Pangalana Channel Shallow Well Program
The Madagascar Water Project began drilling water wells along the east coast of Madagascar in 2015. The MWP serves small rural villages lacking any infrastructure and most services such as schools and medical facilities. Most of the east coast villages are accessible only by the Pangalana Channel, a fresh water intracoastal waterway that also serves as their only source of water. Water-borne diseases are common, including dysentery, diarrhea and schistosomiasis, aka Bilharzia, which is carried by snails.
The MWP has drill 157 shallow wells, wells less than 23 feet, that provide water to about 80,000 people. Sustainability is ensured by encouraging local participation through the formation of Well Management Committees, the training of local technicians to make routine maintenance & repairs, and the continued support of the MWP with periodic visits that include maintenance & repairs when needed. One hundred twenty-two wells are still producing, and most are self-sustaining.
June 2022: Well Repair in Analamary
Our Mission:
To provide safe, sustainable and accessible water sources to rural communities in Madagascar.
To build an enabling environment within communities, to manage and operate their water resources and to use them to improve community based sanitation and hygiene.
Marolambo Municipal Rehabilitation Project
The Madagascar Water Project rebuilt the Marolambo Municipal Water System in October 2023. The entire system had deteriorated over the decades, diminishing its ability to provide safe water to the community of 7800 people. Water was sourced from a surface stream 3 km outside the village, but multiple water analysis indicated it had significant levels of e-coli and was not suitable to drink without chlorination. Logistics, road access to Marolambo, was a significant challenge and was the likely reason the village has been passed over by every other water project done in the region.
Upstream, the MWP rebuilt the dam and filtration system. Two 45k liter holding tanks were refurbished and a chlorination system was added. The distribution system was completely rebuilt. It included 7000 meters of pipeline, 20 double spigot water kiosks for public use and 10 water stands located in churches, schools, clinics and government facilities. The total project cost was MGA 300M ($70k USD), required about 5 man-years of work and took 45 days to complete.
At the conclusion of construction, the MWP hired two technicians to provide daily on-site chlorination, weekly water testing and provide maintenance & repairs to the dam, and the water filtration and distribution systems. Their work will ensure the long-term sustainability of the water system.
Several relevant reports can be accessed through the attached links..
Now Providing Safe Water to 150,000 People
Southern Madagascar Well Repair and Rehabilitation Program
Madagascar is a large country, an island measuring about 1000 miles long and 300 miles wide. Geographically it is dominated by a large central plateau, which has an average elevation of 4000 feet, and coastal lowlands. Madagascar is about 20 degrees south of the equator and is no more tropical than my home on the US Gulf Coast. Most of the country receives adequate rain, although it tends to be more seasonal. Southern Madagascar, however, has low rainfall in the best years and much less in the decades long drought that now dominates the region.
Some organizations consider southern Madagascar to be a disaster area. In many areas access to water is completely lacking. This in turn affects agriculture and results in very widespread malnutrition, some of it progressing to visible starvation. By most accounts, the situation is dire. The report available with the button below describes our observations and assessment made in a trip in 2020.
The Madagascar Water Project has been working in the Betroka District of Southern Madagascar since 2021. Drilling new wells is difficult and geologically risk because the geology is dominated by basaltic lava flows. It is incredibly hard and pockets of water found in fractures are few and far between. There are however, hundreds or even thousands of water wells drilled over the past decades that have fallen into disrepair. Most have been stripped for parts but records available in the local government office have provided the exact location of many hundreds.
With assistance from the Communes, the Madagascar Water Project has used these records to locate old abandoned wells and repair them. Most wells require a drilling rig to clean out debris in the casing. Some require old tubing and other hardware to be recovered from the well before it is flow tested and a new replacement Indian Mark III pump is installed.
Rehabilitated wells, which have an average depth of 25 - 40 meters, provide clean water for drinking, cooking, and many other activities that improve the health, hygiene and sanitation needs of the local population. They are also used to irrigate their crops using water cans. There are no alternatives to these wells, so most serve populations of more than 1000 people.
Projects in the south are moderate cost, very high impact endeavors. The number of wells to be rehabilitated is unlimited. The Madagascar Water Project has already rehabilitated 26 wells and will remain in the region for the foreseeable future.