Los Quiscamotes Water Supply

Bianca Pinto, Haley Kujawa, Jean Janvier, Jason Wilkinson

Advisors: Dr. Brian Benham, David McCann

Background Constraints and Criteria Improved Spring Box

Table 1. Constraints and Criteria
The worlds population is expected to reach 9.7 billion
Constraints Criteria
people by 2050 (UN DESA, 2015). The UN states that
Cost < $10,000 Community ownership
currently 783 million people do not have access to an
Supply 12,000 L/day Locally accessible building materials
improved source of drinking water, and 185 million use
Water supply must be coupled with
untreated surface water to meet their water needs (WHO,
disinfection system
2016). The World Health Organization (WHO) sets the
Water quality monitoring
minimum quantity of drinking water per person at 20 liters Durability
per capita per day (Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality,
2006). Providing this quantity of safe drinking water to the Design Alternatives
future population will be a challenge.
Table 2. Potential supply and sanitation solutions
This design project aims to help one place affected by the Supply Sanitation
lack of a sanitary water supply. The community of Los Rain cisterns Chlorine
Quiscamotes in Danli, Honduras has recently had their main Treatment of well water Biosand Figure 4 Spring box dimensions
water supply, a hand pump, contaminated by nearby Spring protection and treatment UV/solar
latrines. They currently use the spring as the main point of Develop and improve spring access Membrane filtration Biosand Filter and Storage Tank
collection, but the spring box is unprotected. The spring is
also located down a steep ravine, with an elevation change Final Design
of 31 feet over a short distance, and could cause physical
The final design uses the spring, with a spring box for protection,
injury when retrieving water. Mr. David McCann, an
as the source of water. The water is then filtered through a
employee and member of New Life Christian Fellowship
biosand filtration unit with a storage tank. Some key aspects of
(NLCF) brought attention to this problem and wanted to
the design are as follows
develop a solution. He decided to partner with the BSE
Identical side-by-side biosand filtration columns to allow for
department and the Honduras senior design team. The final
continuation of water system when maintenance is occurring
project aims to protect and sanitize a community water
12 m3 storage unit
source, as well as improving access to the source. Solar powered pump to move water from spring box to
biosand filtration
Perforated pipe along the length of the biosand to distribute
water and not disturb the schmutzdecke (biologically active
layer)
Improved access close to road (avoid steep ravine)
Figure 5 Front and top view of biosand and storage tank dimensions. Water
flows from left to right.

WHO Design Standards

No detectable E. coli or Fecal Coliform Bacteria in 100 mL samples
Supply minimum 20 L/capita/day12 m3 storage unit

Figure 1 Location of Los Quiscamotes

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our advisor, Dr. Brian Benham, as well as
Mr. David McCann for their continued support during the project. In
addition, we would like to thank the BSE department and NLCF for
helping sponsor a site visit in March 2017.
References
WHO, (2016). Drinking Water. Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs391/en/
UN DESA, (2015). World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision. Retrieved from
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html
Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality. (2006): Guideline Values for Verification of
Figure 2A Contaminated hand Figure 2B Spring box Figure 3 Profile view of the proposed system looking downstream.
pump Microbial Quality. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO