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Mumbai: Where is the Water?

Technical Report · December 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13742.92486

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MUMBAI: WHERE IS THE WATER?
Mapping Freshwater Resources in Mumbai, India
Kelly Dobroski
 1

Abstract
Mumbai is a megacity located on the southwest coast of India, home to more than 18

million people. This region is drought prone, which makes potable water an even more precious

resource. However, the majority of the water must be sourced outside of Mumbai as there are not

enough resources within the city itself. The purpose of this project was to generate GIS data layers

and maps of some locations that supply Mumbai with freshwater. The following five reservoirs

were mapped: Upper, Middle, and Lower Vaitarna, Tansa Lake, and Bhatsa Reservoir. Reservoir

locations were determined the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai Basic Services report

and Google Earth. Areas of interest included dams and their respective reservoirs, as well as their

watersheds. Geographic Information System (GIS) software was used through Esri’s ArcMap

10.3.1, ArcCatalog, and ArcScene. Global elevation data was collected from the Shuttle Radar

Topography Mission (SRTM) database to delineate watersheds for the established reservoir

locations. The hydrology toolkit was utilized to determine flow direction, flow length, elevation

and watershed boundaries. Watersheds were manually interpolated, as the watershed tool was

unsuccessful in automatically delineating boundaries. Three maps were completed, in addition to

a 3D elevation model of the reservoirs. These deliverables can be used for future landscape

development, ensuring water security, as well as planning for natural disasters.

 2

Table of Contents
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 1

Table of Figures .............................................................................................................................. 3

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 4

Methods........................................................................................................................................... 5

Data Collection............................................................................................................................ 5

Hydrology Analysis..................................................................................................................... 6

Watershed Boundaries................................................................................................................. 8

Data Organization ....................................................................................................................... 9

Results ............................................................................................................................................. 9

Discussion ..................................................................................................................................... 15

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 17

Appendix A ................................................................................................................................... 19
 3

Table of Figures
Figure 1. SRTM Vector Data .......................................................................................................... 7

Figure 2. 3D Elevation Model. ..................................................................................................... 11

Figure 3. Watershed and Dam Elevation. ..................................................................................... 12

Figure 4. Watershed Flow Length ................................................................................................ 13

Figure 5. Watersheds and Dams with Satellite Imagery. .............................................................. 14

Table 1. Watershed Information – Attribute table ........................................................................ 11

 4

Introduction
Mumbai, Maharashtra is a megacity located on the southwest coast of India, and as of the

2011 census was home to more than 18 million people.1 Many of these individuals live in

informal settlements, or slums, with limited access to clean water. This year, Mumbai has been

hit especially hard with a drought. There has been a 39 per cent rain deficit across Maharashtra,

with some regions impacted more drastically than others.2 Water is a precious resource for this

region, as the majority of the rainfall is experienced from June to September through monsoons.3

These monsoons refill the reservoirs that are the source of drinking water, irrigation, and

hydropower for the city.

The majority of reservoirs are located outside of the city, and water is trucked or sent

along pipelines to reach Mumbai citizens.4 Each region is allocated a certain percentage of the

water by status, not by need. This results in a water shortage for thousands, as slums may receive

70 liters per capita per day, while neighboring locations have access to 265 liters per person per

day.5 The difference in this values is more startling when water use cuts are made during a

drought. Having access to clean water is essential for life, and it is important to understand where

these freshwater resources are as well as the reservoir capacity.

