Sustainable Urban Drainage Control Systems: An
Approach to Control Urban Floods
Nikita Jaiswal
Department of Civil Engineering, Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College, 27 Kmstone, NH-24, Ghaziabad 201009 UP India
nikkijaiswall@gmail.com
Abstract – Increased urbanization causes increased flash
flooding after sudden rain in many cities. As the area loses
its ability to absorb rainwater, rain is directed to drainage
systems which causes urban flooding. The idea behind urban
drainage control systems is to drain away dirty and surface
runoff through collection, storage and cleaning before allowing
it to be released into water courses. Past efforts were mainly
directed towards flood control of urban area with the pollution
control being largely ignored. Currently, it is important to
develop design methodologies for both flood and pollution
control in the city like Delhi because there is heavy pollutional
load in river Yamuna. The current criteria used in determining
water quantity volumes in urban drainage control systems
design neglect predecessor conditions resulting from preceding
rainfall. During the dry period between rainfall events,
treatment of storm water proceeds and is considered complete
after a specific time period. The inter-event-dry period refers
to that time period which occurs between rainfall events.
Keywords: Drainage Control, Urban Floods, Storm Water Drains,
Sewage Disposal.
I. INTRODUCTION
THE idea behind Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems
(SUDS) is to try to imitate natural systems that use cost
effective solutions with low environmental impact to drain
away dirty and surface water run-off through collection,
storage, and cleaning before allowing it to be released
slowly back into the environment, such as into water
courses. This is to counter the effects of conventional
drainage systems that often allow for flooding, pollution
of the environment – with the resultant harm to wildlife –
and contamination of groundwater sources used to provide
drinking water. The paradigm of SUDS solutions should be
that of a system that is easy to manage, requiring little or no
energy input (except from environmental sources such as
sunlight, etc.), resilient to use, and being environmentally
as well as aesthetically attractive. Examples of this type of
system are detention or retention basins, swales, beds and
other wetland habitats that collect, store, and filter dirty
water along with providing a environment for wildlife. The
SUDS system aims to minimize or eliminate runoff from
the site, thus reducing the impact of greater volume and non
point pollution loads, the idea being that if all development
46
sites integrated SUDS then urban sewer flooding would
be less of a problem. Unlike traditional urban storm-water
drainage systems, SUDS provide greater benefits in terms
of water quality and biodiversity.
Typically, Urban Drainage Systems comprise:
● Input meteorology
● Catchment transforming the input to runoff
● Engineered elements of the drainage system.
II. SUDS IN DELHI, INDIA
Delhi being capital of India is highly urbanized with a
population density of approximately 9000 person per
Km2 . It has conventional drainage system. The irrigation
and flood control department of Delhi is responsible for
planning and execution of main drains having discharge
capacity of more than 1000 cusecs (28 cumecs). The storm
water drainage system of Delhi is broadly divided in the 5
drainage basins, namely:
(i) Najafgarh
(ii) Kanjhawala
(iii) Alipur
(iv) Shahdra
(v) Mehrauli.
Major drains receiving runoff from these basins are as
under:
(i) Najafgarh
(ii) Supplementary drain
(iii) Barapullah nala
(iv) Shahdra outfall drain.
Apart from the above major drains, most of the city storm
water drains directly outfall into river Yamuna on its right
bank catering to the walled Delhi (Old Delhi) and central/
New Delhi areas. Most of these drains have been provided
with regulators at outfall points to check the back flow of
river Yamuna into the city in times of flood. Besides this,
the entire sewage of Delhi finds its way into the major storm
water drains since there is no independent sewage disposal
mechanism in Delhi.

