Unbelievable!! Soon, the entire Chennai city will be transformed into a sponge!!
Posted on: 11/Mar/2023 9:33:58 AM
To prevent floods and recharge groundwater, the GCC has devised an ambitious plan to convert the entire Chennai into a sponge city. It is known to us that there are plans already to create sponge parks and restore Pallikaranai marshland etc. This marshland is a natural sponge that could hold the floodwater well leading to a reduction in floods in Chennai especially in the monsoon season.
By adopting innovative water management strategies to tackle urban flooding, Chennai would be converted into a sponge city. This was as per an officer from the GCC. By making Chenai a sponge city, the urban areas would become more permeable and there would be more open spaces to store rain water. This rainwater would then be allowed to percolate to aquifers and would reduce run-offs.
Model sponge city parks:
It is worthy to note here that GCC has chosen Mathur MMDA Colony pond and Thiruvottriyur north pond and would develop them as model sponge city parks that could be replicated across Chennai. The civic body would make sure that the permeable pavements are used in all the newly built parks. The ground level would not be raised to reduce flash runoff into storm water drains.
It is learnt that the GCC would be setting up a real time flood forecasting and spatial decision support system under which lake and reservoir operation guidance systems would be developed. In Chennai , flood control rooms would be set up. Information is that data from Chengalpet, Thiruvallur, Kancheepuram etc would be shared with the Chennai corporation.
Under Singara Chennai 2.0 initiative, the GCC has already started to create sponge parks in 14 locations across the city. There would be pond-like structures in the sponge parks and around them walkways, trees and fencing etc would be provided. There would be recharge wells, inlet and outlet pipes etc in the ponds.
It must be noted that whenever there is heavy rain then the excess water would be diverted to sponge parks and stored there temporarily. For identifying suitable OSR or open space reserve lands for creating sponge parks, CMDA has put forth a related proposal.
