2007 Ground Water Summit


Monday, April 30, 2007
4:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007
9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007
4:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Accompanying Drilling with Additional Investigation: A Successful Case History in Eritrea

Ketema G. Mahari and Teklay Z. Kidane, Universal Water Consultants

Lack of potable water supply source is among the crucial problems in developing countries, especially in Arid to Semi Arid regions, like Eritrea. In such cases groundwater is the best if not the only resource to be looked for to alleviate the problem. A Norwegian Church Aid funded groundwater development project was implemented for ten villages dispersedly located in Southern Zone of Eritrea, which are with long history of water source problems and failed attempts. Among the earlier trials to assuage the problem in the villages, 14 failed groundwater development attempts and resettlement recommendations can be mentioned. Despite this, the current project, encompassing, ground water investigation, drilling, pump testing and pump installation, succeeded 100% with borehole success rate of 82%. Among the main reasons for the success of the project is the follow up of the drilling work by the site selector and the additional Hydrogeological and geophysical works done based on the drilling results along the drilling work. Detailed Hydrogeological and Geophysical studies were performed to delineate potential drilling sites during the ground water investigation phase. As drilling test boreholes is not financially astute in Eritrea, further hydrogeological and geophysical investigations accompanied the drilling work incorporating the new ideas developed about the subsurface environment from drilling results. This led to shifting of drilling sites based on the updated understanding of the hydrogeology and significantly reduced failures due to misleading interpretations. Consequently, 14 successful boreholes out of 17 drillings solved the water source problems of the villages, fully granting access to 7,270 people in 1,841 households with clean potable-water. Thus it is concluded that performing additional Hydrogeological and geophysical survey along side drilling is time and cost effective, increases success rate and furthermore enriches the real hydrogeological understanding of the groundwater investigating professionals making them more realistic for future works.

Ketema G. Mahari, Universal Water Consultants I am 26 years old Bsc. Graduate male Eritrean working in a dynamic consulting firm in Eritrea Since my graduation in 2002. I have so far worked in more than 120 different scale groundwater investigation works in Hydrogeological and geophysical investigations.


The 2007 Ground Water Summit