HYDERABAD: Greater Hyderabad’s stormwater drainage network can handle extreme rainfall of even 282 mm a day, says a study conducted by researchers from BITS Pilani, Hyderabad campus.
The study was conducted into the future urban flooding scenario in the city due to extreme rainfall as a result of climate change and the ability of the existing stormwater drainage network in the GHMC limits to handle them.
However, any Hyderabadi will find this finding hard to believe, despite it coming from a well-known institution and being published in a peer-reviewed international scientific journal, ‘Natural Hazards.’
One need not look far to understand this scepticism.
The first monsoon showers of this season on Friday which peaked at 104 mm in Serilingampally, brought the traffic across entire IT corridor to a standstill.
In many other parts of the city too, where the rainfall was not recorded above 20-50 mm, also experienced inundation.
However, the BITS Pilani, Hyderabad study comes with a rider. It points out that the 282 mm rainfall can be handled only if desiltation works are conducted thoroughly in the existing stormwater drains.
Desiltation refers to the removal of natural and man-made waste that enters the drains and decrease the water-carrying capacity of the drains.
The failure of stormwater drains to handle even 104 mm of rainfall on Friday, points out only one thing, that the GHMC has not been doing its annual exercise of desilting stormwater drains efficiently.
Analysing the capacity of stormwater drains in Greater Hyderabad region to handle run-off water from extreme rainfall events that occurred in the past and in future scenarios, BITS Pilani Hyderabad researchers point out that the most vulnerable areas to flooding are the GHMC stormwater zones 10, 12, 13 and 14 which include areas like Serilingampally, Quthbullapur, Kukatpally, Moosapet, Khairatabad, Yousufguda, Begumpet, Musheerabad, Amberpet, Secunderabad, Malkajgiri and Kapra