Using unused fertile soils in a sustainable way by introducing hydraulic ram pumps

For our thesis we are analysing and designing a hydraulic ram pump for a humanitarian organisation called Humasol. This pump allows low-cost water pumping in rural areas without an external energy source and is mainly used for irrigation or providing life stock of water. The hydram uses a physical phenomenon called the water hammer effect to create a pressure surge so that a small amount of water can be pumped each cycle. Humasol is a NGO that provides students projects in the South that cope with making renewable energy available all around the world. The organisation was founded seven years ago but is vastly expanding, providing now projects to over 25 engineering students.

Over eleven percent of all people in the world i.e. 800 million people have hunger and 750 million people lack access to clean water (World Hunger education service, 2015) (water.org, 2015). At the same time, there is enough unused fertile soil to feed about 750 million people (Chi & Diemer, 2002). By comparing these two numbers, someone could wonder why the unused fertile soils aren’t just used to feed those in need. Off course, reality seems to be somewhat harder. Infrastructures for using these soils are absent or insufficient, proper irrigation systems are unavailable and too expensive and there exists no social background in those communities to promote using these soils. But, these people are not alone on the planet. The other eighty-eight percent don’t have hunger and have no lack of water. These people could make sure that living on earth would be viable for everyone. Unfortunately, these people usually don’t have the knowledge to give aid and lack the knowledge for the answer to the problem.

However it would be difficult, it’s definitely not impossible. In this paper a sustainable solution is presented and an idea on how this problem could be solved in real life. In that way, a more general solution can be followed and the core of the problem can be solved by anyone who wants to help solving this problem because it can’t be solved alone. These are based on the four pillars of sustainability: the social, ethical, technical and economical aspect.

How can this problem be solved?

Half of the unused soils lies in Africa (Styslinger, 2015). Therefore, we should watch this continent closely and look at the advantages and disadvantages we can find there. Apart from the Sahara desert, a lot of height differences are visible, especially underneath the equator where a lot of poor countries lie based on the GDP (Van Hecke, Van Der Hallen, & Callemeyn, 2010). On these hills, a lot of water is available from the rivers and lakes. These are the perfect source to make agriculture in Africa possible. But how should we transport the water towards these fertile places. Most of the time the river runs in the valley and should be pumped up to reach the right places to make irrigation possible.

Since power sources like electricity and fuel are often expensive due to lack of transportation, other permanent ideas that don’t require an external energy supply should be looked upon. In the table below a short summary of solutions is presented compared with each other in investment cost, operation cost and cost over 10 years. The costs on 10 years are based upon investigations of the topic in China (Chi & Diemer, 2002).

	Investment cost	Operation cost	Yuan/m³/10 years
Electric pump	Medium	High	3
Diesel pump	Medium	High	3
Floating pump	High	Low	0,1
Solar pump	Highest	Low	30
Wind pump	High	Low	30
Hydraulic ram pump	High	Low	0,1

A ram pump needs specific conditions in terms of an initial head to be able to pump water. However when something needs to be pumped to a higher position and no high flow (necessary for floating pump) is available, the hydraulic ram pump is the optimal solution because it needs no external energy supply and can pump to as much as seventy times its original head (Tacke, 1988). At the same time, the polluting aspect of the ram pump is very limited. Apart from transporting the components to the right place together with the production of the ram components, which needs to be done with every pump, the hydraulic ram pump produces no CO₂ equivalents. In comparison with the electric and diesel pump, the hydraulic ram pump is superior because of the lack of an energy supply, which makes it less polluting. Both a wind and solar pump produce more initial CO₂ equivalents to produce. This effect will be smaller on the long term, but the cost is off course still a lot higher.

