The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Digital database to address groundwater pollution

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 09, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Digital database to address groundwater pollution

By M. Dinesh Varma

CHENNAI, FEB. 8. A Union Government-aided Geographic Information System (GIS) project being launched in the city will seek to create a digital database to address problems ranging from groundwater pollution to vector-borne diseases.

The Rs. 51-lakh stormwater drain management project with a three-year timeframe is funded by the Department of Information and Technology and jointly undertaken by the Unit of Environmental Health and Biotechnology under the Zoology Department of Loyola College and the Geography Department of the University of Madras.

The project aims at mapping the stormwater network in the Corporation area, formulating a digital database to facilitate easy updating and monitoring of stormwater drains, identifying sensitive areas for groundwater recharge potential and sedimentation possibilities, educating the Corporation departments on the stormwater network in relation to public health issues, especially malaria and vector breeding sites, and understanding the biological components of the stormwater system with reference to bacteria, virus and nutrient enrichment problems.

"We envisage the end product as a tool of the Spatial Decision Support System for the Corporation," says S. Vincent, Loyola College, one of the two principal investigators.

"We have started preliminary work on designing the database following a hierarchical system that starts with the mapping of streets," said the other investigator, N. Sivagnanam, professor and head, Department of Geography, University of Madras.

The Environment Health unit in Loyola College is a centre for excellence in bacteriological, microbial and biotechnological studies. The university's Geography Department has advanced software for GIS, remote sensing and a Global Positioning System (GPS) survey for data collection.

The agencies collaborating for the project include Metrowater and Anna University (to provide satellite imagery for digital documentation).

Tackling diseases

The investigators say a GIS-enabled stormwater digital mapping can help to tackle the seasonal outbreak of malaria, dengue, filariasis and leptospirosis — directly caused by seasonal rains and the failure of the stormwater drainage systems.

The project will map flood-prone areas to profile areas where improvements can be carried out to control flooding of low level areas during moderate to heavy rainfall. The investigators say the city's domestic water supply depends heavily on the existing surface level storage system. The city's development reduced the potential area of recharge. A more accurate profile of the hydrogeomorphologic structure of the city will be a vital input in streamlining the drainage system.

The investigators also plan to map locations prone to contamination by biological and chemical pollutants. During rains, though the severity of pollution may get reduced at source the problem extends to larger areas, they point out.

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