Rural farmers around Lake Bunyonyi, an underdeveloped region of Uganda. expend significant effort to provide enough water for their crops during the dry season, when rainfall is limited. The region in question is mountainous, with little to no electrical infrastructure, and no moving bodies of water to provide energy in mechanical or electrical format.
Executive Summary →
Farmers growing crops need to carry lake water from the large lake to whatever elevation they are farming by hand. The problem presented to this team was centered on reducing the number of daily trips needed for these farmers to carry water.
The solutions developed for this problem were twofold. Firstly, a brick-and-mortar water tank was constructed out of local materials to enable more rainwater collection in the wet season. This would enable longer crop lifetime in dry seasons from water reservoirs. The second implemented solution was a constructed hand-turned water pump. This would allow for the water storage tanks to be filled directly from the lake. This was accomplished through the concept of a Wirtz pump, which utilizes hydraulic lock in a tube spiral to act as a high pressure, low speed pump. This pump was built entirely from materials available in the region, enabling repeated construction for various lakeside locations.
Unfortunately, due to the rapid pace of onsite research and construction, very little data was able to be collected regarding the validity of the solutions. The most pertinent data points are that all the construction materials were locally sourced (Either on the lake or the nearby town of Kabale), and the costs of these materials. It can be extrapolated from research data that the pump flowrate was approximately 8 gpm at 50 feet of pump head. Considering the effort required to carry 20 L (approximately 5 gallons) of water up a steep 50-foot slope, this is a notable increase in efficiency.
Introduction
The Global Livingston Institute is a non-profit organization founded with the mission of global community development. There are current efforts in East Africa to create long-term, sustainable solutions that will positively impact the local communities. GLI achieves this mission by listening, thinking, and then acting in communities to develop long-term solutions to their problems. One way that GLI achieves their mission is by sponsoring community projects.
One problem that GLI wanted to address was the development of an irrigation system around Lake Bunyonyi. Currently, Ugandan farmers rely on carrying 20L jugs of water up mountainsides to get water to their crops. GLI tasked the mechanical engineering department at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS) to develop an irrigation system that will reduce the number of trips that local farmers must take to get water to their crops during the dry season.
This is the second year that UCCS students have worked to develop a solution to this problem. The first year, students went to Uganda to brainstorm solutions to this problem by investigating available materials around Lake Bunyonyi. They determined that the best method to develop an irrigation system around the lake would include installing semi-rotary pumps that bring water from the lake to water storage tanks. The team this year decided to continue with the idea of developing an irrigation system using pumps and water storage tanks, however the costs with implementing semi-rotary pumps caused concern. Instead, it was determined that a Wirtz pump would be a cheaper, more accessible solution.
