Abstract

Urbanization along with its impermeable structures is the major causes of flooding in urban areas. Urban storm water influences the service life of urban infrastructures. The rainfall intensity and characteristics of catchment area are the major factors for designing urban storm water drainage facilities. These facilities have a paramount advantage to safely dispose the generated floods to ultimate receiving system. This study has assessed the integration of road and urban storm water drainage infrastructure with the help of topographic map and also the condition, pavement type and hierarchy of every road and drain were assessed in Addis Ketema Sub-city. This study area, particularly, is bounded in between Addis Ababa Municipality (East), Addis ‘Ketema’ high school and General bus terminal (West), ‘Yohannes’ Church (North-East) and Bethel high school (North-west). The objectives of this study includes: to identify sites most prone to flooding problems, to assess the existing condition of road and urban storm water drainage infrastructure, to identify the extent of integration of urban storm water drainage infrastructure in road projects provision, to examine the impacts of Urban storm water drainage infrastructure integration on road performance and related environment issues and to make recommendations on road and Urban storm water drainage infrastructure integration and their provision and management. An exploratory and descriptive type of methods were used to describe and investigate the existing condition and coverage and level of integration between road and Urban storm water drainage infrastructure infrastructures respectively. Data collection methods were carried out using both primary and secondary data sources, but the secondary data source was only relevant to reinforce the primary data, which was accomplished with the help of topographic map and a check list. The collected data were analyzed and presented using Microsoft-excel, AutoCAD and ArcGIS and tables, graphs and percentages respectively. The findings of this study includes: the major causes of flooding which was found to be the blockage of urban storm water drainage lines along with inadequate/poor integration between road and urban storm water drainage infrastructures. This study strongly recommends improvement in the integration of road and urban storm water drainage infrastructure and integrated solid waste management to prevent over flowing of flood as a result of blockage of drains.

Key words: Drainage, irrigation, urban areas, flooding.