Another thing to think about is the structure to use the soils. Erosion is one of the things that could occur over time when the soils would just be cultivated without extra attention. About 1-2 % of the soils erode annually when they are cultivated (Chi & Diemer, 2002). A proper guidance for this problem is necessary here, because otherwise future generations are stuck with soils that are eroded. Therefore, maintaining the soils in the shape they have now, is something good to do. The easiest and nowadays most conventional way to stop soils from eroding, is terracing. Morgan introduced multiple ways to stop erosion from happening but concluded that terracing is the best solution when starting without a lot of resources (Morgan, 2005). However, it should be noted that this is only one of the things that should be looked upon. Producing power in a sustainable way should be another focus. Since the ram pump doesn’t need any external energy supply, creating irrigation systems that don’t interfere with the power production problem.
Sadly enough, the erosion doesn’t stop there. Rivers are still (minimally) polluted by the eroding soils. Therefore cleaning these waters should be a second main focus. While we are on this, waste water from industrial processes can be re utilized when it’s treated as well. These two things could be done by a slack/water separator and a hydraulically driven ram pump (EMS Industries, 2015). The separator is a simple rotating mechanism that pushes the slack to one side and the water to other one (Figure 2). The hydraulically driven ram pump designed by the company EMS can pump the slack to other places or pump heavily polluted water. These pumps have been tested and seem to be the best solution around (Figure 1). If both terracing and the treatment of polluted water are done properly, future generations can benefit and build on technologies that aren’t around today.

This whole idea is a beautiful concept but this paper with the technology by itself won’t make it happen. To realise it, some main social and economic points should be taken into consideration:What should be done as an extra effort?

• Money for solving this problem is scarce and widely divided over many NGO’s
• People to work on this problems are difficult to find
• The objective should be to make the aid finite and make sure the local people know the technologies behind it(Dambisa, 2010)
• The local mind-set in these countries is different and they don’t know how to benefit from it
• Failures happen but are too often kept quiet from the rest of the world

The solution to this problem can be found in an umbrella organisation that’s non-governmental.  Nowadays, there are a lot of these small NGO’s but their scale remains limited. Examples of these kind of organisations are AFD (Academics for development) and Humasol. If a lot of these NGO’s can work together and work with a general plan, with the objective presented before, bigger budgets can be obtained, research can be shared and a marketing plan can be executed. Examples of these kind of organisations are “engineers without borders” and “Kom op tegen kanker”. The different NGO’s can now all cooperate together with the same objective but with a mutual budget and goal. In a way, you could call this a cooperation between different NGO’s.

With the marketing campaign, stronger interest will grow for helping these projects. Enough skilled people should come forward to design, build and teach about the installations. These people should be found at a certain point, which is one of the most difficult steps. Students should be highly recommended to participate in a developing project. The government can take steps in this, but the cooperation mentioned above can do this to. For students, exploring different cultures can be very interesting for their future lives. But realising something tangible will be an boost for a lot of students.

To be able to make the aid finite, several tasks should be distributed. All kind of talents are necessary and in this way almost all students can be involved. Local people should be taught about the installation so they can maintain them their selves, and who can teach better than teachers (teaching students). Engineers can work out the technical plans while technicians execute them. Social plans can be made by social workers and the marketing plan of the cooperation by marketing students. In this way, not only experience, which students often lack, but also a cultural mind-set could be obtained together with the main objective install all the irrigation systems.

But these people are not the only ones who should change their mind-set. The local people should do the same. Nowadays they often lack the knowledge of these technologies but once they’re installed the technology should be maintained. Local companies could be begun for the maintenance and later build-up of new products locally. Again, the money source can then be limited and at the end they can provide for themselves, which is essentially the main goal of the aid program. This can be taught during the lessons provided.

The last thing is to locate failures in projects. Again, if the scale is big enough a community with the involved (student) engineers, technicians, social workers and teachers could be built. These could then make an open source network like David Damberger to alert other people from the possible failures and what can be done to prevent them (Damberger, 2011). If there are enough people involved, they can cooperate to fight future failures together. But not only failures should be shared on this platform, successful projects can be shared as well where future installations can be based upon. One NGO would be too small to do this, but if a whole community of all kinds of people can work together a lot is possible and can be obtained.

