Today Sander de Haas gave a presentation on Low-cost innovations for water and sanitation.
The presentation is in Dutch (but contains mainly pictures!) and can be viewed below:
The latest mission to Wiggins Primary School in Kumi Uganda resulted in 2 successful boreholes. The boreholes are both fitted with handpumps. The water from the boreholes will be used as drinkingwater for the 1000 pupils of the primary school. The first results of waterquality- and capacitytests of the boreholes are positive.
For the next 6 months the quality and capacity of the boreholes will be monitored by the schoolstaff and -children. After these 6 months the results of the monitoring and the possibilties for an upgrade to a solar powered system will be evaluated.
Backgrounds of the project can be found on:
http://www.samsamwater.com/projectdata.php?projectid=69.
The Wiggings Primary School is located in the East of Uganda. The Foundation ” Kyoga Steunfonds” has supported the school since 1980 by providing educational material and renewing the school classrooms. The school has an increasing number of pupils (up to 1000 pupils in 2011). For drinking water and sanitation these pupils and the school staff more heavily rely on the town water system, which is subject to power losses and mechanical problems. Mainly in the dry season this causes shortages on drinking water for the school pupils.
Supported by the foundation “Steunfonds Kyoga”, SamSamWater carried out a hydrological field study in 2012 to gain information on different possibilities in accessing safe and clean drinking water for the school. The field study resulted in a technical advice and recommendation for the most suitable and sustainable option for the school. For the school a (low capacity) borehole appeared to best option to be able to provide save drinking water. At first the borehole will be fitted with a handpump and will be upgraded to a solar powered system at a later stage (when the usage and maintenance of the system is regulated).
In october 2013 a new mission will be carried out. SamSamWater will assist and supervise the geophysical survey, the drilling and testing of the borehole.
To train the AMREF and other Kenyan WASH Alliance (KWA) members in their efforts to provide
sustainable water access a Knowledge Exchange mission was carried out. This mission is part of the SUSWA (Scale up of Sustainable Water Access) project by WML, Aqua for All and AMREF.
During this Knowledge Exchange mission SamSamWater gave a training on using Google Earth, GIS tools and GPS functionality for water projects. The participants were trained in using Google Earth and other tools to prepare for field visits and siting of 3R water projects. Furthermore the participants were trained in using GPS apps on their Android smartphones to measure and collect data in the field.
All participants were enthusiastic about the possibilities of these tools in making their work more efficient. The mission report and links to all the websites and Android apps can be found here: http://www.samsamwater.com/suswa/.
SamSamWater launches the Rainwater Harvesting Tool. The Rainwater Harvesting Tool is a free online tool enabling everybody to easily calculate the optimal dimensions of a rain water harvesting tank for any location worldwide.
Visit http://www.samsamwater.com/rain or download the free app from the Google Play store (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.b24.samsamwater).
Catching and storing rainwater from rooftops (‘roofwater harvesting’) is a proven technique which can provide a safe source of (drinking) water. Despite it being a commonly practiced method, many tanks (reservoirs) of roof water harvesting systems are over- or under-dimensioned, making the system unnecessary expensive or providing insufficient water. The rain water harvesting tool will help consumers, engineers and NGO’s to determine or check the optimum dimensions of a rainwater harvesting system.
In four easy steps you can calculate the optimum size of a rain water harvesting tank for your home, school or nursery. Based on your location, the available monthly rainfall is retrieved from a worldwide meteorological database. By entering the size of the roof (or drawing the roof on a map) and the type of roofing material the tool determines the amount of water that can be harvested. Finally, by entering the number of people using the system the water demand is calculated. Based on the monthly water availability and demand, the tool will determine the optimum tank size and will also give information on the expected reliability of the water supply system. The results are presented in a simple way so they can be used in for example project proposals or reports.
If you have questions, suggestions or if you would like more information on the SamSamWater Rainwater Harvesting Tool please contact us.
Today Sander de Haas gave a keynote presentation on ‘Low-cost innovations for water and sanitation’ at the InnoWater Symposium in Wageningen.
The presentation can be viewed below, and on this website: http://www.samsamwater.com/innowater.
Aug 272012
Together with our partner organisation Kaalo Foundation we are involved in a proejct to construct improved berkads in Budunbuto, Somalia. Berkads are sub-surface water reservoirs to store water during rains so it can be used during droughts.
In the Somalia the construction of the berkads has started. The Kaalo Foundation has made a movie (in Dutch) about the construction:
More information on berkads can be found here.
Using the SamSamWater Climate Tool it is possible to determine climatic conditions (precipication and evaporation) for any location on earth. Last year the tool has been used over 58,000 times worldwide.
The climate data were extracted from a UN FAO server. Due to a server error, the tool has been dysfunctional for a number of months. But we are glad to announce the tool is fully functional again!
We use a different source for the climatic data (CRU CL 2.0), that’s why there might be a (limited) difference in the results compared to the old tool.
The use of the tool is very straightforward: select a location on the map, click ‘OK and you will see a chart and table with the average monthly precipitation and evaporation for that location.
Aug 022012
The Charity Fund of ING employees support SamSamWater with a donation of 1000 euros!
SamSamWater volunteer Dominique Woltheus works at ING and has supported this request.
We are delighted with this donation and would like to thank all ING employees!
Carolina Sardella finished her research at the VU university on improving the drinking water supply in Somalia (Puntland). This is one of the regions in eastern Africa which was hit severely during the large drought of 2011. Carolina concludes that the water supply in this region can be improved severely by a fairly simple adjustment of the traditional water supply system ‘berkads’. This is good news for the dutch Kaalo Foundation, which works together with SamSamWater to improve the water supply in Somalia. The conclusions of her study form the base of the pilotproject which will be carried out in Budunbuto together with Kaalo and Wilde Ganzen.
In Somalia, the water supply is traditionally arranged using berkads. These are large basins in which surface runoff water is collected and stored. Somalia is an extremely dry area. By making use of the land surface as a water collection area, the little rainfall can add up to larger volumes. The runoff water is then stored in berkeds. 
Since the land surface is not clean (for example, it will have animal dung), the rainwater collected is generally of poor quality. Therefore, designing a simple purifying step will result in an enormous improvement of the drinking water supply. In her article, Carolina explains how water stored in berkads can be purified to become drinking water by using evaporation. The full article is available in english: “Evaluation of the implemenation of the solar still principle on runoff water reservoirs in Budunbuto, Somalia “.
The Kaalo Foundation made a nice, informative film on the project (in dutch).
