Track: Modeling and Simulation

Abstract

In the early 50's when the city of Chandigarh was developed, the population of the city was sparse and the yield of tube wells was sufficient to meet the water supply demand of the city. As such, the water supply of the town was based on groundwater sources. With time, the population manifolds of the city have increased considerably. The usage of surface water was added later in the year 1983 but the water table in Chandigarh city has been found depleting like many states of India. In this scenario, if the city of Chandigarh having one million population is provided with a continuous water supply this might appear that the addition of a continuous water supply will worsen the water balance, but the situation is different from the hypothetical hypothesis. On the contrary, the introduction of continuous water supply using surface water alone could result not only in the saving of groundwater levels for the coming years but also in the overall consumption of water. Society as a whole would benefit from the project from a reduction in water-borne diseases, emission level reduction of Green House Gases and lesser stress of storing water. The presents data from water tables collected from authentic sources, ground visits, and a comparison of generation and usage of groundwater sources. The case study is an attempt to reduce dependencies on groundwater and adopt a continuous water supply scheme while strictly maintaining the norms set by regulatory agencies of India (CPHEEO) i.e. 150 Litres per Capita per Day (LPCD).