References

Chi, P. M., & Diemer, P. (2002). Hydraulic Ram Handbook. Opgehaald van Borda: http://www.borda-net.org/fileadmin/borda-net/Knowledge/Implementation%20Manuals/064%2520BORDA_HydRam-Handbook.pdf

Damberger, D. (2011). Learning from failure. Calgary, Canada.

Dambisa, M. (2010). Dead Aid. New york: Douglas & McIntyre.

EMS Industries. (2015, February 15). EMS Industries. Opgehaald van emsgb: http://www.emsgb.com/index.html

Morgan, R. (2005). Soil Erosion And Corosion. Malden, USA: Blackwell Science Ltd.

Styslinger, M. (2015, 4 8). The Fertile Continent: Agriculture’s Final Frontier. Opgehaald van Blogs Worldwatch: http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/the-fertile-continent-agriculture%E2%80%99s-final-frontier/

Tacke, J. (1988). Hydraulic Rams Comparative investigation. Report 88-1, Delft University of Technology, B1-B6.

Van Hecke, E., Van Der Hallen, D., & Callemeyn, J. (2010). Wolters Algemene Wereldatlas. Groningen: Wolters Plantyn.

water.org. (2015, 4 10). Water facts: Water. Opgehaald van Water : http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/

World Hunger education service. (2015, 4 14). 2015 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics. Opgehaald van World Hunger: http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#What_are_the_causes_of_hunger

Case Study – Safety in the South

Hi there, welcome back,

Like I’ve written in my previous post I would like to invite you in a small case study and share my knowledge of HAZOP. I present to you this photo, taken during one of the previous Humasol projects.

Do you remember the two rules of the previous blog post concerning safety? I hope you still did but I will recapitulate them again either way. When facing a certain situation one should take two minutes to sit back, and think of what they are going to do and how these can endanger yourself, others or materials. Then one should ask themselves: What risk am I willing to take? A way of quantifying a hazard is done by the HAZOP or hazard operations technique. We can use this method to get an idea for which hazards we certainly need safeguards (counteractions). Hazards are quantified in four groups (low-medium-high-unacceptable) by looking at two aspects of the hazard. First we evaluate the severity of the hazard (minor-serious-critical-catastrophic) and after that the frequency of occurrence (improbable-remote-occasional-probable-frequent).

Now let’s use this technique to evaluate the photo. Do you see certain hazards? What risk are you willing to take to perform that action? Which ID would you assign to that hazard? If found 6 hazards and I’m looking forward with what you come up with!

Cheers,
Alexander

Promoting safety during practical implementation in a developing country

Hi there,

Humasol members are required to attend several workshops. I’ve already made a blog post concerning cultural difficulties based on a cultural awareness workshop but in this post I will talk about another workshop we’ve joined, a safety workshop organised by Glenn Gysels.

Safety is for Humasol one of the most important concepts in realizing a project. All project students need to be aware that in the South different rules apply regarding taking risks due to the lack of immediate medical assistance. If some project student gets harmed seriously, this could mean the end of the organisation. But even more, it could have drastic consequences for the students or the locals, that don’t have access to the same medical assistance as we do! Therefor, Humasol expects the students to make a thorough risk analysis so that we can anticipate certain hazards.

A clear concept Glenn has thought us was to ‘take two’. With this, he suggests we take 2 minutes to think about possible dangers of the actions that we are going to perform. What impact will these actions have, and even more important, is it worth the risk? For example, if you are going to weld a structure, what can go wrong and what precautions do you need to take? Firstly, we need to wear appropriate clothing inclusive protective gloves, weld mask, long sleeves, etc. But what else can go wrong? The sparks might cause fire, so are their any flammable products in the neighbourhood? The welding will cause metal to be extremely hot, could this harm someone/cause damage to another component. You see, by just taking some time, you can predict and avoid problems.

