into ever extra frequent, with the acute climate ensuing from local weather change, holistic native motion is vital.
Written by Maya De Souza and Edited by Padmashree Pande
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