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Urban Water Journal

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Planning and design of urban drainage systems in informal settlements in developing countries
J. Parkinson , K. Tayler & O. Mark
a b a b c

WS Atkins International Ltd, Woodcote Grove, Ashley Road, Epsom, Surrey, UK

School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WA, UK
c

Urban Water - DHI - Water Environment Health, Agern All 5, DK-2970, Hrsholm, Denmark Published online: 13 Jul 2007.

To cite this article: J. Parkinson , K. Tayler & O. Mark (2007) Planning and design of urban drainage systems in informal settlements in developing countries, Urban Water Journal, 4:3, 137-149, DOI: 10.1080/15730620701464224 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15730620701464224

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Urban Water Journal, Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2007, 137 149

Planning and design of urban drainage systems in informal settlements in developing countries
J. PARKINSON*{, K. TAYLER{ and O. MARKx
{WS Atkins International Ltd, Woodcote Grove, Ashley Road, Epsom, Surrey, UK {School of City and Regional Planning, Cardi University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardi CF10 3WA, UK 5, DK-2970 Hrsholm, Denmark xUrban Water - DHI - Water Environment Health, Agern Alle

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Many cities in developing countries are typied by large areas of informal settlements. These often do not adhere to ocial planning guidelines, building regulations and construction standards and, as they are not ocially recognised by local authorities, are rarely provided with adequate infrastructure and services. The provision of improved systems for drainage of wastewater and stormwater runo is an important component of urban upgrading initiatives. This paper focuses on urban drainage as a component of urban upgrading and discusses issues related to the integration of drainage systems serving informal settlements into citywide stormwater management systems. Experiences from urban upgrading schemes in dierent parts of the world are used to highlight innovative approaches towards planning and design as well as illustrating examples of potential problems that may be encountered during project implementation and subsequent operation. Keywords: Informal settlements; Low-income communities; Drainage; Slums; Solid waste; Stormwater runo; Urban planning; Urban upgrading

1. Introduction 1.1 Informal settlements and growth of slums

Rapid urban growth in developing countries has resulted in the proliferation of informal settlements. These are opportunistic developments taking advantage of unused land, both privately and publicly owned. In some cases, the land may be earmarked for future development whereas in others it is assumed to be inappropriate for construction owing to physical or environmental factors. The housing within informal settlements is virtually always built without the consent of the ocial planning authorities and rarely conforms to ocial planning guidelines, building regulations and construction standards. Many informal settlements form on the peri-urban fringes of major cities. These settlements are usually inhabited by a heterogeneous mixture of families from

various socio-economic backgrounds, and are often comprised of immigrants from rural areas (UN-Habitat 2003). Another type of informal settlement is the inner city slum, characterised by high density and prevalence of poverty. In some cities, many informal settlements are slums, which are characterised by poor housing, squalid living conditions and an almost complete decit of basic amenities. By denition, all informal settlements are illegal when they are formed and therefore not ocially part of the city and are excluded from urban services. However, many subsequently gain recognition from the local authorities, often as a result of political patronage. As a result, they become legitimised and are subsequently entitled to receive the same urban services as the rest of the city. However, many remain marginalised and are poorly served by municipal services. The provision of drainage infrastructure is invariably inadequate

*Corresponding author. Email: jonathan.parkinson@atkinsglobal.com

Urban Water Journal ISSN 1573-062X print/ISSN 1744-9006 online 2007 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/15730620701464224

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and a wide range of problems prevail related to ooding and environmental health issues caused by poor drainage. In hilly cities, the location of informal settlements is often predictable as they will invariably be found alongside existing drainage paths and on steep hillsides. It is, however, less obvious where the topography of the city is at, For example, in Cairo and Faisalabad (Pakistan). The majority of the informal settlements are located on erstwhile agricultural land and their layout is therefore heavily inuenced by the path of irrigation canals and drains, which often later become part of the urban drainage system. These drains frequently become fetid, slow owing open sewers but the local farming community continue to abstract water from the drains for irrigation even though this presents signicant health hazards. In other cases, notably where water resources are scarce, it is not uncommon for farmers to deliberately block sewerage systems to divert wastewater onto adjacent elds. As well as abstraction of wastewater from the drainage system for irrigation, water in the drains is often used for various domestic purposes and commercial activities (see gures 1(a) and (b)). These activities are likely to result in transmission of a range of water-related diseases. 1.2 Poor drainage, ooding and impact on the poor

Poorer households are much more likely to inhabit precarious areas that are at risk from ooding. Whole settlements may be vulnerable and within settlements there are likely to be areas that are at particular risk; often those inhabited by the poorest households. These locations include: (a) low-lying areas that are liable to ooding; (b) banks of drainage channels and natural watercourses; (c) steep hillsides that are at risk from landslides.

