Can remote sensing tech help East Africa's water-stressed communities?

SOPEL, Kenya — Though William Eiton, a herder from Sopel village in northern Kenya, is worried that the drought in the Horn of Africa may not end soon, he is calmed by a rare comfort at his village: clean and safe water.

His village relies on a solar powered water system that pumps water from a borehole and stores it in a collection tank, serving about 800 households. Were the system to break down, some 5,400 herders would be without water, said Eiton, who is also the chairman of the Sopel village water project.

Breakdowns often happen due to pressure from the high number of people the facility serves, especially during dry spells, and because of floods, which break down the pipelines and sometimes sweep them away.

In response to the numerous breakdowns this year, a team from the Catholic church charity arm Caritas Lodwar partnered with the international social enterprise Virridy to provide an emergency response operation, also known as “water ambulances,” to repair broken water systems and save the village from an extra drought shock: water stress.

Virridy is working with the University of Colorado Boulder, the Millennium Water Alliance, and the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development, to provide innovative water monitoring technologies through the Drought Resilience Impact Platform or DRIP — a system that uses satellite-connected sensors to identify broken water systems. DRIP is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, NASA, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

The Horn of Africa has experienced three severe droughts in the last 10 years and is currently facing its fifth consecutive failed rainy season — an unprecedented occurrence.

According to James Lobeck, chairman of the local charity Sustainable Approaches for Community Empowerment, prolonged droughts force water-stressed communities to over rely on water facilities, a situation that often leads to breakdowns.

Privatization of water services, where companies provide water to people who are able to pay their bills, has also led to neglect of water systems in communities that cannot afford to pay.

The distant location of these facilities from administrative units, coupled by poor cellphone connectivity that prevents communities reporting broken systems to authorities, adds to the lack of maintenance, Lobeck said.

“It is a double crisis for communities experiencing drought and water stress,” he said.

In northern Kenya, there are three water ambulance response teams established by Caritas Lodwar, serving different sites in the region.

James Ng'ang'a, head of the emergency response team at Caritas Lodwar, said that responding to broken water systems would have taken up to two weeks in the past. But since working with Virridy, they are now able to respond in a matter of hours.

Ng'ang'a said that in the first half of the year, his team has responded to 290 broken water systems in the region, but that figure could double by the end of the year, due to expected floods.

“With sensors, our work has become easier because we are now able to know the state of water points that are difficult to access. The round the clock information flow means less waiting time for emergency response,” he said.  

Christian Muragijimana, the Africa regional director at Virridy, explained that the sensors transmit collected data through an open access dashboard to response teams, reporting on whether a system is in use or has reduced its capacity to deliver water to communities.

“Breakages happen very often but the remoteness of where this happens makes reporting the problem a big challenge. The sensors make this easier by having eyes on the water system throughout and reporting its functions,” Muragijimana said.

Muragijimana said his organization has installed thousands of sensors in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, including the one that was recently installed at Eiton’s Sopel village in northern Kenya.

A report by the University of Colorado Boulder found that responses to drought and water stress in the Horn of Africa have been reactive because they relied on international aid, which disappeared when the crisis softened. But DRIP’s system aims to enable “drought-prone communities to become effective managers in the prevention of these humanitarian crises.”

“It replaces reactive and expensive short-term assistance measures like water trucking, with a framework for drought resilience,” the report stated.

Eiton added that the water management system has given his village some security during the current crisis.

“We do not have much to feed us due to the drought, but I feel lucky because we have water. Our children can attend school and pregnant mothers do not have to worry about delivery at our health center,” he said.