In my next post I will post a photo of a certain safety situation where I will ask you to help analyse the hazards of the situation in accordance with a safety model called HAZOP. Main parts where I hope you will join me in the discussion will be, what can you see that might cause harm, and what risks would you take to do this operation.

We have heard tales from previous project students that the locals don’t mind safety regulations although it should be very important for them. Do you have any ideas on how we can make sure that they try to follow several rules like wearing appropriate clothes while using certain tools?

Cheers,
Alexander

Post preventing failure on ram pumps

Hi all,

In my last post, I talked about failures in the developing sector. How can we avoid such failures on our ram pump? And what if the pump fails and no one is there to repair it? Sara Kinsbergen, a PHD student from Nijmegen (Holland) has written multiple papers about working together with local partners.

The answer is conducted over 3 points. First of all, local people should be involved in the planning of local infrastructures as stated in one of my previous posts. They should be the ones with a demand for a specific installation on a location. The ones who are giving aid should design the installation in maintainable way and as close as possible to the question asked by the locals (Kinsbergen, 2007). A second point consists of involvement of inhabitants during the build-up. In this way they see exactly what the important parts are and they know how to handle with the installation. The last point is the knowledge transfer. In this part, teaching about the installation should be executed. Another important issue is to write a manual with things that could occur and how to fix them.

I personally think that using these three points is essential in trying to prevent failures. Off course, you never know what happens after you leave but you give them a chance to maintain it in the best way possible. To follow the first point, you should work from a local demand for an installation. At Humasol this is always the first step in a process so for our project this was done properly. The second part will make the social connection with the locals stronger. I think you’ll establish better knowledge with the machines, but also better social environment because you’re integrating the project in the community. The last point is the most difficult one. A good manual is essential for future maintenance or fixing and teaching about ram pumps without technical knowledge is also rather difficult. Because it has to involve so many possible failures, the manual is rather difficult to write. Specific for the ram pump, Watt has written a good manual for us to build on (Watt, 1974).

Can you come up with other possible prevention methods apart from these three? Do you think they are all relevant or not and what measures do you take against failures in your own projects?

Greetings,

Lauren

Link to research Sara Kinsbergen: http://www.ru.nl/cidin/@723032/pagina

Creating interest for the hydram in our search for a new project location

Hi there,

When we are going to Cameroon we will need to try to find a reliable local partner together with a project location so that other Humasol students can build a ram pump next year. I’ve red in a report that locals are quit reluctant in reproducing a hydram because they see it as a black box that pumps up water with some magical intervention. People don’t understand the working principle and find it too complicated. They don’t want to try to build a pump for their own due to the initial cost that comes with the investment.

I quote the author: “Even a three weeks’ training course many water technicians do not have the confidence to survey, design and install a ram pump system. The design rules seem complex and they fear making any mistake that might cause a system to fail”.

Do you have any ideas in what we can do to promote our pump in the Binshua region and attract lot’s of attention so that people will be willing to take the step in producing their own pump?

I personally believe that it’s possible to share your knowledge so that locals are able to reproduce, modify and optimize a hydram installation. But it will take time, maybe more than three weeks but the principles of water hammer can be explained in a simple way. Maybe an experiment installation can travel through the country to create interest. One way of visualizing the hammer effect is opening a bottle of wine with a shoe or breaking the bottom of a glass bottle. I think that by using such small examples you can let them grasp the theory behind a ram pump.

An example video of opening a wine bottle with a shoe utilizing the hammer effect.

Cheers,
Alexander

Source, click here!

Life Cycle of a Humasol Project

Hi there,

The project students of Humasol are constantly developing and designing ideas for various machines/installations that use renewable energy sources. After a year of research they get the opportunity to implement their project in a developing country. But because we are constantly busy with the begin stage of a product we can easily forget that a product has a certain life cycle where other factors also need to be taken in account.

