IDENTIFYINGHOTSPOTSFORSTORMWATERHARVESTINGANDREUSEINURBANAREASAPPLYING

REMOTESENSING,GISANDSYSTEMOPTIMIZATIONTECHNIQUES

ShrayPathak,AnoopKumarShukla,C.S.P.Ojha,R.D.Garg

Department of Civil Engineering,

Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India
shraypathak@gmail.com

ABSTRACT for all uses. This impels the requirement of re-configuration

 of current urban water systems and development towards
The target of sustainable water sensitive cities can be
accomplished by re-configuration of current urban water
systems. Stormwater speaks to a significant option for urban
water source so as to minimize the load on crisp water
assets, and to alleviate the environmental effect of urban
stormwater runoff. Suitable site selection for urban
stormwater harvesting is for the most part taking into
account the acumen of water planners, who are confronted
with the challenge of considering various socio-economic
and technical components that impact the site aptness. To
meet this challenge, the present work focused on developing
an effective GIS based screening approach so as to identify
the potentially appropriate stormwater harvesting sites in
urban regions as a first attempt for then more comprehensive
investigation. Initially, the concentration is on the suitability
evaluation in view of the relationship between harvestable
runoff and demand with the help of concept of accumulated
catchments. The potential sites for stormwater harvesting
were taken as drainage outlets of these accumulated
catchments. With various screening parameters, the study is
done for Dehradun city as with the increase in population
thus causes imminent water crises in the city. In the study 28
potential stormwater harvesting sites are proposed out of
which it can be further tune to 3 or 4 preferable sites. The
quick identification of suitable stormwater harvesting sites
can aid the planners in prioritizing schemes in regions that
will have an enormous effect in the reduction of potable
water demand.
Index Terms— Stormwater harvesting, Urban area, GIS,
WNI, Suitable sites.
 fed by myriad lakes, glacial melts and streams. On the east
1.INTRODUCTION
Urban areas are confronted with the urge to expand
their water supply sources to deal with developing populace
driven demand and concern of supply from water catchments
because of climate change and droughts [4], [6]. A question
arises on the long term sustainability of current urban water
systems due to high demand for limited natural water assets
more sustainable arrangements by incorporating the
allocation and management of water supply, wastewater
resources and stormwater. In this manner, stormwater speaks
to an important option urban water source to reduce demand
on freshwater assets and to get the better of flow restrictions.
Collection, treatment, storage and distribution of stormwater
streams are the processes involved in stormwater harvesting
and reuse. Therefore, the most crucial step is the optimal
selection of a site for urban stormwater harvesting as there is
a direct involvement of social, public, environmental impact,
topography, political interference, technical aspects and
legislative issues which increases the difficulties in selecting
the suitable sites within economic, social and environmental
considerations.
2.OBJECTIVE
Thus the aim of the study is to develop a suitable urban
stormwater harvesting site selection methodology and tool
considering multiple technical, societal, economic and
environmental aspects that influence the site suitability by
applying remote sensing, GIS and optimization approaches.
3.STUDYAREA

The study area is Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Uttarakhand
covers total area of about 53,483 km2, out of which major
portion that is 86% is covered by mountains and 65% is
forest. Northern part of the state is occupied by glaciers and
Himalayan peaks. Ganga and Yamuna, two of India’s largest
rivers emanate from glaciers of Uttarakhand, where they are
of Dehradun is Ganga and on west is Yamuna both are
India’s mightiest rivers and lies in the foothills of the
Himalayas in fig 1.

978-1-5090-3332-4/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE 967 IGARSS 2016


