Prof. Tom Boving explains the water filtration system he set up in India
We met today with Professor Tom Boving, an amazing hydrologist at URI who is doing work with water filtration that is making a difference in the lives of people thousands of miles away, in India and Africa.
Boving and his lab developed a system to install riverbank filtration wells. Two years ago, they won a competitive grant from the World Bank ($200,000) to put their plan into action in a small village Karnataka, India.
Rather than relying on chemicals to treat water, wells were drilled near the river and a pump forces water to flow into the well through natural sediments that naturally purify the water.
Boving and his team worked closely with the local villagers to insure that long after they leave, the villagers will be able to sustain and manage the filtration system, which is used to harvest water for farming and drinking. Every month, every family in the village contributes 30 rupees (just under $1) that goes toward maintaining the system.
While working on this project, Boving also had the idea of using Google Earth as a way to share data about water quality between public, academic, and non-governmental organizations through the Google Earth interface. He helped form a group called the International Partnership on Coastal Water Resources to work on this.
He came up with idea because particularly in developing countries, “a lot of data is available, but it’s not really available because people sit on it and it’s hard to communicate it.”
Meanwhile, he’s excited to be returning to India in a few months to officially hand over the filtration project to the community.
“A little money can go a long way there,” he said. “And the simpler the system is, the better – less chances of things going wrong.”
-Sindya
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