Groundwater development

Sector capacity building, to access safe groundwater for drinking and productive use

The role of groundwater to meet drinking water and irrigation needs will significantly increase in the coming decades, with sustainable management as key focus to reach the SDG goals. For over 20 years, Practica provided technical capacity building on sustainable groundwater development for NGO’s, drilling businesses and government departments to lower the cost of drilling, increase the quality of their work and manage groundwater data collection.

Our work on groundwater development in the relief and development sector supported the skills of policy makers, drillers, geo-hydrologists, students, WASH staff and quality controllers in 22 countries.

We work on three subjects:

Manual drilling: we provide technical support to implementing partners on mappings, feasibility studies, production of equipment, field demonstrations, technical training curricula
Increasing the success rate of drilling through simple and digital siting equipment
Groundwater data is valuable, let’s keep it safe. We developed digital tools and are now training partners on the use of the Driller's toolbox apps for siting, well installation and pump testing.

What we offer

We offer these services throughout our themes and we always work in collaboration with a local partner.

Research, consultancy & advice

PRACTICA provides technical support to partners looking to innovate and promote adapted water, irrigation and sanitation solutions. We conduct technical feasibility studies and work on applied research programs. We advise partners on the use and conditions of technologies and associated scaling and support mechanisms.

Sector development

We promote a supply chain approach, aimed at establishing strong local networks of producers, operators and supporting organisations. By providing tools and strengthening capacities at all levels, we enhance the local market for technologies, including the necessary maintenance and quality control systems.

Technical training

We transfer knowledge and strengthen the capacities of NGOs, governments and local enterprises through tailor-made trainings. We develop and conduct practical trainings with hands-on exercises, classroom sessions and serious games. We also offer complementary decision-support apps and e-learning materials.

Technical design & innovation

The design of new products and the adaptation of existing technologies to a specific local context are at the origin of Practica. We develop and test our innovations in the workshop and invest in sound feedback loops and continuous exchange with partners in the field.

Examples of projects

Technical Assistance

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Practica and Unicef developed a toolkit for the professionalization of manual drilling in Africa. It builds on the establishment of skilled manual drilling businesses as complementary approach to boreholes drilled by machine or large diameter wells dug by hand. Manual drilling uses local labor and locally fabricated tools and can be used year-round. Wells are generally drilled to an average of 20-30 meters in soft soil formations. The quality and standards can be the same as when drilled by machine at the same depth, but lowering the cost by a factor 4-10

As the tools are lightweight, they can easily be transported to the most remote locations by motorbike, pick-up and canoe. After a capacity building program, the drilling businesses can offer their services to implementing NGO’s and tenders in drilling programs scaling the impact of rural water supply tremendously. Over the years Practica has trained more than 150 businesses and NGO’s in manual drilling

Project implementation

In Ivory coast there are several regions where the suitability for manual drilling is moderate. Its feasibility highly depends on the depth to the water table, the depth to shallow bedrock and the permeability of soils. A low success rate of drilling can be very costly for both the donor and driller, therefore it’s good to make use of siting prior to drilling.
Unicef intended to drill 50 boreholes in several regions and we supported the capture of geophysics in 100 locations. The low cost siting kit called the ‘Volterra’ was used to equip 3 teams to take rapid measurements. The equipment is very simple in use and works with Bluetooth on a mobile phone. Experts analyses of the data was done on distance to provide advice on the most promising locations for drilling.

Product development & Innovation

Groundwater data is valuable, but it is often hard to find. We developed the Driller's toolbox. A smartphone app linked to a dashboard to capture siting data, drilling log data and pump test data very quick and professional on a mobile phone. It is meant to facilitate the work of both decision makers and field workers.

We these digital tools we aim to facilitate the collection, analysis and exchange of drilling data at all levels and keep it available for others to make use of in the planning of groundwater projects.

Innovations

Driller's toolbox

The ‘Drillers Toolbox’ app was developed to improve the way drilling data is recorded and shared.

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Volterra

The Volterra device, is a low cost, pocket size, resistivity  device for siting boreholes. For a fraction of the cost of traditional VES equipment, it gives identical results.

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Rotary jetting kit

The rotary jetting kit is a manual drilling kit easily transportable, specifically made for use in emergency situations.