The issue of drainage of rainwater and use of storm-
water drains for wet waste i.e. sludge and domestic
and commercial sewage to flow and dump itself into
river Yamuna is causing health related issues and other
environmental problems, evidenced by the fact that the
houses abutting major drains in Delhi such as the Najafgarh
drain, as it flows past the colony of Punjabi Bagh in North
Delhi, have started facing problem of corrosion of air
conditioning equipment evidencing high level of SO2 gas
being emitted from these drains; and the cause for the
gas being emitted is the bio waste flowing in these storm
water drains.
The river Yamuna provides a natural drainage system
since the major drains, carrying storm water (as well as
sewage of Delhi) outfall into it. The drainage system of
Delhi was conventionally designed to carry storm water,
but as a result of an inadequate sewage disposal system, a
large quantity of untreated sewage finds its way into the
storm water drains thereby reducing the existing designed
discharge capacity of the storm water drains. Further, direct
disposal of sewage, cow dung from dairies, solid and liquid
waste from industries, dumping of garbage into storm water
drains chokes these drains, thereby reducing the carrying
capacity of the drains.
IIII. HISTORICAL DATA
The findings of this research are directly related to the
amount of rainfall data available for state of Delhi. Eight
rainfall stations were chosen of this study.
Figure 1. Sustainable Urban Drainage Control System.
47
URBAN DRAINAGE CONTROL SYSTEMS
Rainfall data record of last 15 years in the state of
Delhi is collected. The data were obtained from Indian
Meteorological Department, Pune for the purpose of
this study. SPSS (Stats Practically Short and Simple)
and MS EXCEL, both spreadsheet programs are used in
the management and statistical analysis of rainfall data.
The use of computers for the manipulation, retrieval and
ultimate analysis of the very large databases minimized
possibility for human error and increased accuracy of this
study.
For generating PIF curves, precipitation volumes for the
return periods of 2 months, 3 months, 4 months and 6
months were determined from the exceedence probability
analysis using linear interpolation when required.
Precipitations volumes can be read directly from the PIF
curves for a desired inter event dry period and return period.
It is reasonable to use these graphs to calculate the rainfall
volume to be used in the design of storm water management
systems. A 6 month or 1 year return period may be sufficient
for designing detention or retention basins for pollution
control. In addition, selection of 72h as a minimum inter
event dry period would seem to allow sufficient time for a
primary treatment. The exceedence probability distribution
for 24, 48, 72, 96, 120 hour inter-event-dry period and
the associated return periods for the Chandrawal Rainfall
station is shown in Table 1.The PIF curve for Chandrawal
rainguage station is shown in Fig.2. Precipitation volumes
can be read directly from the PIF curves for a desired inter-
event dry period and return period.
AKGEC INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY, Vol. 8, No. 2

Figure 2. PIF curve.

Table 1: EXCEEDENCE PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION or desired purification time is achieved. Designer get
flexibility to get the varying water quality improvement
level based on different system detention times by the use
Return
2 months 3 months 4 months 6 months of Inter-event-dry period in designs.
period

24hr 42.21156 52.21354 62.03124 81.57 Conditional frequency distributions on rainfall volumes
giving a minimum inter-event-dry period were developed for
48hr 42.4107 65.20833 81.9643 91.40626 eight regions of Delhi. For specified exceedence frequencies
PIF (precipitation-inter-event-dry period-frequency)
72hr 43.62499 79.02344 84.16667 96.25012 curves were developed that relate precipitation volume to
minimum inter-event-dry periods. Rainfall volume with a
96hr 36.25 75.20833 83.75 102.5
recurrence interval or return period of 6 months and a 72
hour inter-event-dry period is recommended for design of
120hr 30 58.20312 81.14583 101.4063
urban drainage control systems.

IV. CONCLUSION It is very difficult to establish SUDs in an urbanized city

This work is based on the concept of inter-event-dry period
which forms the basis of rainfall analysis and finding of
return periods by use of exceedence probability distribution
functions. It is proposed to use a minimum inter-event-
dry period as a design of urban drainage control systems
which act as storm water control as well as pollution
control source. The specified inter-event-dry period with
specific return period should be consistent with the length
of time needed for the consideration of potential impacts on
receiving waters such that cumulative effects are minimized
like Delhi, India. There is no space available in the city to
develop a new drainage pattern. Therefore, it is mandatory to
follow an integrated approach where engineers and planners
must develop SUDs along with the existing drainage
patterns in the city. From the GIS study, it was also found
that another option is to develop filter strips, ponds, basins,
swales etc. near bank of the river Yamuna since wastewater
from the agricultural land pollutes the river directly. For
Delhi city, the EMC’s of different physico-chemical storm-
water pollutants have been estimated for different stations.

48

Land-use classification using GIS and remote sensing has
been done. The next step is to study in detail the existing
drainage pattern of the city and to locate the hot-spots for
establishment of SUDs. In NCT, India for different scale,
diffuse pollution problem can be tackled using following
methods:
● Source Control: Constructing the filter drains, strips,
infiltration trenches, PPS, soakaways and swales are
required.
● Site Controls: Detention basins, filter drains, infiltration
basins, soak-aways and swales can be established.
● Regional Controls: The treatment facility under this type of
control incorporates retention ponds, storm-water wetlands
and enhanced extended detention basins.
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Nikita Jaiswal obtained B.Tech. Engg in Civil
Engineering from CSVTU University in 2012.
She also obtained M.Tech degree in Hydraulics
and Flood Engineering from Delhi Technological
University, Delhi in 2014.
Since last two years, she is teaching at Ajay Kumar
Garg Engineering College, as Assistant Professor
in the Department of Civil Engineering.
She is interested in many research areas like Groundwater Development and
Management, Rainwater Harvesting, Watershed Management and Urban
Water Management, Climate Change Rainfall-Runoff Modelling, SCS-CN
Methodology, Flood forecasting, Irrigation and Drainage Engineering,
Design of Irrigation and Drainage Structures, Dam Break Studies, Reservoir
operation, Environmental Engineering, Water and waste water audit.