Groundwater is a valuable resource for communities, but accessing and maximising its potential can be difficult. Vincent Casey, WaterAid’s Technical Support Manager for Water Security, introduces a series of videos demonstrating good practice in borehole drilling.
Good practice must be followed if groundwater development programmes are to reach their full potential. If certain steps are not taken, there is a high chance that boreholes will fail, investment will be wasted and people will remain un-served.
WaterAid, together with the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN), UNICEF and Skat Foundation are behind a movement to promote higher standards of water supply implementation. Recently we launched two videos setting out critical steps by which to ensure boreholes have the best chance of success.
Groundwater is a valuable source for water supply programmes because it tends to be available year round when other sources dry up. It can be developed at low cost close to homes and generally does not require expensive treatment. Groundwater represents a third of global water withdrawals. Good practice must be followed if groundwater development programmes are to reach their full potential. If certain steps are not taken, there is a high chance that boreholes will fail, investment will be wasted and people will remain un-served.
Good quantities of groundwater cannot be found everywhere. This video highlights the importance of good borehole siting:
Drilling contractors cannot be left to construct boreholes without full-time qualified supervision; spot-checking is not enough to ensure a good job will be done. This video highlights the importance of enlisting qualified drilling supervision:
Look out for more videos in this series coming later this year.
Vincent Casey is WaterAid’s Technical Support Manager for Water Security. You can read more of his blogs here >
re-posted from: http://www.wateraid.org/news/news/a-borehole-that-lasts-for-a-lifetime
Rural Water Supply Network - blog 
I agree that we don’t want to be wasting our time boring the wrong way so that we have to do it again and delay the profit. Still though I think there should be more concern over use of the water coming out of the bores as well. There are some places like California where scientists are saying the aquifers are running dry. They do replenish themselves, we just need to be wise users so that they replenish just as fast or faster than we withdraw from them.
You are completely right, and that’s a topic that we will address in later films. For most handpump borehole supplies, the impact on most aquifers is minimal, even with quite a few. However, the trouble comes when manual pumps get upgraded to motorised ones, or where large abstractions (from industry and agriculture) draws groundwater levels below the intake levels of these domestic supplies. The need for better understanding of groundwater resources in Africa is what is driving the UPGro programme: http://upgro.org/