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Can you share desalinization experiences for drought prone dispersed populations?

Joshua Briemberg
WaterAid
related country: Colombia
KnowledgePointAdmin
RedR CCDRR
related country: Colombia

In the Guajira region of Colombia 4 years of extreme drought have rendered traditional runoff catchment reservoirs irrelevant while increasing salinity in the shallow aquifers have led to the implementation of extremely expensive options of deep wells (150 meters and more), shallower wells with desalinization and tanker distribution of desalinated sea water to extensive yet highly disperse settlements of indigenous Wayuu people.

Is there anything that could be learned from other regions of the world facing similar challenges, low cost effective desalinization options or longer term approaches to replenishing the aquifers?


1 Answer

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Neil Noble
Energy
Cristian Anton
WaterAid

Some time ago I worked at the Rural Industries Innovation Center in Botswana where they have an issue with saline water. For some communities they were using solar distillation methods. RIIC was looking into ways of making the stills at low-cost so they were constructed from soil blocks and then painted.

There is a little bit of information on this Practical Action document: https://answers.practicalaction.org/ou...