Singapore university joins COEP students to set up floating island in filthy river
Pune Mirror: The floating island technique, conceived by civil engineering students of College of Engineering Pune (COEP) last year, has now moved from the prototype stage to that of implementation, on our very own Mutha river!
In fact, work has begun at the stretch of the river near Sangam Bridge. The technique has even resulted in a knowledge exchange programme between students of COEP and those of Nanyang Technical University (NTU), Singapore.
COEP’s project has generated so much interest that NTU has sanctioned Rs 6 lakh as funds for the project as part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between COEP and NTU.
As per the MoU, NTU students will come down to Pune in May to study the environmental conditions and help with the project.
Similarly, COEP students are scheduled to go to Singapore to study river purification projects. Flashback
Last year, some COEP students had come up with the floating island technique to clean the river. They made a prototype of the floating island and showcased it at the annual regatta.
Shrikant Ambulkar, third-year student and member of the team, said, “We studied root zone technology and the floating island technique which use vegetation growth in a pre-determined way to clean up pollutants in a river.”
The floating island is made up of PVC pipes, coir and a jute bed to allow vegetation such as canna plants to grow. “The natural chemical process decreases pollutants in the water.
According to our readings, the turbidity decreases to great extent and suspended solid pollutants reduce up to 80 per cent,” said Dhaval Patil, another student. Each island unit will measure 1m x 2m.
The students plan to develop 20 islands in a month. “We will test water samples before installing the floating islands and compare these with results by the year-end,” students said.
They are planning to install 100 more islands on the stretch of the river between Sangamwadi Bridge and COEP Boat Club.
According to them, the ideal place to install the islands is near the mouth of the nullah or stream where the velocity of water flow is not more than 2 metres/sec.
“Our Jaldindi team has shown that Mutha is clean at its source but gets contaminated as soon as it enters the city. Our task is to stop contaminated water from mixing in the river,” Dhaval said.
Before constructing floating islands, litter traps will be made. Litter traps are netted pits that will be built beneath the water level to trap solid waste entering the river through nullahs and storm streams. The litter traps will decrease the load on floating islands to minimise turbidity.
Participants of the COEP boat club’s Jaldindi, which culminates today, will provide samples of the river water from its origin to its end to this project.
Currently, nine civil engineering students are involved in the project. Initially, NTU had shown interest in sharing information with COEP.
Later, they sanctioned Rs 6 lakh as a grant to fund the project. “NTU students are coming to COEP in May. We will also go to Singapore to learn about their wet land technique for cleaning rivers,” Dhaval said.
Dr R P Thanedar, professor of environmental engineering at COEP, is guiding the students. “We have signed an MoU with NTU regarding sharing of information and for student exchange,” Dr Thanedar said. He thinks the project will take another year to be visibly effective.
The students said, “We will be using canna plants, as they are available easily, along with other species of plants which will act as filters on the island.
The existing techniques such as cesspools or septic tanks require high consumption of energy, large investment and a huge area of land apart from its mammoth maintenance costs.”
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