After the on-site implementation, the students return to Belgium, but the locals are depending for a certain time frame on the manufactured machine/installation. Maintenance will become an important part to extend the product life, but how will this be financially realizable? Humasol works together with various sponsors who donate the necessary funds/materials for the implementation, but they don’t take in account that there comes a huge maintenance cost after a few years of running.

What do you think an organization like Humasol can do to cope with these other phases in a product life cycle? Do you think companies will be evenly thrilled for sponsoring for an older installation instead of funding for a new project? Plus, would you, as project student be evenly enthusiastic to join Humasol when you know you’ll have to repair a project that’s not your own?

A possible solution might be I that the project students who build an installation come back a few years later to check which problems the installation shows and solve them. But this requires quite a lot of flexibility from the students.

Cheers,
Alexander

Development world failures

Hi everyone,

In my previous posts, I’ve talked about how we can use fertile soils all over the world. This was done by including ram pumps but also by using a broad base of social and ethical issues and on how these things have to come forward. Today I’m going to talk about something else. We all can have brilliant ideas to use these soils. But sometimes projects might fail.

I’ve watched a TED-talk on this issue. David Damberger talks about how he did his project with engineers without borders in India. The design in Canada was finished and he left for India. The installation required some time before it could be used. So by the time he left, the installation was installed but not yet in use. A few months later he heard the project didn’t work. Afraid of the reaction of so many people: including family, sponsors, friends and most importantly, the locals for whom the installation was built, he chose not to tell anyone. Later on he realized that was not the right thing to do. By telling people what he did wrong, people who will try similar projects won’t make the same mistakes. On the other hand he had to tell everyone how he had failed and used money for nothing which was difficult but in the end the better choice. In this way there will be a feedback loop in the development sector that isn’t available today.

In my opinion, what David did was very brave. For me, this topic was very relevant because we are going to place something in a developing country ourselves. Before this TED-talk I hadn’t heard a lot about failing projects. But off course this happens sometimes and by talking about this, it will be more understandable for everyone. I think a lot more time should be put into repairing of failed installations because usually it’s only a small mistake. For instance, Humasol is this year repairing over 30 hand pumps in Uganda. Therefore maintainability of installations is very important and that’s off course one of the ram pump’s strong points. A good manual for the local partner will help as well. And clear communication between people who are doing similar projects is a key factor here.

How would you guys deal with failure in a company or a project? Would you respond in the same way? Do you think we have to talk more about this and how would you set up these kind of conversations? Did you made mistakes in the past that embarrassed you?

Cheers,

Lauren

Link to TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_damberger_what_happens_when_an_ngo_admits_failure

Link to failure page:https://www.admittingfailure.org/ 

Using fertile soils on the news

Hi everyone,

I was watching the news yesterday, when they talked about unused soils all over the world. Since this was the topic of my previous posts, I was directly interested. Underneath, you can find the video in dutch (I’m sorry for the english speaking guys)

News Video

60% of unused soils are in Africa. These unused soils are getting more and more interest from international companies all over the world. Not only food but also clothing fibres are now being harvested. There is more interest now in this market from as well local population as foreigners. The roads to this soils are often poor and the distribution is rather difficult. The Sisal plant is a very popular product for the clothing industries that grows on these soils. It’s not produced in a lot of different countries and therefore the ones who produce it are doing very good.

Personally, I think that using the soils is a good case in developing countries. But, local people should own the companies because otherwise they won’t benefit from their own treasures. At the other hand, it’s not bad for local economies that foreign investments are coming to these countries. In that way, they might one day become independent from foreign aid. In one of my first posts, I talked about aid having to be finite. This is hopefully one of the ways to achieve this. That the crops are not only used for food but also for clothing is a little weird in my opinion, If people still die because they are hungry. However off course, this can stimulate other Africans to use their soils in a more effective way and produce crops themselves.

