Assessing the Suitability of Piped Water Supply for Tanker-fed Villages By Using WaterGems

Abstract

The Drinking water security has become a challenge for the country, specially in rural areas. So it is necessary to use available sustainable resources to resolve the problem. Many parts of Maharashtra  face severe drinking water shortage in spite of high rainfall lying typically in the range of 2000-3000 mm. Aurangabad district alone  has more than 100 tanker-fed villages, majority of which are concentrated  in Paithan taluka. This study covered 25 villages located around 80km from Jayakwadi Dam. These villages had their water supply scheme but their sources become dry due to lowering of water table. This study have indicated that it would be possible to solve the water scarcity problem of cluster of tanker fed villages by appropriately designing a multi-village scheme based on Jayakwadi dam as a source. This study assessed the performance of primary piped network of cluster of tanker-fed villages from source i.e. dam to ESR by using hydraulic simulation software i.e. WaterGems V8i and GIS. This software firstly creates the network with 500 mm as input diameter& run the model successfully. Next step is the  applying elevation data with TREX tool, then takes the demand using load builder & as an outpu tsufficent flow in each pipe it generates various scenarios by maintaining pressure and velocity constraints within specified limits. Lastly goes for optimization of network using Darwin Designer &Jaltantra software for the three scenarios such as DI, CI, GI pipes based on various diameter ranges & its unit cost i.e. commercial cost taken from MJP district Schedule rates. Finally optimal diameter for pipe by Darwin Designer is 700 mm and by Jaltantra software is 600 mm for three pipes DI, CI, GI. By considering durability, life span of pipe, operation & maintenance point of view, an optimal layout network of DI pipe is looking as more precise network compared to other two network.