As we are aware that every monsoon season Indian cities like delhi Mumbai Kolkata, face flood problems. Flood carries dirty, contaminated water that enters into home and streets. This water carry diseases with itself and spread illness in local area, where it is flooded. This situation is caused due to drainage problem in indian cities. Plastic clogged gutter and the lack of seperate pipelines for sewage and rainwater makes a favorable condition for water floodings. This blog explain deeply that how to prevent dirty water overflow during monsoon in india, what authorities can do and how to protect home during monsoon
How to protect home during monsoon from water pollution
Monsoon season come every year around early July and sometimes late July. Our home provide shelter from rain. Let’s know how to prevent dirty water overflow during monsoon
1. Build a mud trap : at the rooftop drain exit or at the gate, create a small pig line with stones and send at the point where rainwater exist your home and specially from rooftop or balconies. Most of the time water get collected there. The simple trap filters out mud, plastic bits and detergent foam before it reaches the road drain and eventually it reduce micro pollution.
2. Install cloth filters : In your balcony you can install cloth filters to catch micro waste. Use old cotton cloth or netting to line your balcony border or rooftop drain mouth. It helps in catching hair, detergent suds, food crumbs and even small plastic pieces. These waste materials are often unnoticed in local areas but they are capable to pollute the environment at mass level.
3. Monsoon biowash solution : replace your floor cleaners with monsoon by wash. Make a DIY disinfectant using Neem water vinegar and pinch of alum. This biowash is effective because it does not poison storm water drains like other floor cleaner like phenyl or acidic cleaners do. A poison free drain water will not harm soil, pets and your drainage too.
4. Create a monsoon detergent zone inside the bathroom : when you are washing then block the bathroom outlet temporarily and then reuse grey water for flushing. It is helpful to prevent a sudden load of chemical rich greywater entering into the public drain during rainy season. It’s weird but it’s have advantage that you will reduce water bills and safe 20-30 litre per wash.
5. Grow soap eating plants : grow plants like Vetiver, canna lily or elephant grass near drainage areas. These plants absorb surfactants and breakdown mild chemicals from grey water before it escapes. These plant are also called Hardy plants. They mimic nature’s own water purifier system.
6. Cover open waste pins with mess to prevent overflow : during rainy season overflowing bins become toxic mini drains. The rainwater wash garbage into the street, to prevent this use and Old plastic basket with the lid or a mosquito net to cover bins. You will prevent mini leachate spills that choke local drains.
7. Rain pause garden : if you have one or two square feet of soil spaces or even a tub create a rain pause point. At this point water can percolate slowly using pebbles, sand and single vertical plant like Banana or colocasia. It filter out pollutants from water naturally by delaying water escape. You can make this point at the corner and it is perfect for ground floor flats aur small houses.
By following these methods which I have provide you, even one household can reduce pollutant flow by over 30%. And if a whole lane adopts, it could prevent seasonal drain blockage entirely.
How can Government prevent water pollution during monsoon
It’s not about cleaning drains during monsoon to prevent waterflow in cities, it about re-designing how our cities interact with water during monsoon. Most of the Indian cities till rely on colonial era drainage blueprints. The ignore modern ecology and population density, authorities should shift to a new way for controlling waterflow. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), over 70% of urban wastewater in India is discharged untreated into water bodies during monsoon due to overloaded or non-functional drainage systems. Here are less- discussed factors which can create high impact during monsoon.
1. Mapping and reconnecting lost drainage paths : over 70% of natural water channels in India are Either buried during road construction or encroached. Bangalore and Chennai had seen major water floodings issues due to this. Government can use GIS hydrological mapping to terrace, restore buried channels and connect these lost water path into drainage.
2. Blue green infrastructure : instead of completely relying on concrete made drains, cities should connect water (blue ) with vegetation buffers( green). These buffers at as the natural filters and sponge, it slow down water runoff and filters pollutants. Municipal corporation must make it mandatory in housing layouts, roads and parks.
3. Integration of floating wetlands in water bodies : floating wetlands are the man made vegetated plateforms. in India during monsoon legs and ponds are connected with the sewage, But they should be connected with floating wetlands becouse it helps in Bio-filtration, absorbing nitrates and oils. It work as a low cost natural treatment and can be installed in ponds and lakes.
4. Establishing micro waste water units : large sewage treatment plants get over well during monsoon season due to heavy rain, instead of making STPs cities should build ward wise water treatment units specially near slums and high density zones. It helps to intercept greywater before it mixes with stone drains.
