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).