The residents of informal settlements, particularly slum dwellers, also suer from a wide range of environmental problems related to a lack of drainage infrastructure. In addition to health hazards related from microbial pathogens, they are often most vulnerable to ooding because their dwellings are precariously located and poorly served by urban infrastructure and services (Parkinson 2003). The combination of direct and indirect impacts of poor drainage has both social and economic implications for the poor. To make matters worse, poor people have the least resources to assist in the recovery from the negative impact of oods. Figure 2 illustrates how a combination of greater vulnerability to ooding and lack of resources to recover from ooding compounds upon the poor and exacerbates conditions of poverty. It is important to recognise that, as well as providing a range of other functions, the avoidance of large-scale ooding may not necessarily be such a high priority for people living in poorly serviced areas, compared with other needs such as employment and access to health services. In particular, residents who grow up with ooding as part of their lives and value the benets of living in a place that is cheap and close to city services and employment opportunities may have a fairly ambivalent attitude towards ooding (Few 2003). Of greater importance is the predictability of the ood event and the resultant depth, duration and area of ooding. In addition, there is often a high demand for sewerage or drainage to dispose of unwanted wastewater and to drain runo from more frequent smaller rainfall events that otherwise result in ponding.

2. Responses to the problem of informal settlements and provision of services 2.1 Ocial responses from local authorities

Service providers in informal settlements are often constrained by the fact that informal settlements do not

Figure 1. Local residents in Vientiane, Lao P.D.R. use drainage channels for (a) washing vegetables and (b) shing (Photos: Birgitte Helwigh).

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Figure 2. Livelihood impacts of ooding reinforce conditions of poverty (adapted from Parkinson and Mark 2005).

meet formal planning regulations and, as mentioned above, are often illegal. Thus, agencies responsible for the provision of urban drainage infrastructure are often not ocially allowed to provide services to these areas. At the same time, irrespective of legal status of these settlements, the same agencies frequently lack sucient resources to respond eectively to the scale of the problem. Flooding problems in informal areas also present a complex set of engineering challenges and potential diculties due to the haphazard nature of development and the fact that the communities may not be accustomed to cooperating with government agencies. Despite these diculties, drainage improvements take place in a number of ways as summarised below. 2.2 Locally based initiatives

organisations can play a key role in encouraging collective action but assistance from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) is often also needed to assist during project implementation. In some situations, locally elected representatives use their limited budget for small drainage improvements projects as a form of political patronage. These initiatives tend to be piecemeal and benets are often constrained by the lack of a secondary network with capacity to accept increased runo. 2.3 Urban upgrading

In the absence of interventions from local government, residents of informal settlements may work collectively to try to solve communal drainage problems by digging and installing drains and cleaning existing drains (see gure 3). However, the eectiveness of these initiatives tends to be dependent upon local leadership and the extent of social cohesion within the community. Community-based

Informal settlements may be prioritised as part of government supported slum improvement schemes often with the support of development banks such as the World Bank, various bilateral and multi-lateral agencies such as the UK Governments Department for International Development and UN-Habitat. Urban upgrading involves a systematic approach to the improvement of basic infrastructure and other services in informal settlements. Upgrading projects generally target low-income, communities and include a range of activities, mainly focussed on improving access and quality of essential services, which

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3.1

North-east Lahore urban upgrading project

Figure 3. Local residents in an informal settlement in George Compound in Lusaka remove solid waste from the drainage channel passing through their settlement (Photo: Dr Martin Mulenga, International Institute for Environment and Development, London).

are designed to improve the quality of life in these settlements. Upgrading projects normally include a wide range of activities but the main focus of activity involves eorts to improve physical infrastructure. Thus, upgrading eorts typically involve a package of improvements including street paving and lighting, water supply and sanitation, drainage and solid waste collection. As well as benets in environmental health, the provision of improved infrastructure can be very important in improving the image of the slum (Amis 2001). 3. Examples of approaches towards urban upgrading This section briey describes the experiences from three urban upgrading projects, which highlight various practical aspects related to urban drainage planning and design in informal settlements. Each of these projects illustrates drainage considerations in dierent types of urban environment characterised by specic topographies and ground slopes.