1
Mumbai (Greater Mumbai) Metropolitan, Census 2011, accessed December 13, 2015,
http://www.census2011.co.in/census/metropolitan/305-mumbai.html
2
Maharashtra declares drought in 14,708 villages, The Indian Express, accessed December 5, 2015,
http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/maharashtra-declares-drought-in-14708-villages/
3
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India Meteorological Department, accessed December 5, 2015, http://www.imd.gov.in/
4
Urban Basic Services, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, accessed November 14, 2015,
http://www.mcgm.gov.in/irj/go/km/docs/documents/MCGM%20Department%20List/City%20Engineer/Deputy%20City
%20Engineer%20(Planning%20and%20Design)/City%20Development%20Plan/Urban%20Basic%20Services.pdf
5
Mumbai, Thane and Pune hog 52% of drinking water, The Times of India, accessed December 12, 2015,
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-Thane-and-Pune-hog-52-of-drinking-
water/articleshow/49955509.cms
 5

The purpose of this investigation was to determine where some of the most important

reservoirs and dams were located in relation to Mumbai. While information is accessible for

many of these resources, there is limited to no geographic information systems (GIS) data

available. These GIS maps can be used for resource management planning, modeling, and more.

Methods
Data Collection
Mumbai freshwater resources were determined by cross referencing information

presented by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai City Development Plan, the India

National Register of Large Dams, and news articles. The City Development Plan discusses

projections for development from 2005-2025, including information about six current water

sources.6 The India National Register of Large Dams presents similar information, but includes

the dam type, purpose, and capacity.7 Together, these sources provided reliable information on

almost all of the dams selected. This demonstrates that information is available on these sources,

however, no GIS data was discovered.

While seven important reservoirs were initially identified, only five were selected for

inclusion in the GIS data. The two reservoirs located within Mumbai were not selected for

analysis due to time constraints. These selected reservoirs were: Upper Vaitarna, Middle

Vaitarna, Lower Vaitarna, Bhatsa Dam, and Tansa Lake. Lower Vaitarna is synonymous with

Modak Sagar in official documentation as the dam was renamed, however, it will be referenced

throughout this report as Lower Vaitarna. These reservoirs are located over 100 km east of

6
Urban Basic Services, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, accessed November 14, 2015,
http://www.mcgm.gov.in/irj/go/km/docs/documents/MCGM%20Department%20List/City%20Engineer/Deputy%20City
%20Engineer%20(Planning%20and%20Design)/City%20Development%20Plan/Urban%20Basic%20Services.pdf
7 National Register of Large Dams 2009, New Dehli, accessed December 8, 2015,

http://www.cwc.nic.in/main/downloads/National%20Register%20of%20Large%20Dams%202009.pdf
 6

Mumbai.8 These dams were selected for mapping due to their proximity to each other and large

water volume supply for Mumbai.

The seven initial reservoirs were searched for in Google Earth by their respective names.

Pins were placed at each of their locations and labeled appropriately to create a KMZ file, which

expedited data collection. A shapefile was created in Esri’s ArcMap of the KMZ file, generating

a point layer of the seven dams. This was done in the geographic coordinate system WGS 1984

(Figure 1).

Global elevation data from the US Geological Survey (USGS) Shuttle Radar Topography

Mission (SRTM) was utilized in this study. The Google Earth KMZ file was imported into the

SRTM Earth Explorer web application and through the point-to-polygon tool, created a polygon

to determine which DEM vector data would be needed to map the aforementioned dams. 9 Four

GeoTIFF 3 arc-second files were downloaded, and a pyramid scheme was created once the data

was input into ArcMap 10.3.1. The DEM vector data and dam points were put into a new

geodatabase.

Hydrology Analysis
In ArcGIS with ArcToolbox, the Spatial Analyst Extension was used to access the

hydrology toolset. Only five of the initial seven dams were selected due to time constraints; two

dams within Mumbai were not included. The following hydrology tools were used:

 Flow Direction
 Fill

8 Urban Basic Services, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, accessed November 14, 2015,
http://www.mcgm.gov.in/irj/go/km/docs/documents/MCGM%20Department%20List/City%20Engineer/Deputy%20City
%20Engineer%20(Planning%20and%20Design)/City%20Development%20Plan/Urban%20Basic%20Services.pdf
9
SRTM, Void Filled, accessed November 13, 2015. http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/
 7

 Flow Length

First, the Flow Direction tool was used on the DEM data to create a raster file of water

flow direction of each cell to the steepest downslope neighboring cell (see Appendix A). This

allows the program to understand which way the water flows over the terrain. This was followed

by running the Fill tool on the raster file to fill any remaining small data imperfections. This also

shows elevation changes within the watersheds (Figure 3). The Flow Length tool calculated the

weighted distance along each cell’s flow path, measured upstream (Figure 4). This was

completed to view the extent of each watershed for further analysis.

