A Comparative Study of Storm Water Drainage Methods for Urban Storm Water Management

Urban storm water management is an important aspect of any urban area development, planning and expansion. Urbanization of an area invariably leads to increase in overall imperviousness of the area. When land becomes impervious, storm water will stagnate on the surface thereby affecting the infrastructure, transportation and causing inconvenience to general populace. One way to minimize these effects is to provide a proper storm drainage system. In this paper, therefore, a small urban region was selected and for that region suitability of three different storms sewer systems were considered. The urban area considered for case study lies in the northern part of the Vellore town, and has a total area of about 25 km2. For this region three different storm drainage systems were proposed, namely, construction of a new underground circular sewer system (Alternative 1), repair and expansion of existing surface sewer system (Alternative 2) and construction swales (Alternative 3). Of the three options, Alternative 2 was found to be economical; however it can be argued that from efficiency and aesthetics point of view 1 and 3 will be preferred alternatives. Alternative 3 can be used as a management measure for recharging groundwater aquifers, along with storm water drainage. The final selection of the option however, will depend on the suitability of the method, budgetary constraints and space availability.