Kanamkemer area, a suburb of Lodwar town which is located in a semi-arid area has been experiencing intermittent water supply. This project addresses this problem through the design of a water supply and a monitoring system for this area.
The water demand of the area was determined from the current and projected population of the area. Water quality of the borehole was determined through laboratory test on samples taken from the borehole. Data relevant to this project was collected through measurements, observations and interviews. The capacity of the storage tank was calculated to ensure availability of water during peak hours. The rising main pipeline transmitting pumped water from the borehole to the storage was designed using a Nomograph and the pipe size and thickness chosen after determining the water hammer pressure. From the tank, water will flow by gravity to the consumers. Distribution lines were designed to distribute the water to the kiosk, Academy and to the homesteads.
The project will serve a population of 11000, 14783 and 19867 people in the initial, future and ultimate years respectively and from this the current demand was found to be 225500 litres per day and the projected demand 401855 litres per day. The rising main pipe provided is PN10 HDPE pipes 140mm in diameter covering 4.5km with T junctions and gate valves to supply water to the Cradle and Toboung Lore cultural centre. In order to supply water to the all residents at peak flow, the water tank is designed for a capacity of 148m3. Distribution lines are 50mm class D PVC pipes of total length 2.5km.
A GIS monitoring system was developed which will be able to monitor the consumers by storing the details of every consumer in a ArcGIS map. The system indicates the positions of the different water users, their physical address, the meter numbers and the usage of water in the previous month. This has been done to enhance the record keeping of the water users, to enable billing of the users and to enhance connections in the distribution lines.
The recommendations for this project are that LOWASCO should consider using electricity to pump the water which will supplement to the solar pump which pumps water for a maximum of 9hrs to increase pumping time to about 22 hours so as to be able to supply water sufficiently to the community and the capacity of tank in Narewa should be increased to be able to meet the peak demand of the area therefore reducing over spillage which would result to water wastage