Figure 1. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission vector images from USGS, with points at each of the seven most important dams for
Mumbai, India. The five circled in red were included in this study.
 8

The Watershed tool was used in an attempt to determine the number of cells within each

watershed based upon the raster after running flow direction, fill, and flow length tools.

However, the tool was unsuccessful in completing the any of the watersheds in their entirety so

manual interpolation was conducted. Dam elevation was determined by using the Identify

function in ArcMap, identifying from the elevation data layer. The elevation was added to the

watershed boundary attribute table (Table 1).

In addition, a 3D image was generated in ArcScene 10.3.1 using both the Watershed

Boundary and Fill layers (Figure 2). These layers were selected to float on a custom surface. The

base heights for each layer were 0.00011 and 0.0001, respectively. The slight difference in base

height allowed for proper alignment of the watershed boundary with the Fill layer.

Watershed Boundaries
A new feature class was added to the geodatabase to generate watershed boundaries for

each of the five watersheds. The Flow Length layer was used in order to manually interpolate the

true watershed boundaries and complete a polygon for each of the five watersheds (Figure 5).

Watershed boundaries were autocompleted in order to ensure seamless borders after completing

all five watershed boundary polygons, the area was determined by the Calculate Geometry

command in kilometers (Table 1). The data frame geographic coordinate system was required to

change to WGS 1984 Web Mercator (Auxiliary Sphere) in order to compute. This was due to the

ArcMap planimetric algorithms used to calculate area, as they required projected coordinate

systems opposed to geographic coordinate systems. Each reservoir capacity, determined by the
 9

National Register of Large Dams, was also added as attributes to the watershed feature class

(Table 1).10

Data Organization
Data was organized by file type within their respective folders. The project geodatabase

contained the following feature classes and raster datasets:

 Feature Class: Dams, Water Coast, Watershed Boundary

 Raster Dataset: Fill2, Flow Direction, Flow Length

These files were used specifically within the final deliverables. Additional data sources are found

within the Source Data folder, while the Raster folder contains the original SRTM raster files.

The Export folder contains the exported deliverable maps of the following: Watersheds and

dams, Flow Length, and Watershed Elevation. The working map document, Mumbai Dams, is

also included for future data manipulation. The Read Me text file is included in order to facilitate

smooth data transfer and use.

Results
Three of the five dams are connected along the Vaitarna River, within three different

watersheds. The areas of each watershed are shown within Table 1. The smallest watershed was

Tansa Lake at 151.55km2, while the largest watershed was Bhatsa at 447.01km2 (Table 1). The

watershed size is related to the reservoir capacity as well – the Bhatsa Reservoir holds by far the

largest volume of water (Table 1). There was no reliable source noting storage capacity or dam

10
National Register of Large Dams 2009, New Dehli, accessed December 8, 2015,
http://www.cwc.nic.in/main/downloads/National%20Register%20of%20Large%20Dams%202009.pdf
 10

type for Middle Vaitarna or Lower Vaitarna. This indicates that these dams may be smaller than

10 meters tall, as they were not included in the National Register of Large Dams. 11

The two types of dams within this study are earthen dams and gravity dams12. Earthen

dams are created from highly compacted soil materials, which may include sand or clay13.

