Home > Hyderabad > Hyderabad Plans Major ₹7,500 Crore Flood Management Push With Advanced Drainage and Flood Monitoring Systems
Hyderabad: Hyderabad is looking at a major expansion of its flood-management infrastructure, with a proposed investment of around ₹7,500 crore being reported for a comprehensive programme aimed at reducing urban flooding and improving the city’s ability to respond to extreme rainfall.
The reported plan includes a combination of pumping stations, underground storage reservoirs, comprehensive stormwater-drain mapping, GIS-based flood modelling, early-warning systems and large-scale 3D surveying. The proposed exercise is expected to cover the city’s broader urban region within the Outer Ring Road (ORR).
However, the ₹7,500 crore figure and the complete package of proposed works have not yet been found in a publicly available detailed government project document. The figure is currently being circulated in reports and social-media posts. Official and institutional sources do confirm that Telangana has been moving towards technology-driven flood management, drainage mapping and restoration of water bodies.
A key component of the reported programme is the creation of a comprehensive digital database of Hyderabad’s stormwater drainage system. This would help authorities identify existing drains, their carrying capacity, bottlenecks, inundation-prone locations and connections between different drainage channels.
Telangana’s geospatial infrastructure already contains detailed layers for nalas, inundation areas, proposed and existing drain widths, tanks, rivers, canals and stream networks. The Telangana Remote Sensing Applications Centre (TGRAC) maintains GIS layers covering these features, including areas within the ORR region.
Such a digital drainage map could allow authorities to identify locations where stormwater gets trapped during intense rainfall and determine where widening, desilting, new connections or additional infrastructure may be required.
The reported proposal also envisages underground storage reservoirs and pumping stations as part of the city’s flood-control infrastructure.
The idea is to temporarily store excess rainwater when the existing drainage network cannot immediately carry the runoff and then release or pump the water in a controlled manner. Such infrastructure could be particularly useful in heavily built-up areas where acquiring large parcels of land for conventional surface-level reservoirs is difficult.
The exact locations, capacities and number of proposed reservoirs and pumping stations have not yet been officially detailed in the publicly available sources reviewed for this report.
Another significant element being reported is a 3D survey of the Core Urban Region within the ORR. High-resolution terrain and elevation data can play an important role in understanding how rainwater moves across an urban landscape.
Hyderabad has previously used aerial and geospatial mapping for infrastructure planning. The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), for example, lists aerial photography and 3D utility mapping projects involving Hyderabad, as well as digital topographic and terrain database work.
A detailed modern survey could provide authorities with information on ground elevations, drainage gradients, road levels, low-lying areas and natural water-flow paths. This data can subsequently be incorporated into hydraulic and flood models.
The proposed technology component is particularly important because Hyderabad has already been the subject of GIS-based flood modelling studies.
Researchers have used 1D and 2D flood models to simulate extreme rainfall, identify overflowing drainage nodes and generate inundation and flood-risk maps for parts of Hyderabad. Such models can help authorities determine which locations are likely to be affected when rainfall exceeds the capacity of existing drains.
Source: Read the original article on www.telanganatribune.com