Do you guys agree with me on this topic or do you think there are other ways that can be more productive to optimise these soils? And should the focus lay on clothes or food or doesn’t it matter?

Cheers,

Lauren

Link to video: http://deredactie.be/permalink/2.38023?video=1.2273169

Cultural Awareness Workshop

Hi all,

A couple weeks ago I joined other members of Humasol in an intercultural workshop in Brussels. There we discussed sociocultural problems in realising a project in a developing country with the help of CADES students (Master of Cultures & Development Studies) in a case study format. We were presented with a situation where projects students arrived at the project location where they were supposed to manufacture a solar boiler for a school in Peru. But the problem was that the local teachers, who have a big social impact on the population, rather wanted the students to built a biodigestor.

All participants of the workshop played a certain role, I was for example the project manager of Humasol. Then we discussed together with several key players how we could solve this problem. The CADES students tried to explain to us that sometimes minorities aren’t able to express their true emotions & desires. To give an example, the students of the school couldn’t explain their true thoughts in the group discussion because they were in the presence of their parents and teachers, whom they must follow according to the existing hierarchy.

I know that I am someone who dares to speak his mind even though it is to someone with a higher ‘power’ ranking then me. It’s just necessary that you can argue in a fact-based and respectful way. In Belgium, this is more accepted but in some traditional African countries this does not apply.

How would you solve this problem as a project student? Would you continue your project for which you have worked over a year, or try to satisfy the biggest local group and change your plans? How do you feel about the children minority group in development countries and the fact that they are not allowed to openly express their feelings?

Here’s an action photo of the group discussion. Yes, I’m the one with the red hat 🙂

Cheers,
Alexander

Ethics on fertile soils

Hi all,

In a previous post I’ve talked about the 4 essential points to make use of lots of fertile grounds around the world. In this post I will talk about the second point in this list:

• To consider agriculture within a framework of environmental and resources conservation.

The first question we can ask ourselves; what can we preserve in agriculture? Like I’ve said in previous posts, fertile soil is one of the things we can definitely try to maintain in a sustainable way. A second thing we can try to do is reducing the agricultural energy consumption which is around 2% (Center For Climate and Energy Solutions, 2015).

We could ask ourselves whether or not it’s necessary to preserve these soils. Studies show that we lose about 0.1% of fertile soil a year due to erosion. This is not so much compared to the growth in production processes efficiency due to knowledge of agricultural processes which is 1-2% every year. However, if we keep wasting the fertile soils all over the world, what will future generations be left with? Can they keep up with the food demand rises we have now? Next to this, river quality and chances of flooding rise due to erosion as well (Chi & Diemer, 2002).

In my opinion, we should give future generations the same possibilities as the ones we have now. There are existing soil prevention management systems that prevent the soil from eroding. The most easy way is terracing, but other ways exist (Morgan, 2005) and could come into practice whenever we’re ready to implement them. In this way we could accomplish to keep all the resources we have today and pass them to future generations. Since agriculture itself isn’t THAT harmful (only 2%), no drastic changes are needed I think. But whenever someone is buying a new installation, energy should be one of things to keep in mind. In the south, ram pumps or solar pumps could be used to make it possible for everyone to have good agriculture.

Do you have any suggestions which other resources or environments we could conserve? Do you think the technologies can solve these problems or would you use other techniques? What would you pass to future generations?.

Greetings,

Lauren

Bibliografy

Center For Climate and Energy Solutions. (2015, March 3). Agricultural Emissions in the United States. Opgehaald van c2es: http://www.c2es.org/technology/overview/agriculture

Chi, P. M., & Diemer, P. (2002). Hydraulic Ram Handbook. Opgehaald van Borda: http://www.borda-net.org/fileadmin/borda-net/Knowledge/Implementation%20Manuals/064%2520BORDA_HydRam-Handbook.pdf

Morgan, R. (2005). Soil Erosion And Corosion. Malden, USA: Blackwell Science Ltd.