East African Water- Part II: Not a Drop Safe to Drink.
Food security in East Africa and in many poor nations could be immensely improved by a concerted effort of collecting, purifying and distributing water from any available source.
In part I, it was shown that water in East Africa is in abundance but the observed scarcity of water was due to lack of collection, purification and distribution, rather than from lack of water. Water purification, when incorporated in the processes of collecting and distribution, makes it possible to convert water from any source into water fit to drink. Water as a medium of life is a resource that must be available equally to all to utilize, like air or solar power. Apart from the support of life, exploiting water resource can generate immense benefits like improved health and wealth from commercial activities.
The steps to be followed to obtain clean water may be dictated by costs and end usage, but the sequence of action may broadly be as follows:
- Identifying water sources. These may be rivers, lakes, springs, swamps and underground reservoirs or rain water.
- Pre-treatment by removing debris like floating leaves or logs by the use of strainers reduces clogging of pipes, small canals or furrows during transmission to treatment centre. This may also include the precautions that in collection and storage of rainwater, where metal storage containers or pipes (especially lead) should be avoided.
- Storage and treatment facilities may be supplied from a number of water sources, by of pipes (clay, bamboo, metal or plastic), canals or furrows. The storage tanks may also act as sedimentation tanks to remove impurities like silt. Treatment may start with flocculation using alum and sedimentation, leading to filtration. The use of sun power, chemicals like ozone or chlorine can be done at this stage. This set up may also act to cushion intermittency in supply of clean water destined for end users.
- Storage and distribution systems for the purified clean water. These set ups are smaller storage facilities closer to the point of use like a hospital, school, residential community or industrial area. The use of water towers to provide pressure reduces the expense of pumping water to consumers. Household water supply will include the setting up of control systems such usage charges to minimize wastage.
In this article, the theme is water purification at the point of use by a small community.
Purification methods:
When I completed my basic secondary education, I was lucky to work in a filtration plant that supplied clean water to a small mining community. I was impressed and fascinated to see that incoming dirty water was converted to clean water fit to drink within few minutes.
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