The north-east Lahore Upgrading Project was a World Bank-funded project which ran from 1987 through to 1994. The project had a target beneciary population of approximately 100 000 inhabiting an area of about 270 ha which were targeted for upgrading, The project adopted an integrated approach to infrastructure improvement; covering water supply, street paving, solid waste management and street lighting in addition to drainage and sewerage. Designs were prepared by consultants on behalf of the Lahore Development Authority, which was the implementing agency. The overall area is at and was characterised by high housing densities, narrow streets and lanes, and poor services. Prior to the project, a system of open drains had developed in a piecemeal fashion over the years. Initially local systems had been constructed; draining to depressions and open land and these had gradually been combined into larger systems. The drains serving the northern part of the area discharged to open farmland at the periphery of the built-up area whereas a larger area in the south discharged to the Shalimar Escape Drain, one of the main city drains, which formed the western boundary of the project area. The drains were constrained in places by undersized culverts and narrow sections passing between houses. In some recent developments, there were no drains and wastewater was discharged to the nearest open plot. Replacing the existing system with combined sewers laid with sucient fall to prevent settlement of solids with dry weather ows would have required considerable pumping of storm water and so an early decision was made to develop separate storm and foul water drainage systems. The project adopted an innovative response to the lack of household connections to foul sewers, which is a widespread problem in developing countries. Foul water was collected by replacing existing drains along the sides of lanes with covered drains connecting to sewers. Storm water was allowed to run on the surface of lanes for as long as possible and was eventually discharged into covered drains running along the larger streets. Inlet grills were provided at intervals to allow water to enter the drains. Based on early experience with blockages in small covered drains, the minimum covered drain size was 450 mm by 450 mm. Drains were covered because it was felt that this reduced the ingress of silt and solid waste and because covering drains increased the area available for vehicular and pedestrian access. Paving consisted of bricks laid on edge for lanes and asphalt for through roads. The project was heavily engineered in the sense that levels were carefully determined to ensure that there was always a fall towards the nearest drain while road surfaces

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were kept below the plinth levels of most existing houses. Raising the level of existing roads and lanes was generally avoided. As shown in gure 4(a), lanes that had sucient fall were dished towards the centre to form a shallow channel, but these were not used when the gradient was at (less than 0.33%) in order to reduce ponding in the centre of the lane (see gure 4(b)). Problems were experienced during the course of the project as residents made cross-connections from sewers to storm drains in response to sewer blockages. North-east Lahore has experienced problems related to storm drains gradually silting up over the years and people making cross-connections between sewers and storm drains to solve sewer blockage problems. A recent inspection of the project area by one of the authors revealed that the storm drains have become heavily silted, reducing their capacity to deal with high-intensity storms.

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the areas where poor communities reside; a major problem for conventional project designs. In the slum networking approach, problems of land acquisition and demolition normally encountered during implementation are reduced because the local residents are involved in the planning process and have an interest in the successful completion of the project. The other important innovative feature was the use of the roads to act as drainage conduits for larger storm events and the installation of a sewerage system, which was designed to drain lower runo volumes and domestic wastewater. This was considered to oer a more cost eective sanitation solution than the improvement of onsite sanitation. However, as in Lahore, experiences from Indore highlighted problems with blockages, arising partly because of ineective solid waste management systems, which meant that it has been dicult to keep the drains free from refuse (Verma 2000). 3.3 Participation and partnerships in urban environmental rehabilitation in Santo Domingo This pilot project focused on slum upgrading in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic an area characterised by sleep slopes and landslides during the rainy season. The project was supported by the World Bank and involved an NGO (Insituto Dominicano de Desarrollo Integral), which worked in partnership with various community-based organisations. The project adopted an integrated approach to urban upgrading, including stormwater drainage, in combination with the design and implementation of a local environmental management plan. As well as drain construction, paving, latrines, drinking water supply, and collection of solid waste, the

3.2

Slum networking, Indore, India

The slum networking approach was developed in India as an innovative approach to the upgrading of low-income settlements; exploits the linkages between slums and natural drainage paths in the city (Diacon 1997, Parikh 2001). The approach aims to mitigate problems of ooding in the city as a whole, whilst concurrently providing services for the slum-dwellers in low-lying areas adjacent to natural drainage paths. Thus, the approach was designed to be mutually benecial for the both slum dwellers and other city residents. The natural drainage paths are the most obvious places to construct drainage channels as the storm drains and sewers in adjacent settlements can be laid to natural gradients, thus reducing construction costs. These are often

Figure 4. Lane paving in North-East Lahore Urban Upgrading Project: (a) the lane is dished to enable the ow to be channelled; (b) the lane is not dished as the fall of the lane is low (Photos: Kevin Tayler).