5. Launch drain blockage app : drainage failure is often seen due to last minute negligence. Government should launch an app used by citizens from where they can report drainage issues to the local body by real time geotagging. This enables faster civics response and accountability. Municipal bodies should stop treating drainage as seasonal chore and start treating it as a permanent urban infrastructure
Why dirty water is a big problem during monsoon in india
Dirty water during monsoon is a chain reaction of chemical, biological and infrastructural failure. We know how to prevent dirty water overflow during monsoon around our home and local areas. There is a lot of drainage problems in Indian cities and now we are going to see why it’s important to counter dirty water problem.
Leachate Leakage from landfills, during monsoon thousand tones of rainwater enters open dumping site. according to CPCB (2023) over 95% of India’s landfills are unlined. It means that rain mixes with bio waste, battery, chemicals and plastic to produce highly toxic leachates( harmful substances).
Urban flooding causes underground septic tanks to backflow, specially happens in low income housing. This process toilet blackwater up into drains. A study in Hyderabad found that during heavy rainfall 21% of house experience sewage reversal through floor drains.
Expired drug dumping, it looks like un- impactful. Local clinics in smaller towns of 10 + expired syrups, antibiotics and IV fluids into drains, And when rainy season comes they get mixed with water bodies. A survey by Toxic links (2022) showed that 61% of unauthorised clinics in small cities dispose of Pharma waste with regular garbage or into drains.
Mosquitoes prefer dirty water not clean water, many dangerous mosquito species don’t need clean water they breed better in organic rich, foul smelling runoff. The culex mosquito breeds in dirty stagnant water. In 2023 Uttar Pradesh reported 14, 000 filaria cases post monsoon and that is largely concentrated in flooded neighbourhoods.
Which Indian cities are managing water pollution in monsoon
INDOOR: India’s only city with pre monsoon drainage zones. They clean drains before the rain, they use GIS based mapping of blocked drains and mark them in red zones. Then these zones are assigned to private contractor for renewing under performance based pay.
In 2023 Indore cleaned 1270 km of drains and reused 21,000 metric tons of silt in road construction. They also used drain cameras to detect illegal sewage lines entering into the storm drains. Despite of heavy rainfall in July 2023 no major water logging incidence in core City zones were found.
SURAT: City engineers in Surat have separated greywater drains from rain drains and that was a smart move which most of the Indian cities still haven’t done. This is called dual pipe drainage strategy. Surat’s 2022 drainage upgrade laid 450 km of independent stormwater pipelines. Smart gates at the major outlets automatically set of industrial zones from storm drains during heavy rainfall. And result, chemical factory zones do not leak into residential rains during monsoon anymore.
NAVI MUMBAI: when other cities were building concrete drains Navi Mumbai created green infrastructure for kids to absorb and slow down monsoon water. They used relating technique which we have discussed above. 48 Rain gardens have been build at key point across sector 1-30. It also maintenance 10+ holding ponds near plum zone and storing up to 6 crore litres of runoff during peak rains. The bonus advantage of rain gardens is, they cool the micro climate and reduce mosquito breeding.
KOCHI: Kochi is the largest district in India and located in Kerala, it has launched India’s first “water sensitive urban design” pilot in its fort. Under this the roads are built using permeable peavers which allow water to seep into the soil below. Kochi is installing floating wetlands in canals to filter pollutants before their reach backwaters. Kochi became the first city using nature plus engineering together at street level.
Monsoon blog ends:
Monsoon is becoming like public health threat and environmental crisis becouse it’s not organized in a proper way. We know that dirty water is harmful if flooded on streets or inside home. But here we understood why it is an actual problem deeply. Follow are the steps to prevent drainage problem in indian cities.with better infrastructure and informed citizens we can build a cleaner environment and flood regulating area. Whether you are a homeowner or policymaker it’s time to take action now, Share this blog and tag government authorities to organize proper drainage system before monsoon turns into flood. Know more about :-
References
- Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). Over 70% of surface water in India is polluted due to untreated wastewater, especially during monsoon. Retrieved from https://www.cpcb.nic.in/
- The Centre for Science and Environment. A survey in "Toxic Links" reported dangerous levels of contamination in urban drains during monsoons. Retrieved from https://www.cseindia.org/toxic-links-a-study-on-urban-sewage-10123
- NITI Aayog and NIUA. A study in Hyderabad revealed clogged drains contributed to 40% of urban flooding incidents during monsoon season. Retrieved from https://niua.in/
- Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam Report (2023). Several districts reported dirty water overflow into residential areas due to broken or overloaded storm drains. Retrieved from https://jalnigamup.gov.in/