Google Submission Form

This is the text version of the submission form that was sent to Google Project 10 to the 100th on October 20, 2008.

What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters)

To bring clean water to people in developing countries that cannot afford typical water treatment by building gravity powered water treatment plants

Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words)

Gravity powered water treatment plants provide clean drinking water to communities in the global south. These communities need sustainable and affordable water treatment systems. The idea is to use flocculation and sedimentation techniques to remove suspended particles from the water so that it can be chlorinated and finally distributed to the community. Using a series of vertical baffles, the water will travel through the system and the change of speed at each of the turns will cause collisions of particles. As the particles collide, they will stick together to form larger groups of particles called flocs. The water will go into a sedimentation tank with slanted baffles called lamella that will facilitate the settling of the flocs. The water at the bottom of the sedimentation tank will contain many suspended particles and the clear water at the top can be collected and chlorinated.

The idea requires fundraising to initially build the plant, which is a one-time cost of only twenty dollars per person in the community. Because the plants do not use electricity, the additional cost to maintain the plant will only be two dollars per year per person.

Further, the idea is to take designs and have an automated, web-based design tool that will enable organizations around the world to obtain detailed design documentation including 3-D CAD drawings of plants. Therefore, with access to the Internet, engineers around the world can rapidly design water treatment plants given the plant flow rate and a few additional parameters. Providing these designs lowers the engineering cost of the plant, which decreases the total cost to build the plant.

What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words)

Over one billion people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water. Five thousand children die every day because they do not have clean drinking water. With a total of about 1.8 million children dying each year, water-borne disease is one of the top causes of child mortality worldwide.

Despite the large number of deaths associated with unsafe drinking water, communities of the global south by themselves are unable to implement technologies that can bring safe drinking water to their people. These communities suffer from weak economies, poor education and an inadequately developed energy sector. Most water treatment plants use a filtration system. However, these systems are big, expensive and require electricity. Since this is not feasible in many areas, millions of people are still drinking surface water from contaminated streams and other unhealthy sources.

If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? (maximum 150 words)

The current technology to build these water treatment plants can help about 125 million people within Honduras and other Latin American countries. If the idea were to become a reality, we could help additional countries in the global south that currently do not have access to safe drinking water.
People residing in developing countries without safe, clean drinking water tend to drink untreated water from streams and other sources, thus putting their lives in jeopardy. The benefit would be improved drinking water quality that would decrease health problems and child mortality. Providing safe drinking water can significantly decrease the millions of deaths caused by water-borne diseases.

What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? (maximum 150 words)

Since the design and research for these systems is underway, the steps to bringing water treatment to more people include fundraising and construction of plants. Construction requires talking to organizations, such as Agua Para el Pueblo in Honduras, to find ideal locations. They take the lead role in choosing communities based on water quality deficiencies, community assets such as organization, ability to maintain qualified operators and financing purchase of chlorine and aluminum sulfate. Once a location is selected that meets these characteristics, the expected flow rate and population provide the basis for developing the designs and budget.

Already the AguaClara program has built four water treatment plants that provide safe drinking water to over 13,000 people. To spread these technologies to millions more people, we need funding. With more funding, it would be possible to bring water treatment to thousands more people within the course of the next few years.

Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it? (maximum 150 words)

The optimal outcome should this idea be selected is to build municipal water treatment plants around the global south at an initial cost of less than twenty dollars per person. That means that each $100,000 would bring cleaner water to 5000 people.

The hope is to reach up to 125 million people in the next ten years. With any money that we receive, water treatment plants could be built starting in Honduras, then spreading through to other areas of Latin America, and then across continents.

Increasing the number of people drinking clean water is ultimately the measure of our success. The more communities that have water treatment plants, the better we can realize our potential for reducing the impact of water-borne diseases. The optimal outcome would be to meet the demand for small-scale water treatment plants.