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project included in an important disaster-mitigating infrastructure component which involved the installation of slope-stabilizing concrete-reinforced walls in order to secure the terraces where people had built their homes. A socio-economic and environmental survey of the entire settlement was undertaken with the community to help plan and prioritise investments. Once the integrated environmental rehabilitation plan was accepted, the NGO/ community-based organisation (CBO) team encouraged the community to oer volunteer unskilled labour for tasks such as clearing garbage heaps and digging trenches. Local masons were hired to build sewers and stormwater drains along the bottom of the ravines and covered them with walkways in collaboration with the water company who installed a water supply system. Concrete pedestrian paths and stairs with tracks for bicycles, carts and motorbikes, located above the storm drainage system up the side of gullies, were also constructed. Grills over drains were installed to prevent solid waste from clogging the system and polluting the river downstream. The CBO and NGO also jointly established a community micro-enterprise to collect solid waste on order to ensure that the drainage system did not suer from blockages (Chavez 2002). 4. Design of urban drainage in informal settlements Although there is considerable experience in urban upgrading there is surprisingly little literature on issues related to the provision of urban drainage in upgrading projects. Therefore, this section aims to identify the main issues and suggest ways in which drainage systems may be planned and designed most eectively given the specic characteristics of informal settlements. 4.1 Rainfall runo relationships

method is the simplest approach to estimate peak runo based upon rainfall and catchment surface characteristics. It may be applied during the design of urban drainage systems for small urban developments, but in larger areas the relationship between rainfall and runo is more complex and cannot be approximated by such a simple relationship. A key constraint is that the rational method does not allow for surface storage which, as noted above, can be considerable in informal settlements. According to Heaney et al. (2002), the rational approach is archaic and should be replaced by data-centred approaches using sophisticated technologies and computer simulation software such as MIKE URBAN, InfoWorks and SWMM. However, these models require considerable amounts of data and experienced sta with considerable skills. Consequently in reality in many cases the rational method may be the only option. In addition, care should be taken when using models before using default values (many of which have been derived in developed temperate countries) as the use of erroneous values or inaccurate design parameters in hydrological models may lead to large-scale errors in the design of drainage systems (Packman 2000). 4.2 Capacity of drainage conduits

Based upon experience of drainage design and runo modelling in developing countries, runo from informal settlements is often lower than would be expected under similar conditions for well planned/engineered city areas. This may be a result of a combination of: lack of paving and surfacing of open areas; resulting in higher depression storage and greater inltration (and evapo-transpiration in vegetated areas); (b) incomplete stormwater drainage systems, which means that a considerable volume of runo remains ponded in open low-lying areas. Runo from informal settlements is therefore dicult to predict, particularly as the data required for standard computations (e.g. rational, unit hydrograph, time-area methods) are often not readily available. The rational (a)

The return period of ooding is the most important parameter used for design of urban drainage systems since it determines the size and therefore the costs of the drains required. The choice of return period depends upon the land use and the potential consequences of ooding. In theory, designs should take account of an acceptable frequency of ooding and this should be linked to attitudes of local communities towards ood risks, but in practice these are rarely taken into consideration. Design of drainage systems to cater for the runo from all storm events is impossible without very high expenditure and often requires demolition of properties, both of which act as constraints. Therefore, provided the proposed level of service is accepted by community members, it may be appropriate to design systems on the basis of short-return period storms. As many urban communities in developing countries are accustomed to regular ooding during the rainy season, they may accept ooding on the streets, as long as it does not damage their property. Another important factor aecting the capacity of drainage conduits is the build-up of sediment and solid waste. The parameter of self-cleansing velocity is widely used for the design of channels and pipes, which in theory is used to ensure that drains are free of sediment. However, in reality very few drains in developing countries are selfcleansing due to the excessive solids loading, long dry periods and at gradients.

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4.3

Combined versus separate systems

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Conventional wisdom on the design of sewerage and drainage systems is that combined systems carrying both foul and stormwater, should not be used (Taylor and Cotton 1993). However, there are situations in informal areas where a combined system may be the best option. The important consideration, where sewers discharge to a treatment works or a nominally separate trunk sewer, is to be able to provide a storm overow at some point downstream. As seen in Indore and Lahore and in the majority of situations in developing countries, separate sewers and surface drainage systems are rare, even where they have been designed to be separate. In many cases it is not possible to construct separate systems and, as shown in gure 5, open channel surface water drains inevitably receive discharges of untreated wastewater, which ends up in natural watercourses. The situation is generally worse in informal settlements where there is less control over ongoing

construction activities and new building drains are connected to the most conveniently located drain. Illegal discharge of domestic sewage into the storm drainage system leads to increases in pollutants loads from faecal sources and from other domestic activities. Owing to the nature of these solids, they do not have signicant implication on hydraulic capacity, but they do have implications for environmental health conditions mainly resulting from the high concentrations of pathogens (Parkinson and Goldenfum 2007). An important consideration is therefore to reduce the inow of excreta, particularly faeces, which contain the bulk of the organic load and pathogens, into the stormwater system. However, considerable expense and disruption may be required at the household level to separate systems that are already combined. For instance, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, it is common for householders to discharge rainwater runo from back yards and roofs to the same pipe as their kitchen and toilet wastes. This runs under the house before discharging to a drain in the road. Another possible way of separating black and grey water within houses is to install pour-ush latrines with leach pits for blackwater and to allow the greywater to enter the drainage system. As water in storm drains is not treated, this is not an ideal solution from an environmental perspective but can be a pragmatic and low-cost solution for urban upgrading. This approach was used in some schemes implemented in the early 1990s through the Calcutta Slum Improvement Project (CSIP) in Kolkata, India which was nanced by the UK Governments Overseas Development Agency (now Department of International Development (DFID)). 4.4 Pipes or open drains

