drilling supervision – Rural Water Supply Network

by Joseph T Njanike

Photo: Supervised Borehole Drilling Project: Collection of Water Samples for Water Quality Analysis at a completed Borehole during the Final Certification Process

As one of the few remaining qualified, experienced, and active drilling supervisors in Zimbabwe, I would like to share experiences on the status of borehole drilling supervision in my country, Zimbabwe.

Drilling Supervision: A Technical Perspective

Rural areas, where the majority of Zimbabweans reside, are mainly serviced through groundwater sources for their water supply needs. The life span for a significant number of boreholes that have invariably become the technology of choice in Zimbabwe has in most cases proved to be short. This has mainly been due to shortcomings bedeviling the drilling and construction process thereby making the professionalisation of the borehole drilling imperative. Borehole drilling supervision, among other factors, is an integral component of the borehole drilling professionalisation process. This requires the hiring of professionals with relevant qualifications and experience to provide adequate supervision of drilling and related operations for the purposes of controlling the quality of work and securing compliance with the design and technical specifications stipulated for the drilling works as well as generating information for making key decisions in terms of on-site design modifications and the final borehole depth. In this context, questions about whether there is sufficient capacity to supervise borehole drilling in Zimbabwe would need some answers.

Professionals have left the country

Most of the qualified hydrogeologists or professionals with a geological background and relevant experience in drilling supervision have migrated to other countries in the Southern Africa region and beyond. This has largely been due to the fact that job opportunities in the groundwater development field in Zimbabwe are scarce.