International WaTER Symposium to be held September 21, 2021 - Save the Date!

Save the Date! - The seventh OU International WaTER Symposium will be held on Tuesday evening, September 21, 2021, in the Molly Shi Boren Ballroom of the University of Oklahoma. The primary purpose of the Symposium is to select and announce the next winner of the OU International Water Prize.

During the few days prior to the Symposium, a group of five distinguished jurors will each nominate an individual who is making a real difference in the hydrology, water security, and WaSH (water, sanitation and hygiene) sectors, especially for communities in need. After much discussion and some debate, these jurors will complete their deliberations, select a Prize winner, and announce the Prize winner at the Symposium event. In the evening's program, they will also share some of their own research and experiences in the field through short presentations and a panel discussion on pertinent water issues of our day.

Dr. David Sabatini addresses the Prize Banquet
at the 2019 International Water Conference

Martha Gebeyehu, 2019 Prize winner, is seen here
with family and friends on the night of the 2019 banquet

The Prize winner will come to campus next year (2022) for the International Water Conference, where she/he will give the Keynote Address and accept their Prize at the formal Banquet. This Prize is believed to be the first and largest prize dedicated to water supply, water resources, and/or sanitation in emerging regions.

Below is a brief introduction of this year's Prize jurors:

Ana Barros (University of Illinois - Department Head of Civil Engineering)

Ana has interests in hydrology, hydrometeorology and environmental physics with a focus on water-cycle processes in the coupled land-atmosphere-biosphere system, particularly in regions of complex terrain. Dr. Barros has expertise in the critical area of water security and environmental sustainability, with emphasis on the study of water cycle processes taking place in the land-atmosphere-biosphere system. 

Upmana Lall (Columbia University)

Dr. Lall is the Director of the Columbia Water Center and Editor-in-Chief of Water Security journal. He also leads the Global Water Sustainability Initiative which addresses global water scarcity and risk. The Global Flood Initiative is motivated by the need to predict, mitigate and manage floods at a global scale while recognizing climate drivers and supply chain impacts.

Merrell-Ann Phare (Phare Law Corporation, International Joint Commission)

Merrell-Ann is a Canadian lawyer with specialties in water rights and water law. She serves on the International Joint Commission (U.S. and Canada – Boundary Waters agreement, 1909). She is a lawyer, writer, strategist, negotiator and relationship-builder who has worked extensively in and with indigenous organizations on environmental, land, water, rights and governance issues. She has authored or co-authored two books on water ethics and the water rights of First Nations.

Aondover Tarhule (Illinois State University)

Dr. Tarhule has studied the impact of climate change on crop yields in the Niger River basin, the effects of particulate air pollution on public health in Burkina Faso, and the usage of satellite data to improve the water security index for regions in Africa. His work on the impacts of climate change on water scarcity and security has been featured in National Geographic and Nature.

Callist Tindimugaya (Uganda - Ministry of Water and Environment)

Dr. Tindimugaya's career has focused on groundwater protection and management in Africa. He has published articles in journals of hydrogeology which describe the importance of groundwater resources in the threats of urbanization, industrial development, agricultural and mining activities, and poor sanitation practices.

We look forward to welcoming these jurors to our lovely OU campus in the Fall!

More detailed information on ways to participate in the Symposium will be coming later this summer.

OU WaTER Symposium planned for Fall 2021

The pandemic has changed the way many of us live and work and go to school. But one thing has not changed - people across the world still need clean water for drinking and hygiene, and proper sanitation, perhaps now more than ever. Frequent hand washings are a part of daily life in the developed world, but an estimated 790 million people - 11% of the world's population - lack access to clean water and are thus more susceptible to infectious diseases such as Covid 19. 

The mission of the OU WaTER Center also has not changed - to promote peace by advancing human development through sustainable water and sanitation for all. But we are not alone. There are many men and women across the globe who are doing amazing work in the sharing of this mission. 

Dr. Robert Nairn addresses the 2018 Symposium participants at the banquet

in which the next Prize winner is announced. 

The purpose of the OU International Water Prize is to recognize and honor an individual, acting alone or as leader of an organization, who has made significant contributions, either through research or teaching or service activities, in the field of water supply, water resources or sanitation, particularly for small and impoverished villages/communities in rural or remote regions. This next Water Prize will be awarded to someone who has made this contribution in the field of hydrology and/or water security (HWS) for the benefit of disadvantaged communities. 

