Project Type: Water Purification
Status: Retired
Type: Gold Standard
This Micro-Scale Voluntary Project Activity, in Dowa, Malawi is eligible under the Gold Standard methodology Technologies and Practices to Displace Decentralized Thermal Energy Consumption v1.0. In this project co2balance and Concern Universal will provide safe drinking water to communities reducing the need to boil water as a means of purification through the repair of damaged and the drilling of additional new boreholes in the Traditional Authorities (TA) of Dzoole, Chakhaza and Kayembe located in Dowa District. By providing safe water, the project will ensure that households consume less firewood during the process of water purification and as a result there shall be a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion process.
In many areas, communities do not have access to clean water and either have to travel long distances to collect it or use contaminated sources close to home. In instances (funding dependent) where it is not possible to rehabilitate an existing, damaged, borehole, co2balance and Concern Universal will install new ones. We will also ensure that the quality of the water delivered by the boreholes is fit for human consumption and that the borehole is maintained for the entire length of the project, which will be a minimum of seven years.
Many existing boreholes are owned by community groups or Village Health and Water Committee (VHWC’s) and have fallen into disrepair because maintenance programmes have been poorly managed, or prove too expensive. In this instance co2balance will work with Concern Universal to identify broken down boreholes and rehabilitate/repair them so that they deliver clean, safe water and breakdowns are fixed rapidly. The number of boreholes per VPA will be limited by the amount of pure water supplied by each unit, the number of people using it and the results of the Baseline Water Boiling Tests (BWBT). Based on ex ante calculations, the number of boreholes that can be rehabilitated in one VPA to achieve 10,000 tCO2e is approximately 10 . Through the project we will also ensure that the quality of the water delivered by the boreholes is fit for human consumption for the entire length of the project; a minimum of 7 years. The boreholes included under the project will be entirely human operated and will be fitted with hand pump models that are commonly used in the area such as Afridev, U3 Modified and India Mark II pumps. The depth of the boreholes will be limited to 100m or less.
Co2balance raises funding for this project by marketing the anticipated carbon credits from the wood savings to ethical investors, so borehole owners must agree to transfer the emissions reductions (carbon rights) over to co2balance in return for them supplying the work to renovate the boreholes.
Monitoring data collected during the rehabilitation and operation of the boreholes will be captured in an electronic data management system, or monitoring database. From this data, the emissions reductions of the VPA will be determined. This system will be available for review during the validation and verification. This project has gained gold standard accreditation through recognition of its additional benefits. By reducing the need to collect firewood to purify water it relieves labour, improves health, and benefits wildlife by the avoided demand for wood.