Gravity dams are constructed from concrete or stone masonry, designed so every dam section is

independent of the others14. The dam type for each reservoir is presented in Table 1. Dam types

are dependent upon the surrounding environment and volume of water it is designed to contain. 15

The purpose of three of the five dams was determined by analyzing the National Register

of Large Dams. The Upper Vaitarna and Tansa dam are designed for water supply, while the

Bhatsa dam was designed for both water supply and irrigation. 16 This is likely due to its large

storage capacity (Table 1).

11
National Register of Large Dams 2009, New Dehli, accessed December 8, 2015,
http://www.cwc.nic.in/main/downloads/National%20Register%20of%20Large%20Dams%202009.pdf
12
National Register of Large Dams 2009, New Dehli, accessed December 8, 2015,
http://www.cwc.nic.in/main/downloads/National%20Register%20of%20Large%20Dams%202009.pdf
13
Types of Dams, Civil E Blog, accessed December 15, 2015, http://www.civileblog.com/types-of-dams/
14
Types of Dams, Civil E Blog, accessed December 15,2015, http://www.civileblog.com/types-of-dams/
15
Types of Dams, Civil E Blog, accessed December 15,2015, http://www.civileblog.com/types-of-dams/
16
National Register of Large Dams 2009, New Dehli, accessed December 8, 2015,
http://www.cwc.nic.in/main/downloads/National%20Register%20of%20Large%20Dams%202009.pdf
 11

Table 1. Watershed boundary attribute table. Dam Type, Gross Storage Capacity, and Dam
Elevation data was sourced from the National Register of Large Dams and Mumbai City
Development Plan.17,18
Watershed Gross Storage Dam
Watershed Dam Type
Area (km2) Capacity (103m3) Elevation (m)
1 Upper Vaitarna 189.29 Gravity 204,980 590

2 Middle Vaitarna 154.87 - - 203

3 Lower Vaitarna 174.35 - - 136

4 Tansa Lake 151.55 Earthen/Gravity 208,700 93

5 Bhatsa Reservoir 447.01 Earthen/Gravity 976,150 123

Legend
Watershed Boundary
High : 1587

Low : -5

Figure 2. ArcScene 3D elevation model of freshwater watershed boundaries.

17
National Register of Large Dams 2009, New Dehli, accessed December 8, 2015,
http://www.cwc.nic.in/main/downloads/National%20Register%20of%20Large%20Dams%202009.pdf
18
Urban Basic Services, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, accessed November 14, 2015,
http://www.mcgm.gov.in/irj/go/km/docs/documents/MCGM%20Department%20List/City%20Engineer/Deputy%20City
 12

Figure 3. Elevation of freshwater watersheds and dams supplying water to Mumbai, India.
 13

Figure 4. Flow length of freshwater watersheds supplying water to Mumbai, India.

 14

Figure 5. Dams and respective freshwater watersheds with satellite imagery.

 15

Discussion
The majority of dams supplying water to Mumbai, India, are located outside of the city.

Understanding the location of major dams and reservoirs is critically important to the city and

the local environment. The city relies upon these reservoirs to supply freshwater to its

population, upward of 18 million.19 As of October 2015, three of the five dams were filled over

90% capacity due to the monsoon season.20 However, there is still a 20% water restriction

imposed on residents and 50% water cut to commercial users during this time.21 Knowing the

location of these reservoirs is crucial for checking the water status to determine if more water

restrictions need to be made for the city. In addition, reservoirs are capable of overflowing

during monsoon seasons. GIS data can assist in planning for reservoir overflow. If the area

surrounding the reservoir is residential, these individuals would be at risk of being flooded out of

their homes. This data can be used for modeling as well; for example, predicting how a 100 year

storm would impact these reservoirs and the surrounding area. Furthermore, knowing the dam

location is important for quickly assessing the state of the dam; it may require maintenance after

increased pressure during monsoons.

