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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Sustainable Development in Nigeria - Water Issues




Since last month’s TPR paper written on IAQ topics our group the Foxtrots met again at the Saxby’s café off main street in downtown Doylestown. This meeting, the first since finding out our group’s focus on water issues in the final presentation, included Philip S. Getty, P.G. who came to speak at our cSBA class in March. Continuing our general discussion on sustainability issues related to Nigeria’s Intercontinental Education Community Center (ICEC2) construction and maintenance, out team met on the morning of April 15th to discuss more specific sustainable options involving water management that are feasible and cost-efficient for the Nigerian site.

The cSBA handbook has this to say about problems related to water. Water, while seemingly abundant “is a scarce resource. Water that can be treated to drinking water standards (potable) are difficult to find, manage, and protect, and treating that water to drinking water quality is energy intensive and expensive.”[1] Using potable water for anything that does not require the highest standards of water quality is wasteful and puts enormous strain on our “public utilities to keep trying to find and treat water resources to keep up with not only population growth, but wasteful practices.”[2] In general using potable water to do things besides “drinking, cooking, bathing and cleaning is wasteful.”[3] While wasteful water uses in house range from bad habits, to poor maintenance, by far the most wasteful use of potable water is for landscape maintenance.[4] Some sources of concern for water consumption include among others: groundwater depletion and salt water intrusion in coastal areas, habitat destruction when dams are used to create reservoirs, etc.
Water use versus water supply along with environmental stewardship and economic growth help define the fundamentals nature of sustainable water management. It is important to remember that a need for healthy, potable drinking water will continue to be of vital importance to the long-term success and growth of humanity around the globe. As the population of our world grows the pressure on water supplies will exponentially increase unless more sustainable measures are implemented. Water demand, water quality and habitat protection issues will only make supplies more expensive and difficult to find[5] in the years and decades ahead. Items to take on actively for promotion of a sustainable water management include: using little to no fertilizers. Developed watersheds often have high levels of phosphorous which are commonly found in surface water.[6] This added phosphorous, often from lawn and garden care promotes algae blooms that then “decompose and deplete oxygen needed by fish and other aquatic life.”[7] Similar to fertilizer pollution is pesticide pollution affecting water sources. Studies show that regular use of “herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides decrease numbers and diversity of beneficial soil life, from earth worms to down to bacteria and fungi. In studies, increasing pesticide and soluble fertilizer use correlated with increasing soil compaction, acidification, and thatch buildup in lawns.”[8] Worse than the effect of pesticides on the environment and habitat, numerous epidemiological studies have found increased risk of cancer and birth defects in children of families using lawn and garden pesticides.[9] As ICEC2 will largely be used as a place for education and learning for youths and adults alike, minimizing or eliminating use of these carcinogens will be important aspect of making the location a sustainable community.
The planned Intercontinental Education Community Center (ICEC2) in Nigeria. Located at about 5° latitude and 9° longitude, the site is located atop a hill that has numerous options for sustainable water use. The meeting with Mr. Getty focused rather extensively on the potential use of cisterns at the ICEC2 site. For the cistern system to be most effective it will be important to have sufficient native vegetation on the property and any location that may be vital for water infiltration that may be accessed by both the cistern and the wells. Native forests return up to “50% of rainfall to sky through evapotranspiration, ET (the evaporation of water through plant life, as opposed to direct evaporation), and infiltrate more than 35% into soil”[10] Along with the benefits to infiltration, such strategies reduce runoff caused by impervious surfaces. Fundamental to the sustainable characteristics of the ICEC2 site will be the rehabilitation of habitat, protection and additions to the native forests and effective water management for the various planned gardens and other plantings on location. Despite the meeting ending without a final decision on whether to use a cistern, the meeting allowed the Foxtrots and Mr. & Mrs. Ukazim insight into the complexity of the issue. The next step entails development of a cost/benefit analysis as well as additional research to determine feasibility. Three important considerations that will need to be addressed before a successful completion of a cost/benefit analysis were identified. One, the ICEC2 site needs to determine what is our design rain? What should the capacity of the system be? Examination of watershed area and annual rain fall on the site will need to be accurately determined. Two, along with the capacity of the entire ‘system,’ an examination at each specific cistern size on site needs to be conducted. What are ICEC2’s water needs on a daily and seasonal basis? Third, what are, or would be the elevation differences from cistern to point of use? An examination and determination needs to be made about the need for pumps and pumping costs. The size and pressure of the pump for the cistern will need to be based on how much head pressure one needs to create a functional system. Additionally it will help determine at what rate the peak demand will be.[11]

Addressing some of the concerns mentioned in the cSBA student notebook, ICEC2 is taking the time and care to evaluate its sustainable options to produce the most favorable solution that impacts the economy of Nigeria, the local community, the environment at large, the needs of the inhabitants and population that comes to the school to learn. To that end ICEC2 wants to spend time and effort up front to mitigate potentially disastrous ramifications down the road. These include making sure there is sufficient groundwater reserves to meet the needs of the ICEC2 community that can be readily replenished to prevent depletion. Such an eventuality would not only impact the environment negatively it would make operations and costs on site rise dramatically. In addition to depletion the need to protect the ground water and cisterns from intrusions and pollutants is essential as it would be costly to repair and clean again to allow the resource usable again. ICEC2 is committed to habitat restoration for many reasons, not only is it the right thing to do from an environmental stewardship point of view but careful consideration of the natural habitat could yield important, perhaps even essential ingredients. For example, ICEC2 is looking into planting bamboo that could be carefully managed to make sure it does not grow too invasively but also so it could be used on site for construction and maintenance as it is a durable, rapidly renewable and relatively cheap alternative to more conventional hardwoods or steel. Along with bamboo large vegetable and fruit gardens are under consideration to help make the site self-sustaining. As mentioned above plantings especially those that are native to the region will increase infiltration of vital water that will make ICEC2 a reality. Small and efficient hydro dams have been considered. While concern for damming exists designs would not include the creation of reservoirs. We are trying to access if funneling water through such small dams could make sufficient enough electricity to justify instillation. If they are cost effective they would be used to direct water during the rainy season when the planned solar panels would be less efficient after the water had passed through the dam it would proceed into a basin to would seek to maximize infiltration into the aquifer thereby remaining useful for the population on ICEC2’s site through the groundwater wells that have already been drilled. This strategy along with other are being considered to make efficient of all sustainable options. Hippocrates is quoted as saying “do no harm, then try to do good.” This is a guiding principle of sustainability and the ICEC2 site. As the planned Intercontinental Education Community Center in Nigeria takes shape the elements of low impact development and sustainability are integral, not only to the important from a cost and environmental point of view, this site needs to be self-sufficient for the project to be completed and maintained at all.

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[1] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 2 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[2] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 2 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[3] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 2 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[4] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 2 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[5] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 3 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[6] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 3 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[7] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 3 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[8] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 3 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[9] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 3 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[10] National Sustainable Building Advisor Program. Unit 6: water. Student Notebook. Version 1.3. Page 3 of 26. ©2008 NaSBAP.[11] Mr. Getty recommended websites: http://www.oasisdesign.net/water/storage/ http://www.oasisdesign.net/water/storage/ for further research.