Drought Resilience Impact Platform (DRIP)
MLC Vanguard | Created by Mortenson Center, University of Colorado, Boulder
Our innovation is simple: low-cost, satellite-linked sensors for remote monitoring of motorized boreholes, which in turn enable the government agencies who are responsible for maintenance to effectively deploy resources to minimize borehole downtime.
3,000,000 Lives Impacted
When a water pump breaks down, it often means a journey of up to 20km to the next water source. By ensuring that water is consistently available at predictable locations, we ensure that all individuals in a community have the same ability to fulfill this basic human need. Consistent water access also positively impacts the livestock and crops which many of these families rely on for food.
In addition to directly impacting individuals who experience drought, our innovation has a ripple effect which positively impacts the government and nonprofit institutions who fund and maintain water access. In 2015, the government of Kenya committed to end the worst drought emergencies by 2022. In Kenya, UNICEF estimates that 35% of rural water supplies were non-functional prior to the 2016 drought, increasing to over 55% of systems causing a ten-fold increase in the cost of water. USAID recently estimated that an early, proactive and planned humanitarian response to drought, rather than a reactive response, would save USAID $780 million over 15 years in Kenya alone. In Ethiopia, a recent study estimated the costs of emergency water trucking attributable to water system failures at over $2,000 per person over ten years.
The Innovation
Our innovation is simple: low-cost, satellite-linked sensors for remote monitoring of motorized boreholes, which in turn enable the government agencies who are responsible for maintenance to effectively deploy resources to minimize borehole downtime. As an example, in 2016, our team designed and installed remote monitoring sensors on approximately 120 motorized boreholes in northern Kenya. Motorized boreholes were selected by counties for sensor installations because they provide vital access to deep groundwater resources during the dry season and impact large human and livestock populations.
Data related to water system functionality, the approximate number of pumping hours and volume extracted per day, and the last report date for the sensor were made available online. In addition, we developed dashboards that are used to inventory each county’s water points, including motorized boreholes, handpumps, and water catchments, to display site functionality, use estimates, and maintenance records through an online web dashboard. Our sensors represent an improved technology. Sensors provide near real-time feedback on borehole functionality and use. An electric current clamp records whether the submersible pump is running with forty-minute sampling intervals. These current signals are then used to estimate the approximate amount of time each site is being used each day. Data is logged locally on each sensor and then transmitted via cellular and satellite networks to remote servers for analysis. Each day an script estimates the approximate number of hours of use for each site. Where flow rate data are available for specific pump sites, the length of use is used to estimate the amount of water extracted at each site.
In 2023, DRIP has incorporated carbon finance to pay for ongoing water security and water service delivery, funded by USAID, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Autodesk Foundation and Mortenson Construction.
About Mortenson Center, University of Colorado, Boulder
The Mortenson Center in Global Engineering combines education, research, and partnerships to positively impact vulnerable people and their environment by improving development tools, policy and practice. Our vision is a world where everyone has safe water, sanitation, energy, food, shelter, and infrastructure.
The Center combines education, research, and partnerships to improve development tools and practice. We train engineers to recognize the issues at the core of development challenges, and collaborate with partners across the CU-Boulder campus and the world to create sustainable, scalable, evidence-based and multidisciplinary solutions to global development problems. Our program provides multiple pathways for engineers to enter the field of global engineering.