Due to time constraints, this investigation has been left open-ended. There are many

dams that could be included in this mapping project, as seen in the National Register of Large

Dams. The next step is to repeat this process for Tulsi Lake and Vihar Lake, the two reservoirs

located within Mumbai, India. These dams are of particular importance because they provide the

greatest risk to impacting residents of Mumbai in an overflow event. They are also most at risk

19
Mumbai (Greater Mumbai) Metropolitan, Census 2011, accessed December 13, 2015,
http://www.census2011.co.in/census/metropolitan/305-mumbai.html
20
Mumbai Monsoon, Wonderful Mumbai, accessed December 16, 2015, http://wonderfulmumbai.com/mumbai-
monsoon-mumbai-lake-levels-flood-risk-high-tide-dates/
21
Mumbai Monsoon, Wonderful Mumbai, accessed December 16, 2015, http://wonderfulmumbai.com/mumbai-
monsoon-mumbai-lake-levels-flood-risk-high-tide-dates/
 16

of pollution contamination due to their location within the city. Vihar Lake is located near slums,

which puts the freshwater source at risk for contamination (See Appendix A). More data analysis

of the region would result in understanding the watershed flow direction, determining whether or

not storm runoff would bring pollution to the reservoir.

This project can be expanded into development potential as well. The steps utilized in

this project can be implemented to develop future dam sites based upon watersheds. Determining

watersheds and elevation for the region will assist Mumbai in creating new, effective water

collection sites. More dams will assist in reducing water stress on this region, enabling this

region to flourish and maintain a better quality of life.

 17

Bibliography

“Maharashtra declares drought in 14,708 villages”. The Indian Express. Accessed December 5,
2015. http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/maharashtra-declares-drought-in-
14708-villages/

“Mumbai City Development Plan”. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. Accessed

November 14, 2015.
http://www.mcgm.gov.in/irj/portal/anonymous?NavigationTarget=navurl://095e1c7b948
6b1423b881dce8b106978
“Mumbai (Greater Mumbai) Metropolitan”. Census 2011. Accessed December 13, 2015.
http://www.census2011.co.in/census/metropolitan/305-mumbai.html

“Mumbai, Maharashtra”. India Meteorological Department. Accessed December 5, 2015.

http://www.imd.gov.in/

“Mumbai, Maharashtra”. The Indian Express. Accessed December 5, 2015.

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/maharashtra-declares-drought-in-14708-
villages/

“Mumbai Monsoon”. Wonderful Mumbai. Accessed December 16, 2015.

http://wonderfulmumbai.com/mumbai-monsoon-mumbai-lake-levels-flood-risk-high-
tide-dates/

“Mumbai, Thane and Pune hog 52% of drinking water”. The Times of India. Accessed December
12, 2015. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-Thane-and-Pune-hog-
52-of-drinking-water/articleshow/49955509.cm

“National Register of Large Dams”. New Delhi. 2009.

http://www.cwc.nic.in/main/downloads/National%20Register%20of%20Large%20Dams
%202009.pdf

“Shuttle Radar Topography Mission”. Void Filled. Accessed November 13, 2015.
http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/
 18

“Types of Dams”. Civil E Blog. Accessed December 15, 2015. http://www.civileblog.com/types-

of-dams/
 19

Appendix A

The figure above is the result of running the Flow Direction tool within the hydrology toolkit.

The purpose of this tool was to determine the pathway water flows over the natural terrain. This

program assigns a value to each pixel based upon elevation, and water will flow from higher

values to lower values. This application must run before other hydrology tools in order to ensure

accurate watershed delineation.

 20

Locator Map

The Google Image above demonstrates one of the two lakes of interest for future directions with

this project. Vihar Lake is another known site of freshwater resources for Mumbai, which is one

of two located within the city (See Locator Map). The region in red is one of many informal

settlements in Mumbai, also called Slums. This densely populated area may be a source of

pollution to Vihar Lake, particularly during monsoon season. It would be beneficial to determine

the watershed boundaries and hydrology of this area to understand where runoff would flow

during a rain event from the slums, and whether or not it would directly impact Vihar Lake.

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