A hydrologic‐economic modeling approach for analysis of urban water supply dynamics in Chennai, India

Abstract

[1] In this paper, we discuss a challenging water resources problem in a developing world city, Chennai, India. The goal is to reconstruct past system behavior and diagnose the causes of a major water crisis. In order to do this, we develop a hydrologicengineering-economic model to address the complexity of urban water supply arising from consumers' dependence on multiple interconnected sources of water. We integrate different components of the urban water system: water flowing into the reservoir system; diversion and distribution by the public water utility; groundwater flow in the aquifer beneath the city; supply, demand, and prices in the informal tanker-truck-based water market; and consumer behavior. Both the economic and physical impacts of consumers' dependence on multiple sources of water are quantified. The model is calibrated over the period 2002-2006 using a range of hydrologic and socio-economic data. The model's results highlight the inadequacy of the reservoir system and the buffering role played by the urban aquifer and consumers' coping investments during multiyear droughts.Citation: Srinivasan, V., S. M. Gorelick, and L. Goulder (2010), A hydrologic-economic modeling approach for analysis of urban water supply dynamics in Chennai, India, Water Resour. Res., 46, W07540,

The Impact of Demographic Factors, Beliefs, and Social Influences on Residential Water Consumption and Implications for Non-Price Policies in Urban India

“…The intermittent supply strategy also comes at a significant cost, creating further strain on pipe systems and risking more leakage than water saved, as well as increasing the likelihood of contamination within the pipes [60]. Residents may also store more water than necessary and then use it frivolously when supplies are plentiful, which can result in greater overall water consumption [42,61].…”

Reimagining the past – use of counterfactual trajectories in socio-hydrological modelling: the case of Chennai, India

“…Even today only a fraction of households are metered, but water is supplied for only a few hours each day. Because water supply is unreliable, more than two-thirds of Chennai's households have private wells as a supplementary water source (Srinivasan et al, 2010a). Peri-urban towns and villages are served by several different agencies.…”

“…The model described here is a "stylized" version of a detailed, spatially explicit coupled human-hydrologic model developed and published previously (Srinivasan et al, 2010a). The previous coupled model was run and calibrated using a variety of hydrologic and socioeconomic data.…”

“…This present study uses the previous model as a starting point. The parameters for shorter-term processes are imported from the earlier model (Srinivasan et al, 2010a). These include the user demand function, the response of the aquifer system to recharge and pumping, the rainfall-inflow model into the reservoir system, reservoir operations, user behaviour and the functioning of the tanker market.…”

Water supply and sanitation in India: Meeting targets and beyond

“…Residents in several Indian cities augment their piped supplies with private wells and other informal methods, such as private tankers (Srinivasan et al 2010). The use of groundwater for residential as well agricultural consumption is driving down water tables in many parts of the country, especially the agricultural bread-baskets of Punjab and Haryana (Rodell et al 2009).…”