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One sort of pump
once common worldwide was a hand-powered water
pump over a water well where people could work
it to extract water, before most houses had
individual water supplies.
From this came the expression "parish pump" for
"the sort of matter chattered about by people
when they meet when they go to get water",
"matter of only local interest".
Today, hand operated village pumps are
considered the most sustainable low cost option
for safe water supply in resource poor settings,
often in rural areas in developing countries. A
hand pump opens access to deeper groundwater
that is often not polluted and also improves the
safety of a well by protecting the water source
from contaminated buckets. Pumps like the
Afridev pump (pictured) are designed to be cheap
to build and install, and easy to maintain with
simple parts. It was assumed that spare parts
would become available in the local market by
for-profit wholesalers. However, it became clear
with time that often spare parts are not
available locally, because of the low profit
margins for wholesalers, especially in Africa.
This means that communities are often stuck
without spares and cannot use their handpump
anymore and have to go back to traditional and
sometimes distant, polluted resources. This is
unfortunate, as water projects often have put in
a lot of resources to provide that community
with a handpump. As a result, spare parts free
handpumps are now being developed, like the
Afripump. |
