TITLE:
A Preliminary Investigation of Smart Rural Water Distribution Systems in the Gambia
AUTHORS:
Will Ingram, Leen Saeb, Seyed Sadr, Rob Hygate, Fayyaz Ali Memon
KEYWORDS:
Innovation, Rural Water Supply, Smart Technology, The Gambia, e-Tap
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Water Resource and Protection,
Vol.10 No.4,
April
18,
2018
ABSTRACT: An estimated one-third of water points in rural sub-Saharan Africa are non-functioning at any one time because of lack of upkeep. Communities are left without access to clean drinking water and this has multiple knock-on developmental impacts. An innovative pre-payment and Internet-of-Things enabled “e-Tap” based water technology and management system cycles revenue back into operation and maintenance and collects accurate and real-time data on consumption and tap failures. This has been operational in the Gambia since April 2016. Preliminary research has begun on evaluating this innovation. Technical tests were conducted to examine the efficiency of the e-Tap under varying conditions. Water use trends were then analysed by using the cloud-collected data transmitted from operational e-Taps. Further, baseline sveys to investigate social parameters were undertaken on 20 user households. This exploratory research shows the e-Taps to work efficiently in the laboratory and the Gambia with negligible failures, and to reduce distances users must travel for clean water and time they spend collecting.