High water tables are causing another serious issue: the water catchment is easily contaminated by poorly constructed latrines, often leading to the spread of diseases. 25% of people lived without any sanitation facilities, suggesting a high open defecation rate.
Designing for such an isolated community presented a variety of challenges and required innovative, out-of-the-box thinking. With extreme weather conditions in the region, the design had to be resilient against bushfires, extreme heat, cyclones and flooding, as well as remain accessible during the wet season when the river floods and crocodiles inhabit the river. Other local constraints included a lack of access to electricity, and as future maintenance would be undertaken by the local residents, the design needed to be suitable for a non-technical community.
We created a system that uses solar powered submersible bore pumps to extract water from below the bed sands of the river. Designed to be submersed diagonally in the side of the river bed and buried underneath 4m of sand, the pump will remain more protected should another cyclone occur.
An innovative, low maintenance aeration filtration system, which is chemical-free and uses no electricity, will remove the high levels of iron found in the raw water source. A solar and battery powered UV system that disinfects the water for E. coli and bacteria, has been proposed as a future improvement.
R50M
Budget
50 KL
Treated per day
2,000
Homes Impacted