Martha Gebeyehu (center), sanitation expert in Ethiopia, is the winner of our

2019 International Water Prize.

Martha receives her Prize at the formal banquet that was part of the

2019 International Water Conference in Norman, Oklahoma.

Every two years the WaTER Center assembles a panel of 4-5 jurors who are themselves leaders in the fields of water, sanitation and water security. These jurors each nominate an individual who is making a real difference in the WaSH (water, sanitation and hygiene) and water security sector. 

We are pleased to announce that the Prize jurors for the next OU International Water Prize are:

• Ana Barros, University of Illinois 
• Upmanu Lall, Columbia University
• Aondover Tarhule, Illinois State University
• Callist Tindimugaya, Ministry of Water and Environment, Uganda

These jurors will complete their deliberations, select a Prize winner, and announce the Prize winner at next Fall's Symposium. At this exciting event, they will also share some of their own research and experiences in the field.

The biennial Prize consists of a $25,000 cash award and a glass trophy developed by a local artist. The winner comes to campus the following year (2022) for the International Water Conference, where she/he will give the Keynote Address and accept their Prize at the formal Banquet. This Prize is believed to be the first and largest prize dedicated to water supply, water resources, and/or sanitation in emerging regions.

Stay tuned for the announcement of date for our Fall 2021 WaTER Symposium!

SPOTLIGHT ON A PARTNER - Covid response from the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Each June in normal years, the OU WaTER Center supports staff and students to spend a month in Gulu, Uganda, working on a project or two in support of Sr. Rosemary Nyirumbe and her Catholic sisters. Needless to say, the year 2020 has not been a normal year! But the work of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus continues nonetheless.

Sr. Pasqua Binenanena oversees the liquid hand soap that is being made and distributed
by staff and orphans.

The orphan students are sewing face masks and making liquid hand soap to distribute to people in great need during this time of pandemic. In addition to residents of northern Uganda, there are hundreds of refugees crossing the border each day from South Sudan and the DRC. These families need food and clean drinking water, of course. But they also need proper hygiene for protection against the coronavirus pandemic. Uganda's Covid rate is 0.8 per 100,000, far less than the U.S., but the 14-day trend is upwards and the country's health care system might become easily overwhelmed if the rise continues. In addition, there is the ever-present concern about malaria which sickens people and reduces the number of constructive work days. 

Ugandan refugee families wait for need supplies during a time of crisis.

There are around 100 orphan girls who currently live at Saint Monica's Tailoring School for Girls in Gulu. (Because of Covid, the government has strict regulations on housing density.) The orphanage began as a home for girls who had been enslaved by Joseph Kony's army of rebels during the Ugandan civil war of the 1980s. Sr. Rosemary Nyirumbe gave the girls a safe place to live while they also earned valuable skills such as sewing, cooking and hair styling. For her humanitarian work, Sr. Rosemary was honored as one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2014. 

The Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus are donating much-needed items to the Congolese refugees who are escaping violence and fleeing into Uganda.

Dr. Ann Huynh is a physician in Austin, Texas. Her Foundation, Universal Angels Network, has been very supportive of Sr. Rosemary and her Sisters. This Foundation paid for a water tank last year and continues to support the Sisters through paying for medical training scholarships and providing for mosquito netting and materials for face masks and hand soap. 

Young people are making hand sanitizing soap to distribute to Congolese refugees and others in need during the pandemic. 

According to Sr. Pasqua Binenanena, about 2500 refugees passed into Uganda from DRC in the three months of summer alone. Uganda is known as the friendliest country to refugees in Africa. But even as it is trying to keep its borders closed due to the pandemic, families still find ways to escape the violence in their own country to a land that welcomes them, albeit somewhat reluctantly. Sr. Pasqua says that "their problems have been compounded by the lack of basic things like food. Refugees anywhere are a very vulnerable group because they are usually very exposed in their host countries away from home and they need to be protected."

Sr. Rosemary Nyirumbe is seen here at Saint Monica's Tailoring School in Gulu.

Because of the lockdown back in late spring, Sr. Rosemary herself has been "stuck" in the U.S. where she has been earning an advanced degree at the University of Oklahoma. She meets weekly with her staff back in Uganda via virtual meetings and sends her love back, along with whatever donations she can raise for them here from generous friends and benefactors. 