The majority of existing drains in informal areas are designed as open channel systems, but in reality, drains often become covered by local residents in order to maximise the amount of land available for building or for access. In general, they are less prone to blockages due to the fact that it is easier to see when drains are becoming choked and it is easier to clean them with rudimentary equipment. However, on the other hand, open drains act as recipients of solid waste dumped by local residents, which reduces ow capacity. There are other disadvantages. They may smell more than closed drains and there is a risk that children may fall into them or play next to or in them. In addition, they may be more likely to provide breeding grounds for Culex mosquitoes than closed drains. 4.5 Control of solids entering closed drainage systems

Figure 5. Combined drainage system in Peshawar, Pakistan carries foul wastewater as well as stormwater (Photo: Kevin Tayler).

For covered/closed systems to be ecient at draining stormwater runo, they need to have inlets in order to

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allow for the inow of runo but to avoid the ingress of solids into the system. These inlets must be: (a) large and numerous enough to allow for the inow; (b) not so big that they become dangerous; (c) eective at stopping the ingress of solid waste. Solid waste traps may be installed at strategic locations in the drainage system to collect and remove solid waste from the ow. Various designs for these inlets exist including a range of devices such as grids or gully pots. The majority of them rely on screening of runo in order to remove oating debris, but the eciency for solids removal is highly variable. However, all inlets need to be cleaned at times. Access for cleaning and maintenance is therefore crucial and it is important that there is a routine programme of maintenance especially before and during the rainy season (Armitage and Rooseboom 2000). 4.6 Paving and road construction

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The easiest way to pave/rebuild roads is to build on top of the previous road surface. This leads to road surfaces being raised above house plinth levels, so that any ooding aects houses rather than public rights of way. Raised streets may also obstruct runo and impound oodwater on private property. To overcome this, road levels should be designed to be as low as possible. It is also important that roads are not constructed in a way that lls in and builds upon existing drainage channels or constructed on elevated embankments, which will cause oodwater to be impounded. 5. Wider considerations and problems related to city-wide drainage provision There has been a tendency for drainage improvements to be implemented in a fragmented manner, often without enough attempts to identify the boundaries of dierent catchments and the linkages between the local area and the city-wide drainage system. In addition, as paving and drainage system are improved as part of urban upgrading, runo inevitably increases, which may exacerbate downstream drainage problems and lead to increased ooding. This suggests a need to take a city-wide perspective on the management of stormwater. 5.1 Source control of runo

Malaysia and Chile (Parkinson and Mark 2005), which are promoting inltration as part of a strategy for the control of urban runo. However, to date there have been few attempts to apply these technologies in low-income developing countries, which are the main focus of upgrading projects. The potential role of rainwater harvesting in reducing runo is inuenced by a range of factors related to urban layout (population density, open space and housing type, etc.), which will inuence the amount of runo and the feasibility of introducing collection systems. Although individual household roof area may be small (as low as 9 m2 in urban Bangladesh), which reduces the potential benets of collection of roof runo (DTU 2002), total roof coverage in dense urban informal settlements is usually high. This suggests that storage of roof runo at the household level may help to reduce downstream drainage problems and ooding as well as concurrently contributing towards domestic water supply. According to Gould (2000), it is possible to make do with a relatively small tank if one accepts that not all of the household water demand will always be met. However, small tanks may ll up during the early part of the storm and therefore fail to reduce runo in later rainfall events. In addition, tanks may become used for other purposes during the dry season and not reinstalled properly prior to the wet season. 5.2 Detention ponds and rainwater reuse

Source control approaches involve inltration and potentially reuse of rainwater or groundwater recharge as a means to reduce runo (Reed et al. 2001). These approaches are becoming increasingly common in developed countries and also in some middle-income countries such as

From a runo control perspective, rainwater harvesting from detention points may oer greater perspectives than individual installations at the household level. The possibility of using localised storage of runo was considered in north-east Lahore but it was found, as in many informal areas, that there was little publicly owned land and so no obvious locations in which to hold storm water. Two specic problems relate to land ownership and the price of land. Informal developments may be constructed on government land, but areas within them are often controlled by private individuals. This means that eorts to use land for runo detention is dependent on reaching agreement with the local land owners. It is important to consider ways in which ood control areas can be used for alternative purposes such as recreational activities and agriculture. However, there will always be a problem such as in Indore where detention ponds failed because overloading and poor maintenance led to them becoming heavily polluted. With a view to managing water holistically and reducing ooding, an integrated approach toward stormwater management based on a strategy of source control and reuse in combination with a programme of cleaning and rehabilitation of the drainage system has been promoted by Bangalore, India (see Box 1).

