Background

Over 80% of drinking water in rural Indian communities is sourced from ground water. A shallow ground water table, pollution, increased industrial use, and growing populations are stressing both the quantity and quality of water resources, especially in rural communities where public utilities are unavailable. Recent lab results on water quality from the area have shown alarming and dangerous levels of impurities and micro-organisms.

Several attempts have been made to improve the situation. Methods for harvesting rain water and storing it in pits have shown limited success, but are compromised due to the inability of the collected rain supply to meet the water demand, and shallow polluted ground water mixing with the collected water in the storage pits. Solar distillation methods have been attempted but production levels are far too low to be feasible. Currently, many villagers boil water for drinking which is very inefficient and costly.

The Sehgal Water Project will work in conjunction with the Sehgal Foundation and Dissigno to research, develop, and deploy a locally sustainable system for improving drinking water quality in the rural community of Karheda in Harayana, India.

Process

The Sehgal Water Project project is divided into three distinct phases: a systems study phase, a design and test phase, and an installation phase.

During the initial system study phase, a review of current methods employed both in the recipient community as well as methods used elsewhere in the world will be conducted. Candidate solutions will be proposed that may include:

The proposed set of options will then be evaluated against a set of performance metrics that include social and economic factors as well as technical requirements. These metrics will be developed in partnership with Sehgal Foundation and the Meo people.

Once an appropriate solution has been identified, a prototype system will be built and tested in the United States. The EWB team will work with Sehgal Foundation to assemble, install, and validate functionality of water filtering equipment in Mewat, India. As a result of the technical process lessons learned will be captured, and decision aids will be developed in order to help guide similar future efforts in surrounding communities.

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