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Rope pump appropriateness

martin.findlay
related country: Liberia

Hi all,

I am undertaking some research on the appropriateness of rope pumps to provide potable water. I know that there has been some controversy around the this in the past due to ease of contamination, but I just wondered if anyone could point me in the direction of some good studies?

Thanks! Martin


3 Answers

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Bobby_Robert_Lambert

Suggest you contact Pump Aid (pumpaid.org) who should be able to help. If the well is constructed properly and a good cover is fitted, then the danger of contamination can be minimised, and should be much less than the alternatives, such as an open well. Its comparatively low cost and ease of construction and maintenance at local level may offer advantges in continuity of supply etc. Much depends on the context in which you are working.

Comments

Brilliant thanks, I'll try Pump Aid!

martin.findlay gravatar imagemartin.findlay ( 2018-11-26 08:23:12 )
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Hi - here is one study: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ac36...

WaterAid did some extensive comparative testing in the Niassa province in Mozambique between 2003-2006, I used to have this data, but I would to really dig back into my ancient digital archives on CDs to find it, but with the rope pumps that had been built with complete covers and splash run-off, we found there was little to no difference between a rope pump on a shallow well in comparison to an Afridev on a shallow well. What made the main difference appeared to be more related to the condition of the well head protection. Deeper boreholes performed statistically better, but we found that the Afridev was simply better beyond 30m. This body of evidence and many years of work careful advocacy with the Mozambican government resulted in the classifying rope pump acceptable for self-supply but not for communal supplies.