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Box 1 Runo retention and stormwater reuse in Bangalore, India In Bangalore, urban lakes and rainwater tanks have traditionally been constructed to collect and store water for domestic use. But over a period of time, many of these have become polluted and choked with solid wastes. Others have been lost completely owing to the pressures of urbanisation. The State Government of Bangalore commissioned a systematic survey of stormwater tanks and constituted an independent institution called the Lake Development Authority to oversee the rehabilitation and rejuvenation of tanks in the city. In addition, through an amendment to the existing building bye-laws, new houses and other developments are expected to incorporate rainwater harvesting systems to collect rooftop rainwater prior to reuse for groundwater recharge. Owners of older houses are also being encouraged to adopt rainwaterharvesting systems. It is estimated that up to 20 mm of rainfall can be captured from the rooftops during the beginning of a rainfall event, thus moderating the impact of the storm as well as providing an additional source of water for local residents (S. Vishwanath, Rainwater Club, Bangalore, India, personal communication, 2004).

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Figure 6. Relationships between areas of development, urban catchments and river basin (Parkinson and Mark 2005).

6. Sources of data for citywide planning 6.1 Spatial mapping and physical information requirements

As mentioned above and illustrated by gure 6, local areabased upgrading projects should t in within the overall city plan for stormwater management to ensure that downstream ooding problems are not exacerbated by improved drainage and increased runo. A good information base, describing land use and topography, is therefore vital for the calculation of runo in order assess existing drainage system performance and for the design of new systems. However, many towns and cities in developing countries do not have the spatial/topographical maps and data that are required for eective drainage planning and design. This is especially the case for informal settlements where development is unplanned and there are no records or maps describing the construction of either the buildings or the infrastructure. 6.1.1 Denition of catchment boundaries. There is a need to know the overall contributory area including upstream contributions and future expected developments. An entire

settlement might conform to a single drainage basin or, in other situations; the drainage basin is bigger than the informal settlement. Where this is not the case the project area may be divided into its dierent basins. Errors in dening catchment boundaries can lead to large-scale errors in the estimation of runo and subsequently in the design of drainage systems. It may be necessary to undertake a preliminary assessment of the drainage areas and to revise these according to results from more detailed eldwork. Assessment should normally start with denition of main drains. Investigations can then move upstream through the system, using the direction of ow in existing drains to dene the limits of existing catchments. As catchment boundaries may change under dierent levels of ooding, ow surveys during storm conditions may be the only reliable way of acquiring a good understanding of the catchment boundaries (Kolsky 1998). 6.2 Acquisition and collection of spatial data

Drainage investigations require information on existing settlement layouts, ground elevations, drain routes and slopes, details of the cross-sectional areas of larger channels and details of areas of ood runo storage. In some cities, topographical maps are already available and dening

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catchment boundaries is relatively straightforward. However, in cities with at topographies, there is usually a need to check the existing drainage situation in the eld. In addition, the relationship of the project area to natural drainage basins needs to be established during the initial stages of drainage planning. In areas where ooding is expected, it is important to gather data on the levels at which water will start to enter houses, together with information about water levels during past ood events. In order to dene the catchment in detail, it will be necessary to obtain elevations at road junctions, roads and roadsides (noting whether the adjacent land is above or below the ground) and general topography of open land (low and high spots). A combination of survey techniques can be required to map the drainage area and provide a comprehensive view of in the form of a map, combining some or all of the following as appropriate. 6.2.1 Land based topographical surveys. Conventional surveying methods are traditionally the most common form of mapping and more advanced surveying methods using total station methods are now available. These are much quicker and more accurate than traditional methods and reduce the cost of mapping. Geographical positioning systems (GPSs) use satellites to locate ground positions and heights and there are various technologies available; some of which may not provide suciently accurate data. Handheld GPS oer up to 10 m horizontal error and 20 m of vertical error, which is unsatisfactory for the purposes of drainage ground surveys. However, Dierential GPS, which uses two receivers simultaneously, oers a much greater level of accuracy (less than 2 4 cm error horizontally and 4 6 cm error vertically) and is therefore more useful for the purposes of drainage planning. 6.2.2 Aerial remote sensing. Although in some countries, access to aerial images is not possible for security reasons; remote sensing (including dierent types of aerial-based photography and satellite imagery) provides an alternative or complement to traditional ground surveys. Remote sensing images are also a particularly good way of estimating the degree of development and urbanisation in informal settlements (Sartori et al. 2002) and may be used to calculate impermeability. They may prove to be particularly useful in cities in developing countries where the availability of good maps and data is so poor, that the production of base maps is the rst stage in the preparation of urban drainage plans (see gure 7). Aerial remote sensing can provide details for assessment of contributory catchment area and land use, which can then be used to calculate runo. It can also identify some of the large open drainage channels in the catchment, but cannot provide the detailed data that are required to

