Hyderabad: Green city in the making

Hyderabad: In addition to three new urban forests, the capital city is also set to team with rain gardens. Not one or two. Nine new such gardcens will come up by October. For starters, rain gardens are called so as they act as bioretention facilities to treat polluted stormwater runoff. They are found to be suitable in the city at places like open drains.

The State government targets to cover the open drains by utilising storm water channels and are planning to create beautiful landscapes to cover them. They are being planned to be set up underneath flyovers, driveways, open drains and some main roads of Moosapet, Chandanagar, Uppal, Malakpet, Khairthabad and Rajendranagar.

Rain gardens are designed to temporarily hold and soak in rain water runoff that flows from roods, driveways, patios or lawns. "Around nine open drains are selected in the city for developing into the rain gardens. Mundikunta stretch of 300 metres opposite to cyber convention centre on Gachibowli road in Serilingampally is marked for development. Architects have visited the drain and talks for execution are underway and we will be probably completing the works by October if all goes according to plans," informed Neeraja, Director (urban biodiversity), GHMC, and UBD officer Serilingampally GHMC.

Rain gardens are effective in removing up to 90% of nutrients and chemicals and up to 80% of sediments from the rainwater runoff. Compared to a conventional lawn, rain gardens allow for 30% more water to soak into the ground. A rain garden is not a water garden. Nor is it a pond or a wetland. Conversely, a rain garden is dry most of the time. It typically holds water only during and following a rainfall event. Because rain gardens will drain within 12-48 hours, they prevent the breeding of mosquitoes, writes groundwater.org. A rain garden has already come up in Begumpet which falls under Kukatpally division, opposite to the Mahankali temple. It has shown promising results.

A 350 meters stretch opposite to Indu Fortune Fields in Hafeezpet towards KPHB is to be developed with landscapes as one of the rain gardens. Among the earmarked places, aligned to Khairthabad flyover, a 200 meters stretch behind the PJR Statue is considered for developing it into a beautiful rain garden. In Charminar zone, three rain gardens are planned at Chadarghat, Attapur and Rajendranagar areas.

Musi banks at Chadarghat which are adjacent to Malakpet metro station along NH65 for 100 meters and pipelines along the Attapur flyover for a distance of 100 meters in Rajendranagar and another one underneath Attapur flyover for 200 meters will be developed as rain gardens.