International Training on Tools and Approaches for Citywide Water and Sanitation Management

Part I: Resources Assessment, Budgeting, Planning and Augmentation

Date: 24 - 28 July, 2018                                                                                                                     
Venue: CSE, 41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi-110062

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), India as part of its School of Water and Waste initiative organised a 10-day international training programme on "Tools and Approaches on City-wide Water and Sanitation Management" from 24 July to 3 August 2018. Part 1 of the training programme (24 to 28 July) focused on Water Prudent Cities, which was held in New Delhi.

The aim of the training was to strengthen the capacity of participants by exposing them to various dimensions of Sustainable Urban Water Management concept for mainstreaming decentralised NBS. The programme involved diverse group of 21 participants representing different organisations including government, NGOs, private companies, universities, entrepreneurs and more. Some participants had significant experience in their respective fields, thus sessions were organized in a manner that encouraged peer-to-peer learning. The training programme included a mix of theory, practical exercises and it was conducted based on state of the art teaching – learning tools consisting of interactive sessions, experiential learning using detailed case studies, working in groups on planning and designing and class room sessions.

List of participants (click here)  

The programme commenced with a brief introduction about CSE by Rudresh K Sugam, who also introduced the various concepts and principles regarding ‘Tools’ and ‘Approaches’. Further, he defined the scope of the training programme by providing an overview of the various tools and approaches related to integrated urban water management in terms of water-land, water-energy and water-community nexus.

Dr. A. K. Gosain, IIT Delhi, took a skypesession on ‘Hydrological Information Systems (HIS)’, wherein he focused on the technical aspects of Hydro-Geospatial data modeling and showcased an example of HIS for the state of Himachal Pradesh. Following this, Dr.Veena Srinivasan, ATREE Bengaluru conducted a skypesession on ‘Groundwater-Surface water Linkages’, during which she explained the concepts of aquifer mapping and presented a case study on the city of Chennai.

The day was concluded by a session on Climate Change and Urban Resilience on building urban resilience in response to extreme weather events. Case studies of Copenhagen Cloudburst Plan and Sponge City of Lingang, China were discussed during the session.

On second day, session on GIS was conducted by Shubham Mishra. The theory regarding GIS was explained in the morning session followed by hands-on exercises on QGIS post-lunch. The exercises ranged from geo-referencing and digitization to preparation of thematic maps. The hands-on exercises continued into day three, where the participants practiced creating a Digital Elevation Model and using effects like Hillshade. The module on GIS was concluded with a brief on steps involved in Watershed Delineation.

The sessions on Water-Land integration were introduced on day three post lunch, with an introductory sessionby Shivali Jainer, CSE on the concepts of Green Infrastructure (GI), Water Sensitive Urban Design and Planning and Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS). The day was concluded with a session on spatial planning case studies on GI and group exercises.

Day four of the programme hands on tools and approaches for implementing SUDS and rain water harvesting(RWH) systemswere conducted by Shivali Jainer, supported by case studies, documentaries and group exercises. The last session of training was on water-community integration, conducted by Dr Saakshi Joshi.

The training was concluded with feedback session by Dr. Suresh Kumar Rohilla, CSEto understand the areas of improvement and identify participants who would be willing to be a part of long-term network with CSE.

The final day of part-1 of the training programme was dedicated for field visits to showcase BMPs on RWH and GI. The first visit was scheduled ay East Nizamuddin Colony, along with a tour by Ar. VandanaMenon. The focus of the field visit was to showcase the design and implementation of community scale RWH system in the residential area. Ms.Menon also gave a brief on providing incentives in order to promote RWH.

The second visit was at NeelaHauz Biodiversity Park, with a focus on lake rejuvenation using wastewater and catchment area management techniques. Dr. M Shah Hussain and Yaseer Arafat of the Biodiversity Park briefed the participants regarding the use of constructed wetlands to treat wastewater and lake rejuvenation by mimicking the natural water cycle.

 

For further information please contact:

Rudresh Kumar Sugam
Senior Programme Manager, Water Programme
+91-11-40616000 (Ext: 389), Email: rudresh.sugam@cseindia.org 

Dr. Mahreen Matto
Programme Manager, Water Programme
+91-11-40616000 (Ext: 257), Email: mahreen@cseindia.org  

Dr. Suresh Kumar Rohilla, 
Senior Director & Academic Director, 
(School of Water and Waste, Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute – AAETI).
srohilla@cseindia.org