Category: Community, small farms
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Citizen engagement: Arena groups using Transition Management to increase safe use of urban shallow groundwater and to have a voice with authorities [C12]
Transition Management and Learning Alliances are proving to be valuable mechanisms for mobilising residents of slums areas, building trust between them and with authorities and NGOs. Residents in the three slum areas investigated are heavily reliant on self-supply from shallow groundwater and UPGro has strengthened the evidence base around those risks, and identified both new…
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Citizen engagement: School Water Clubs helping girls and boys in Kenya understand water issues in their local area, across Kenya and the world
The Gro for GooD team set up three School Water Clubs in Kwale County, Kenya, to support water science education in secondary schools. This programme of school engagement was delivered with project partner Base Titanium Ltd. The research team, along with their industry partner, provided support to the teachers running the water clubs by arranging…
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Rainwatch and farmer radio in Ghana and Burkina Faso is able to connect groundwater users in rural areas with forecasts and other useful information to strengthen their resilience [C7]
One of the key aspects of supporting groundwater management is being able to cope with changing rainfall patterns. Rainwatch is a simple, open source platform which is owned and managed by National Met Personal from 15 different countries across Africa – the Rainwatch Alliance. To support the dry season planning, estimates of the groundwater levels…
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UPGro Science: investment in local investigations, mapping and monitoring unlocks economic potential and resilience [S5]
Good local hydrogeological understanding and monitoring over time is required to define the sustainable yield of wells and boreholes, particularly in weathered basement aquifers, and from this assess opportunities for domestic, agricultural, commercial and industrial activities, and the associated risks. Many low-productivity fractured aquifers are capable of supporting handpump boreholes, with no evidence of climate…
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UPGro Impact: Handpump repair times in Kwale, Kenya, brought down from weeks to days. Kenya Water Act 2016 sets the framework for national scaling up. Fundifix business model is influencing the design of other rural water services [D3]
Background Financial sustainability, accessibility and reliability of rural water services is worldwide challenge, particularly in low and middle income countries. Furthermore, globally, 4 out of 5 people who don’t have access to even as basic water supply live in rural areas. In Kenya, as in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, rural people are highly dependent on…
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UPGro Impact: Designing roads for groundwater recharge and erosion control is expanding across Ethiopia and being introduced in Uganda and Kenya [D1]
Road runoff is a major problem in the tropics because heavy rainfall can lead to rapid soil erosion, which causes multiple problems. An UPGro catalyst project turned the problem into a solution by testing new road drainage designs in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, that channel the runoff into filtration ponds and swales, thus reducing flooding and…
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UPGro Science: Bacteriological contamination of groundwater is likely to be a significant barrier to achieving safely managed water services under SDG6, but this can be tackled by improved construction practices [S7]
In rural areas, around 70% of working handpumps surveyed across in Uganda, Malawi and Ethiopia provided good quality water, with only 9% affected by chemical contamination (fluoride, arsenic, nitrate). 21% were affected by bacteriological contamination
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UPGro Science: Testing of shallow groundwater in urban areas confirmed widespread contamination and health risks, and some contaminants not previously detected or tested for. New sensor methods developed [S8]
In urban areas, groundwater quality measured in Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia was found to be generally poor, particularly in shallow unconfined aquifers. Viral DNA work shows that viruses, some of which are pathogenic and carcinogenic for humans, are persistent in aquifers and present irrespective of geology, depth, population etc. Emerging contaminants, e.g. viruses,…
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UPGro Science: Affordable maintenance and repair are one of the main predictors of borehole functionality, highlighting the need for effective management models to improve rural water services [S10]
The reasons for poor water point functionality are complex; there is not a simple strong relationship between good governance and the functionality of rural water points. However, affordable maintenance and repair are one of the main predictors of rural water point functionality, pointing to the need to consider different models for the management of community…
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UPGro Science: Access to groundwater is associated with improved agricultural production, reduced agricultural risk, and improved livelihoods [S11]
Access to groundwater is associated with improved agricultural production, reduced agricultural risk, and improved livelihoods.
UPGro 