 decision-making process. Fuzzy logic techniques can be
Fig.1: Dehradun city (Source: SOI)
4.DATAUSEDANDMETHODOLOGY
To come up to this challenge, there is a demand for a
citywide screening tool that can determine sites potentially
suitable for stormwater harvesting by considering existing
and new developed areas. For a first pass, a Remote sensing
and GIS based screening techniques can be implemented for
identifying potentially suitable stormwater harvesting sites
and then detailed investigation can be performed. With the
help of high resolution Remote Sensing Satellite Image data
can be used to gather the topography, spatial, spectral and
temporal information about the region. Ikonos, Quickbird,
SPOT, ORBVIEW, etc, satellites data can be used for
applying various classification algorithms like object based
classification, supervised, unsupervised classification, etc.
for predicting the land use land cover changes. These high
resolution data are an excellent source for efficient,
economic and accurate generation of Digital Elevation
Model (DEM), [12] which is beneficial for predicting the
slope, aspect, accumulated flow of Stormwater which is can
be used as primary information for predicting potential
hotspots.
Various approaches are as follows to identify the
hotspots.
One of the effective assessment approaches is the Water
Needs Index (WNI), which minimizes modelling activities
while maximizing the integration of local knowledge [1].
The WNI is an interdisciplinary methodology that can be
adopted to determine meticulous water issues and sites that
require consideration from local water powers. The strategy
utilizes a weighted multi-criteria assessment to infer a
framework analysis within the ranking of dimensions and
data sources. The important task is to define the dimensions
and afterwards choice of data sources to be applied to
populate the dimensions. Sometimes it is really difficult to
assess the representativeness and reliability of chosen data
sources as often questions may arise on data acquisition. The
968
WNI approach has been utilized to impart advancement of
preliminary data installed in Integrated Urban Water
Management approaches which require a more holistic
frameworks viewpoint while outlining for Urban Water
Management. Suitable sites selection involves Fuzziness and
recently fuzzy theory has been utilized for an extract of
suitable sites for various reasons. Fuzzy theory has been
used for mathematical form representation of uncertain or
noisy information and can also be applied in various fields
such as business, engineering, psychology, etc. for different
roles. Fuzzy logic theory and fuzzy set theory prove to be
excellent means in representation of imprecision and
uncertainty and also for defining the reasoning in the
very effectively utilized to pick out the best possible
locations [10] and it can also be applied to obtain rankings
or to place variables in hierarchical order [8]. The
membership function (MF) TRIMF- triangular MF and
Defuzzification method, CENTROID- centroid of area
method, MATLAB Fuzzy Logic Toolbox etc. are various
approaches for the excerpt of the suitable site for stormwater
harvesting.
Climatic conditions are changing temporally as well as
spatially. Change in climatic conditions is also a major
factor as it will affect both the flow of stormwater as well as
desirable locations for stormwater harvesting. So detailed
studied on climate variation is needed for optimizing the
most suitable site for urban stormwater harvesting. Other
factors like life cycle cost and environmental cost, i.e.
community cost contributes in predicting the hotspots.
5.RESULTS

There are many methods to obtain hotspots for the
desired region. These methods use various optimization
techniques and following steps to identify potential hotspot
sites. Evaluation of suitability criteria, Estimation of
environmental flows, Evaluation of screening parameters,
Ranking and validation are some of the steps for the
identification [5]. In these steps rainfall, annual runoff,
potable demand of pervious and impervious layer, DEM and
accumulated catchments data are gathered. Then harvestable
runoff is computed which is the difference of total runoff
and pre-development flow which indicates the actual amount
of water for reuse.
There was a change of 27.19% in the population of 2011
compared to the population of 2001. In the Census of India
2001, Dehradun district recorded an increase of 25% in its
population compared to 1991. This was due to the formation
of the new state of Uttarakhand, which resulted in mass
migration of people to urban centers of the newly formed
districts in the state and thus causes imminent water crises in
the city. Also by taking into the role of depletion in the
ground water table, population growth, and various drainage
network maps, etc. the suitable sites can be identified and
shortlisted. The City Development Plan (CDP) have
proposed the sector wise distribution of investment as shown
in fig 2.
Fig.2:Sector-wise distribution of investment proposed
(Source: CDP Dehradun, July 2015)
Some of the parameters which are considered for identifying
potential hotspots are demand, ratio of runoff to demand and
weighted demand distance. This approach was adopted by
Inamdar et al [5], for identification of hotspot in City of
Melbourne and is further extended and utilize on the
Dehradun city. The suitable potential sites which can be a
hotspot for stormwater harvesting is shown in fig.3.
Municipal Boundary
National Highway
State Highway
Major City Road
Railway Line
Drainage network
Potential Hotspots
Fig. 3: Potential hotspot sites in Dehradun City
In fig 3, the various hotspots are identified by considering
like population growth, groundwater, social, economic,
environmental, fuzziness, etc. can also be introduced to
finalize the site which can be suitable for stormwater
harvesting.
6.DISCUSSION

