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Water Index parameters
Written By shekhar_mittal - 3 April, 2010
Bangalore Water Bangalore Water Index
Participants: Vishwanath Sir, Jenny, Rajesh Shah, Neha Dar, Rithesh, Shekhar, Srivatsva, Swati Dandekar
We met today at Alliance Francaise to define the scope of the water index and chalk out our next steps.
The scope of the index has been divided into 5 categories. The following is an initial list of parameters we came up with during the meeting. This list will continue to be built incrementally before we finalise a stable index.
1. Pipe Water
a. Hours of Supply
b. Coverage - Percentage of households having a bwssb connection.
c. Unaccounted for Water- Calculated by measuring the amount of water that BWSSB bills to the amount of water that it supplies.
d. Slum Coverage - Percentage coverage in slums. BWSSB mandates that every household in a slum must be given a water connection.
e. Pressure - The normal pressure of pipeline supply should be upto 3 meters from ground level. i.e Water should be able to reach an overhead tank on the first floor without any pumping by the house owner.
f. Residual Chlorine
g. Other Quality parameters as outlined in BIS-10500
2. Ground Water
a. Number of borewells
b. Depth of borewell
c. Depth to which the borewell is dug
d. Depth of Water table
e. Quality as prescribed in BIS-10500
3. Surface Water
a. Number of tanks/lakes
b. Storage capacity
c. Water Level
d. Number of tanks under repair by LDA and other agencies; status of work
e. Presence/Absence of Wildlife - Whether people can spot wildlife around the lake.
f. Hyacinth-
i. Presence of hyacinth
ii. Percentage of lake covered with Hyacinth.
4. Sewage
a. Coverage
b. Collection Ratio
c. Capacity of Treatment Plant
d. Revenues Generated
e. Personal/Community sewage treatment facility
5. Rain Water Harvesting
a. Number of structures Targetted by BWSSB/ Number Done
b. Storage/RWH Installation
c. Ground water recharge/RWH Installation
Request Praja members to review this list, focusing on
* Any broad category that has not been covered.
* Any parameter that has been left out.
Plan of Action
* Finalise a list of parameters that need to be tracked.
* Determine sources of data for these parameters.
* Come up with metrics to define data
* Review and analysis by Praja members, experts etc.
* Define Index structure
So fire away your questions/comments/feedback.
COMMENTS
Neha_Dar - 3 April, 2010 - 20:01
As for what the water index numbers will do:
(i) draw a comparative picture of water health (quality/quantity/accessibility/reliability etc) across various demographics and parts of the city, and
(ii) track, over a period of time, the impact of policies and programs introduced by the govt. bodies in charge (for eg, BWSSB announces it will increase coverage in Koramangala over a period of 6 months. Our Koramangala coverage parameter tracks this.)
n - 3 April, 2010 - 23:21
Some additional important parameters:
- Infiltration vs. runoff: i.e., how much water is received by precipitation vs. how is available as ground water vs. how much runs off w/o being utilized. Extent of infiltration that is enabled than being allowed to runoff (probably just from the less implemented and much-hyped RWH). RWH is one component - see SuDS and LID.
- Sources for water: there is talk about pumping from Mangalore! Or, dam"ming" the SW runoff valleys in B'luru. Cheaper to infiltrate than above two. Source / supply will affect cost and the index. Higher distance / cost or dams = lower sustainability = lower no. on index
- Water recycling: Quantity (in percentage), re-supply, cost, etc.
Best to separate out sewage and sewerage from water index except for recycled good or grey water.
- Cost / subsidy: If people are paying or willing to pay high cost for tanker water, why will they not pay un-subsidized cost for supplied water?
- Per capita std. requirement / demand vs. availability (some people dont like "per capita" as a measure ;-) but standards are based on lpcd)
- On lakes: no. of treatment plants, recovery of cost from surrounding establishments / apartments / homes / industries. again, recycling data. No point clearing pollution - just medicine and not preventive.
OK - dont want to inundate (:-)). If it takes off, may add more in future. Most of the data should be available w/ BWSSB (esp. reqd. when applying for loans) - so no point spending extra time. ISEC is also a good source. A base or standard is needed otherwise an index number of 77 means what?? Is 100 perfect?
shekhar_mittal - 3 April, 2010 - 15:55
Two more categories or parameters..
Bheema.Upadhyaya - 3 April, 2010 - 16:22
I am not sure how much I understood regarding water index concept, but I am trying to correlate proposed water index with quality of life and environment preservation.
So I think two more can be added somewhere. One being the mineral water/purified water which will be related with quality of life. The other being of recycled (industrial) water for environment.
silkboard - 4 April, 2010 - 19:03
You got me there IDS. Keep preaching to all to use the website more than emails, and I chose not to practice that myself here.
Shekhar - time to try the project wiki feature?
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