describe the whole of the drainage network. Supplementary ground-based survey will therefore normally be required to provide additional information on drain and ground levels because aerial photography does not provide accurate data about ground elevations. Initially, satellite imagery was only possible for mapping at scales between 1:25 000 and 1:250 000 using existing systems such as Landsat and SPOT, but these systems do not provide the same level of detailed information as aerial photography at large scales. However, in recent years a number of very high-resolution satellite systems (QuickBird, Ikonos and Orbview 3) have become available and these can produce a level of detail that is much closer to traditional land-based terrestrial surveys. In addition to these, the introduction of free software on the internet such as Google Earth and NASA World Wind can assist engineers estimate the extent of impermeable and permeable areas and to plan routes of drainage channels but at lower resolutions than the satellite systems mentioned above. 7. Approaches towards implementation As mentioned above in the discussion of the Indore Slum Networking project, upgrading in a dense and highly consolidated slum is more dicult than in a new settlement since the settlement layout is already determined by the existing housing and infrastructure (Imparato and Ruster 2003). Installing drains in informal areas can be problematic owing to the fact that rights of way are often limited while local residents continue to live and work in the area while the construction takes place.

Figure 7. Satellite picture of Monrovia in Liberia showing a mixture of formal and unplanned informal settlements (Resolution 0.6 m, original image in colour) (Photo: DHI).

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The conventional approach towards project implementation for drainage construction usually involves the contracting of engineering companies under supervision by engineers from the local government agencies responsible for drainage in the city. For larger-scale infrastructure, the need for specialist skills and equipment necessitates the use of experienced contractors. However for small-scale community level infrastructure, the use of local contractors and labour can reduce costs and facilitates transfer of skills into the community as described in the example from Vietnam in Box 2. The involvement of local business and microcontractors, especially those based within low-income communities also has the added benets that it generates economic activity and stimulates local interest in the project.

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Box 2 Provision of local sewerage infrastructure in Hanoi, Vietnam For sewerage and drainage network in small roads and alleys (see gure 8), where the total project cost is less than US$1250, the community proposes the project and can secure up to between 33 50% of the capital requirement from the ward Peoples Committee (PC), which can be in the form of construction materials. The ward PC may take the full decision without referring to the District authority for authorisation and the project costs are paid directly from the ward PC account, which includes the annual state subsidy budget and the local Labour Fund for Public Interest. The local community is expected to raise the remaining additional balance and the household contribution can be in the form of labour in kind instead of cash (Nguyen et al. 2005).

Figure 8. Upgrading of tertiary sewerage in Hai Ba Trung district in Hanoi (Photo: Dr Nguyen Viet Anh, CEETIA, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering). mobilising the community to contribute towards the cost of construction. Community representatives may also help to negotiate with the local contractors and the suppliers of building materials. However, the increased involvement and interactions between dierent stakeholders required by this approach may result in potential complications and increased transaction costs. The mechanisms of participation and social interactions in urban upgrading projects are highly variable and complex and often it is not possible to work directly with local level stakeholders. It will therefore be necessary to promote a structure to encourage social interaction between the various actors involved in the project. In many projects involving community participation, local non-governmental organisations take on the role of the intermediary in order to mobilise communities and assist them in organising fund-raising (Kyessi 2001). 8. Operation and maintenance Although many municipal authorities remove solids from storm drains before the onset of the wet season, experience and observation suggests that this is not always done systematically. As a result, many urban stormwater drains become blocked or partially- blocked by refuse, silt, sand and other solids. This is especially the case in informal settlements where this is ongoing construction and a lack of eective services for solid waste collection (Parkinson and Goldenfum 2007). Although drains tend to continue to function and drain runo from low-intensity rainfall

The community contracting approach involves the award of contracts for implementing infrastructure works to local community organisations or groups. The contract is given to a group representing the beneciaries and the competitive tendering process is avoided. In this approach, any prots go to the community and not to a contractor or middleman. The concept is promoted as a more ecient alternative to expensive, top-down, contractor-driven urban upgrading projects (Cotton et al. 1998). However, the approach presents some potential problems. In particular, the community contractor may have limited skills and thus need considerable supervision. Another option is to engage community members as a collective group to help manage the construction. In this option, community representatives are partly or wholly responsible for overseeing the quality of the work and

