Too little: the vicious circle of drought in North Darfur
By Tessa Morrod, Practical Action Sudan Communications Team
This article originally appeared in the October 2003 edition of Sharing, Practical Action Sudan's newsletter. It is retained here for reference, but may no longer contain the most recent information.
Sudan is categorised as one of the
25 poorest countries in the world, with over 90% of its people living below
the poverty line. The lethal combination of droughts in the north and west
and flooding in the east and south ensures that most Sudanese will never struggle
out of that statistic and make it across to the safe side of the poverty line.
Drought in itself is a crippling, life-threatening force, but it brings with it a series of events and reactions that together create a devastating cycle of environmental collapse, conflict and displacement which comes to Sudan year after year.
Frequent droughts and environmental degradation are the major obstacles to
livelihood security and food self-reliance in Sudan. Over 80% of Sudan's population
lives in rural areas, depending on agriculture and livestock to make a living.
Since the famous famine of 1984/5, Sudan has suffered severe droughts in 1989,
1990, 1997 and 2000. Each drought brought crop failure, loss of livestock and
loss of pastureland. The great need - heightened by drought - for
food, water and fertile land has eaten into natural resources, reducing forestry,
wildlife and precious water supplies that do not have their own resources to
compensate for loss through re-growth.
Combating the drought
It is becoming a phenomenon in Sudan that one in every five years is dry. When the droughts come, agriculture collapses, people migrate and those who stay face conflict over food and water supplies.
Development programmes need to plan
well for these consequences by increasing coping and tolerance mechanisms.
ITDGPractical Action's projects in diversifying non-farm income generation skills, diversifying
production technologies and upgrading water harvesting techniques are all mechanisms
that strengthen coping strategies and help rural communities to save their
supplies for the days when it doesn't rain.
Turra Water Dam
An example of a quick impact intervention
ITDGPractical Action
has recently completed a water dam project in Turra, North Darfur, involving
construction of a dam to conserve and channel precious water for a number of
practical uses. The dam will benefit animals, crops, and of course, people.
About 4,000 local people, plus transitory nomadic herders, can now draw clean
water from the dam. In addition, their animals will also be able to use the
water source, without polluting the outlet for human use. The herds comprise
8,000 goats, 400 sheep, 1,000 camels, 6,000 donkeys and 100 horses. All these
animals help to provide food, income and labour and are extremely valuable
to their owners.
How to plan a dam
Turra is located 40 km north of El-Fashir
town. The purpose of building the dam is to provide water for domestic use
for both people and livestock. The catchment area is about 400m x 300m and
is composed of earth embankments incorporating three 4.5m long sluice gates
and a 28m spillway for flood control.
A pipeline is extended from the dam to a water point 6m away from the dam. The line terminates at a pipe stand with six taps for human use and six concrete cisterns for animal use. About 24m away there is a tree nursery for raising seedlings of different kinds and for various uses. The nursery is irrigated with waste water that spills from the tap stand and the cisterns. A side pipe extends to the nursery from the main line to provide extra water when it is needed.
Creating a clean, reliable water source
- The reservoir can hold and store up to 55,000 cubic metres of water.
- The water feeds in to the reservoir from a stream that swells with the coming of the rainy season.
- The three sluice gates and the controlling spillway help to manage the build up of silt and avoid loss of water when the stream becomes faster.
- If the amount of silt deposited upstream of the reservoir's earth embankment becomes significant the gates can be opened fully or partially to wash out the silt.
- The main pipeline feeds the water out of the reservoir, keeping it free from pollution, and down to the taps and cisterns where it is collected for use.
The construction of the dam was completed
in time for the first month of the rainy season. Almost immediately, heavy
rains fell and filled the catchment area by about 85% of its total capacity.
The people of Turra and the surrounding villages can now access a source of
water close to their home areas that provides enough for everyone. The nursery
is ready to function, and by next year it will provide seedlings for farmers,
ready for planting as the rainy season begins.
New water turbine reflects local needs through clever technology
By Mohammed Majzoub, Country Director
About
50-60% of Sudanese people live along the Nile Rivers and their tributaries.
They depend on river water for domestic use and irrigation of their crops.
Over centuries the issue of how to pump or transport the water from the river
to crop beds and fields has led to the construction of various machines and
devices, and has been a puzzle and a passion for the Sudanese. Now, at last,
a feasible solution seems to have been found in a cost-effective redesign of
an older idea.
Garmen’s turbine
Two decades ago, an engineer called Peter Garmen designed a water current turbine that makes use of a flowing water current to operate a pump which not only accesses the water, but generates power through the motion of the turbine. Garmen's turbine is efficient and its results clearly beneficial, but its initial costs for construction and materials make it prohibitively expensive for poorer farmers and others who really need it.
Sudanese redesign
In answer to this dilemma, Amir M.
Diab, a Sudanese post-graduate student has developed a new, cheaper turbine
based on Garmen's idea. The first big difference, and the key to keeping the
costs low, was Diab's choice of materials. His prototype was made of scrap
metal, plastic and inner tubes.
After this significant difference, Diab introduced other changes to his turbine to make it more suitable for widespread use. Here are some of the reasons why Diab's pump is bringing water, and energy, to communities throughout Sudan:
- Diab's turbine works in slow and fast flowing water while Garmen's can operate only in fast flowing rivers.
- The power can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing the number of propellers; in Garmen's design the power stays constant.
- With Garmen's turbine the whole unit is placed in the river; in Diab's only the propellers enter the water, the rest stays on dry land. This makes operation and maintenance of the turbine both easier and cheaper.
- The total cost of Garmen's turbine is about five times the cost of a diesel operated pump. Diab's costs almost the same as a diesel pump and in fact, if a different type of pump is used, the cost can be reduced even further.
These
articles appeared in issue four of Sharing, 
