By Noor Jehan Gulamussen
I stayed two and half months in Delft from the 12th of April until the 30th of June 2015. This was my second time in Delft, with the weather being much better than the first time (November-December 2014). Continue reading
Tag Archives: water supply
37th WEDC conference
by André
On the last week of July I attended the 38th WEDC International Conference WEDC. The conference took place at Loughborough University (UK) and had the theme Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Services Beyond 2015: Improving access and sustainability. Continue reading
Thoughts on the IMARC workshop
by André and Paul Loth (Dunea)
As I wrote before, we organized a workshop in Maputo on the 6th of July, together with Unesco-IHE, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) and Dunea, to present the Integrated Managed Aquifer Recharge Concept (IMARC). Since the 1950-ies Dunea applies Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) in the coastal dunes of the Netherlands, now providing 1.3 million people with high-quality drinking water. Dunea’s area of operation is around Scheveningen in the West of the country, close to The Hague. Dunea gradually added nature conservation and recreational use as a prototype IMARC – the protected dune areas around Scheveningen yearly receive one million recreational visitors. In the case of Mozambique, we see IMARC as a way of preventing saline intrusion, already a serious issue in some areas of Maputo, while protecting the environment.
For the workshop UEM provided a large and comfortable auditorium and logistic support. UEM also arranged simultaneous translation, which allowed the participants who did not understand Portuguese to follow the presentations and the plenary discussions without problems. We are indebted to UEM for the invaluable support given in organizing the workshop, without them the workshop would not have been such an outstanding success.
Updated publication list
by André
I have just updated our publication list with the inclusion of Sven‘s and Sebastiaan‘s BSc reports. Continue reading
Urbanising Deltas of the World – second call
by André
At the beginning of 2015 NWO launched a second call with the theme Urbanising Deltas of the World:
Urbanising Deltas of the World (UDW) has launched its second call for proposals, which aims to fund research & innovation projects that address business challenges in deltas in developing countries. Proposals could be submitted until 16 March 2015
In the first call we were one of seven selected projects with a Water Reuse project. This time around, we submitted a proposal around the concept of Integrated Managed Aquifer Recharge and as before we teamed up with amazing partners, including Unesco-IHE, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane FIPAG, ARA Sul, Dunea, Royal HaskoningDHV, Het Waterlaboratorium, AquaforAll, VitensEvides International, Elemental Water Makers and Deltares.
Given that our consortium passed the first approval phase, NWO asked us to organize a workshop involving relevant stakeholders and conducting a joint problem analysis. With this in mind, we are organizing a workshop in the city of Maputo on the 6th of July 2015. You can find more information about the workshop here.
Finally, if you are interested in participating in the workshop, do not hesitate to contact us by sending an email to a.marquesarsenio@tudelft.nl.
Final decision regarding the PhD candidates
by André
We are very happy to announce that all four PhD candidates have been appointed and are now being enrolled at TU Delft and at Unesco-IHE. In the next few months we expect to define clearly the tasks and objectives for each one of the candidates – we will keep you informed.
Conference Aquashare 2014 – documentation available
by André
The Aquashare conference took place in Maputo in November of 2014 and I covered that before. It was a three day conference that brought together scientists, practitioners and legislators to discuss water and sanitation in Mozambique.
You can get now copies (in Portuguese) of all presentations here . In the near future you will also be able to grab a copy of the final report entitled “The water in 2025”.
PhD defense of Valentina Zuin
by André
Valentina Zuin defended her PhD last year and someone took the opportunity to film her presentation. It is really worth watching if you want to better understand water supply in Maputo, especially in the peri-urban areas and in the informal settlements. In detail, Valentina studied the water resale market in the city and she shows that resellers do not behave as entrepreneurs and that they are not motivated principally by profits. According to Valentina, these people are typically selling water to i) obtain cash to meet daily subsistence needs, ii) as a form of social insurance and/or iii) to help neighbours.
For some reason I cannot embed the movie in this post but you can find it here.
New publications
by André
Check our updated list of publications with the final report of Justus and Thijs and a conference article that Luuk will be presenting at the 47th edition of IWWA in Kolkata.
Emptying practises of onsite systems in Maputo
by Lena
Drastically speaking, humanity has not yet found an answer to the question of how to safely manage human waste of cities that have grown without a fully covering sewer system. The rapid development of these cities’ population, largely dependent on onsite systems such as pit latrines and septic tanks, is increasing pressure on authorities, researchers, NGOs, companies and other stakeholders worldwide to find solutions for this unresolved issue. While urban faecal sludge management has largely been ignored during the last decades, the global community does now seem to have realised its urgent importance, hence more money is made available for research. As accessibility of resources is increasing ongoing research, work and data duplication are becoming a relevant issue. Efficient research and project management must therefore include finding ways to contribute to the current state of knowledge, rather than wasting time and money. This requires being flexible enough to constantly adapt the research during the ongoing project.