Excellent! - excellentdevelopment.com

The 22nd March is World Water Day, and we are pleased to be marking it this year by reaching the milestone of 100 sand dams built since 2003, providing clean water to over 100,000 people.

Sand dams are essentially reinforced concrete walls built across seasonal river beds, which retain water below the sand that collects behind them. Each dam holds up to 10 million litres of water, protected from evaporation and parasites and ensuring a year round supply of clean water for the local community.

The community groups we work with in semi-arid Kenya are pioneering this innovative technology to combat the pressures of drought, deforestation and climate change that they face. Even though total rainfall in the area is between 600 and 1,200 mm, the concentrated rainy seasons mean that very little is retained and local springs soon dry up – meaning women walk 5-10 km for water during the dry season and up to 20km during droughts.

Conserving soil and water by building sand dams, digging terraces and planting trees transforms the micro-climate by permanently increasing the water table and creating the environment for increased food production.

The dams improve water capacity so that tree and vegetable nurseries can be started, and the terracing of fields reduces soil erosion and increases the amount of rain water absorbed. This increases and diversifies food production for people and livestock. Farmers are then able to generate income by selling surplus produce, which is often spent on school fees for their children. In co-operation with community self-help groups in Africa, Excellent Development aims to build 300 sand dams by the year 2010.

Rhoda Silu is a member of the Utooni Development Project, the self-help group that was the original inspiration for Excellent Development. She explains: “The dams enable us to save our time, and that enables us to do much more work on our farms than before, which helps us earn money from vegetables and increased production of staple crops.”

She adds, “Diarrhoea, a major child killer, has reduced by 95% in our area due to the clean water from sand dams. So many children now attend school regularly because their mothers don’t need them to look after the home whilst they collect water.”

Simon Maddrell, co-founder of the charity, comments: “Sand dams are the most cost-effective method known for providing clean water, however they aren’t as sexy as water tanks or water pumps and are a vastly under-utilised technology as a result.”

Simon adds, “We are delighted to be celebrating our 100th dam built and it is our hope that more and more people will learn of their benefits in combating the impacts of climate change and improving water supplies and food production in semi-arid areas.”

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Learn more about what we do. Click here to watch our short films on sand dams, soil and water conservation and planting trees