low-cost techniques for salinity reduction of drinking water using indigenous materials

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Project period: 01 January 2025   To: 31 December 2026

Project details

Access to safe, affordable and reliable drinking water is a basic human right. It is indispensable to sustaining healthy livelihoods and maintaining people's dignity. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 seeks to ensure safe drinking water and sanitation for all by the year 2030, with particular focus on the sustainable management of the available water resources. The 2018 Malawi Population Housing Census identified groundwater (mainly boreholes) as the main source of safe water for most households (61%) in Malawi especially in rural areas. Although groundwater is generally considered to be a clean, salinization is one of the most prominent causes of groundwater quality degradation, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. Chlorides are generally present in water from natural sources. However, levels above 600 mg/L can give water a salty taste and hence unpalatable. Our previous work on groundwater quality has revealed high levels of salinity in water from boreholes and shallow wells in Malawi. The presence of high levels of chlorides in the borehole water has led to communities abandoning some boreholes and resorting to unsafe water sources for domestic applications. The abandonment of boreholes is a waste of resources while the use of unsafe water resources exposes them to waterborne diseases. In view of this, it is important to design appropriate technologies that can be used by rural communities to treat the water to make it fit for domestic use.