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events, there is a considerable loss of hydraulic capacity, which means that large-scale investments in drainage infrastructure are wasted. For example, surveys in cities such as Mumbai in India have shown that most of the trunk sewers have become structurally unsafe and have had their hydraulic capacity reduced by 40 60% (Gupta 2005). Therefore, all drainage systems, irrespective of their design and construction, require attention to maintenance. Maintenance requirements are increased by high silt loads and the ingress of solid waste to the drainage system. The removal of solid waste from drains consumes the major annual operating budget of urban drainage operations and, if not managed, neglecting maintenance can result in deterioration of infrastructure, a need for premature replacement and loss of asset life (UNCHS 1993). In addition, most drains discharge via outfalls and these may become heavily silted to such an extent that in some cases the storm drains that are connected to them may become embedded in silt as has been the case in Kolkata (Gupta 2005). The extent of maintenance required depends upon the quantity and types of solids on the catchment surfaces, combined with climatic factors that aect the duration of the wet season and the accumulation of sediment. It may be benecial to adopt maintenance strategies that remove the waste from the drains more frequently throughout the year rather than a major operation once per year, which requires signicant resources in both human and nancial terms. 8.1 Solid waste management operations

importance of raising awareness about the need to manage solid waste to prevent future problems related to drainage blockages. The eective implementation of this project was dependent on community awareness and participation in solid waste management as in Santo Domingo.

Box 3 Drain cleaning and solid waste management in Lahore, Pakistan The project was initiated in 1992 to alleviate drainage problems by reducing the accumulation of the solids in the drainage system. It was combined with an initiative to improve solid waste management in order to reduce the potential for reoccurrence of the problems in the future. Drain cleaning was carried out by Lahore WASA sta with advice provided by a Danish consulting rm. Larger drains and sewers were cleaned by hand and specialist drain cleaning equipment. Although the cleaning of the sewers themselves posed a challenge from a technical perspective, there were many diculties presented by the fact that it was impossible to undertake the cleaning activities during the daytime due to the amount of activity on the streets. The only time it was possible to carry out the work was during the night, but the disturbance and disruption during the cleaning of sewers and open drains (nullahs) would inevitably cause complaints amongst the local residents. The role of the local NGO (YCHR) was important in liaising with the community about the project and communicating the reasons why the remedial work would be undertaken during the night. In addition to this, the NGO implemented an awareness-raising campaign to promote the importance of improved solid waste management in order to encourage residents to understand the linkages between poor solid waste management and blocked drains. In addition, the awareness raising campaign was complemented by the introduction of a new system for collection of domestic refuse on a houseto-house basis. This involved development of a handcart, which had the mobility to access the narrow, crowded streets in the old walled city area. (Personal communication, Yasin 2004)

Although municipal agencies often make an attempt to clean and improve the operation of the system prior to the onset of the wet season, this tends to be only a partial response to the scale of the problem. Owing to the fact that maintenance strategies are not required for everyday operations, they are often not planned or implemented eectively. Cheaper labour costs mean that operation and maintenance (O&M) strategies for urban drainage systems in developing countries can be much more labour intensive than those in developed countries. As solid waste management is often poor in informal settlements, the focus on improved solid waste collection becomes more important, as shown by the example from Santo Domingo described above. However, solid waste still frequently ends up in the stormwater drains, and refuse collection services are generally not well co-ordinated with drain cleaning activities even where dierent sections of the same municipal department are responsible for these dierent activities. Potentially the most eective approach is to adopt a preventative approach towards solids waste management. Box 3 describes a drain cleaning and solid waste management project in Lahore, Pakistan, which emphasises the

9. Concluding remarks There is a need to consider the development of city-wide drainage system in order to maximise the eectiveness and eciency of investments in drainage and to mitigate

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downstream ooding and pollution problems. However, urban upgrading projects rarely include provision of o-site infrastructure requirements and this is a key constraint for eective drainage provision. In addition, although some examples were presented above, a component for operation and maintenance is frequently not included in project design. The issue of land water interactions are particularly problematic in developing countries because of the impacts of uncontrolled growth and the constructions on ood plains and even in drainage channels. The concept of source control should be adopted wherever feasible in order to try to solve problems locally but will often be dicult because of weak planning controls. Regardless of this, it will always be important to dene drainage areas and the boundaries between catchment areas. Drains are often used for purposes other than those assumed by their designers. For example, drains are often used as sources of irrigation water. Therefore, drainage engineers need to consider whether the ways in which people use facilities will have an unexpected impact on the operation of the drainage system and on the health and living conditions. It will therefore be important for engineers to talk to local residents in order to both understand their concerns and learn from their local knowledge. As well as good technical skills, sta working on urban upgrading schemes need to have a willingness to look, listen and learn from the people and activities around them. However, too much emphasis on social development and the softer aspects of community participation, may lead to problems related to the basic engineering aspects of drainage design. References
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