Based on the screening of potential stormwater
harvesting sites using remote sensing, GIS and WNI
approaches, a group of top sites are analyzed using system
optimization techniques. Identification of hotspots for
stormwater harvesting may help in proper planning of the
city. The judgement can be further refined if the social,
economic, environmental, population growth, ground water
level, climate change and some of the other optimization
techniques can be applied to obtain the best suited hotspots.
Also with so many queries on identification, shortlisting,
selecting, finalizing of sites and only few available definite
answers, the fuzziness may be the better option in the
decision making process.
7.REFERENCES
[1] Alexander, K.S., Moglia, M., Tjandraatmadja, G.T.,
Nguyen, M., Larson, S., Trung, N.H., Barkey, R.A., (2011),
“Evaluation of Water Needs Index case studies, In: Chan, F.,
Marinova, D., Anderssen, R.S. (Eds.)”, MODSIM2011, 19th
International Congress on Modelling and Simulation.
Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New
Zealand: Perth, Australia, pp. 2896-2872.
[2] Brown, R., (2005), “Impediments to integrated urban
stormwater management: the need for institutional reform”,
Environmental Management 36, 455-468.
[3] Fletcher, T., Deletic, A., Mitchell, V., Hatt, B., (2008),
“Reuse of urban runoff in Australia: a review of recent
advances and remaining challenges”. Journal of Environ-
mental Quality 37, 116-127.
[4] Goonrey, C.M., Lechte, P., Perera, B., Maheepala, S.,
Mitchell, V., (2007), “Examining the technical feasibility of
using stormwater as an alternative supply source within an
existing urban area-A case study”. Australian Journal of
Water Resources 11, 13.
[5] Inamdar, P. M., Cook, S., Sharma, A. K., Corby, N.,
O'Connor, J., & Perera, B. J. C. (2013). A GIS based
screening tool for locating and ranking of suitable
stormwater harvesting sites in urban areas. Journal of
environmental management, 128, 363-370.
[6] Lloyd, S., :RQJ 7 &KHVWHU¿HOG & 
the above mentioned parameters. The number of potential
Opportunities and impediments to water ensitive urban
hotspots obtained in the city is 28. Later other parameters
design in Australia. In: Proceedings of the Second South

969
3DFL¿F 6WRUPZDWHU &RQIHUHQFH $XFNODQG 1HZ =HDODQG
pp. 302-309.

[7] Maheepala, S., Blackmore, J., Diaper, C., Moglia, M.,

Sharma, A., Kenway, S., (2010), Integrated Urban Water
Management Planning Manual. Water Research Foundation,
Denver, CO.

[8] Mahler, C. F. & Lima, S. A. D. L. (2003). “Applying

value analysis and fuzzy logic to select areas for installing
waste fills”, Environment Monitoring and Assessment, 84,
129–140, 200.

[9] Ojha, C.S.P., Goyal, M.K. and S.Kumar, (2007),

“Applying fuzzy logic and point count system to select
landfill sites”, J. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment,
Elsevier Publishers, Vol. 135(3), 99-106.

[10] Rajiv S. (2003). “Polycentric games and institutions In

McGinnis MD (ed) Readings Workshop Political Theory
Policy Analysis”. J Economic Behaviour and Organization,
52, 595–598.

[11] Sharma, A.K., Grant, A.L., Grant T., Pamminger F. and

Opray, L., (2009), “Environmental and Economic
Assessment of Urban Water Services for a Greenfield
Development”, Environmental Engineering Science, Vol.
26, 5.

[12] Shin, D., H. Lee, and P. Wonkyu, 2003. Stereroscopic

GCP Simulation Model for the Assessement of Camera
Modeling Algorithms, ISSDQ Proceedings, Hongkong,
China

[13] Zadeh, L. A. (1965). Fuzzy sets. Information and

Controls, 8, 353–383.

[14] Zadeh, L. (1983). The role of fuzzy logic in the

management of uncertainty in expert systems. Fuzzy Sets
and Systems, 11, 199–227.

970