You can support the work of Sr. Rosemary and the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by giving to the Sewing Hope Foundation.

AWIA presents deadlines for water supply plans

In a changing climate and a rapidly expanding population, water security will not happen without careful planning. And it won’t be achieved overnight. Planning for water security includes planning for unforeseen circumstances, or hazards, whether from natural disasters or malevolent acts. These hazards could include a sudden natural catastrophe, such as a tornado, hurricane, earthquake, or flood. The natural event might also be of longer-term, such as drought or impacts from climate change. There is also risk from human-induced events, both unintended and intentional. These include accidental spills as well as vandalism or terrorism (malevolent acts). 

Water treatment plant in Geneva, Illinois.

The America's Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) of 2018 was passed by Congress to ensure that community water systems had plans in place that would help them respond appropriately to such hazardous events. The law required all large and medium-sized water systems to develop risk and resilience assessments (RRA) and emergency response plans (ERP). Any system that serves more than 3,300 people must certify that these plans are in place. 

The process involves four discrete steps:

• Step One: Conduct a risk assessment (RA). The EPA has developed a tool – Vulnerability Self-Assessment Tool (VSAT 2.0) – to assist utilities in conducting their own risk and resilience assessment. With this tool, the utility can identify the highest risks to mission-critical operations and find cost-effective measures to reduce these risks.  This assessment must be completed by a certain deadline (in the year 2020) and then reviewed, updated and re-certified every 5 years.

• Step Two: Identify some strategies to build resilience. The first step has helped the managers prioritize hazards based on likelihood and consequences. For example, the team may decide that flooding, wildfires and water supply management are the biggest concerns. Then, potentially vulnerable assets are chosen, including aquifers, buildings, data acquisition systems, drinking water treatment plant, and forested lands. The manager selects which of these assets are most vulnerable in his/her system. The team then presents a list of strategies based on the highest priorities of their water system.

• Step Three: Develop an emergency response plan (ERP). This plan utilizes and builds upon the risk assessment and selection of resilience strategies already completed. The ERP describes the utility’s strategies to prepare for and respond to incidents, whether natural or human induced. These may be as small as a main line break or localized flooding. Or they may be larger, such as a hurricane, power outage, or a cyber-attack. This plan is due six months after certification of the risk assessment (RA) plan.

• Step Four: Monitor the system. Monitoring activities should focus on both water quality surveillance and security monitoring. Water quality surveillance is done at the treatment plant and in distribution systems. Monitoring is done at various locations and for various parameters. ERP will highlight the key parameters. Enhanced security monitoring uses advanced security equipment and communication systems.

The development of a risk assessment plan involves both an on-site assessment
and meetings with key plant personnel. 

The OU WaTER Center, along with the Oklahoma Water Survey, has personnel that are willing to help low-resource communities develop these plans. This exercise is part of our mission to both educate students in the professional practice of water security and assist rural communities (emerging regions) in need. The deadline for small utilities (3,301-49,999 people) to complete their risk and resilience plan (Step One above) is June 30, 2021.

Testing campus wastewater for Covid-19 virus

Sewage testing has been used in the U.S. for detection of other diseases in the past, such as polio. Since about 80% of households are connected to a central sewerage collection, in this time of pandemic it is reasonable to conduct sewage surveillance in order to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes Covid-19 illness. The virus is shed in the feces of individuals even before they start showing symptoms. 

A student worker is collecting a sewage sample on the OU campus to test for the coronavirus.

Dr. Jason Vogel, a WaTER Center co-director and Director of the Oklahoma Water Survey, has been collecting sewage samples on the University of Oklahoma (OU) campus for early detection of the virus. The samples are collected downstream of campus student housing during after-lunch hours (12 noon to 2 pm) when the wastewater flow rate is highest. 

Student workers collecting sewage samples follow strict health and safety protocols so that they themselves will not get infected.

OU microbiologist Associate Professor, Bradley Stevenson, is heading the program and studies of the samples, which typically have a 24-hour turnaround time. Dr. Stevenson says that “this (method) definitely can be an early warning....What we’re doing is actually monitoring the levels of COVID-19 in the wastewater,” Stevenson said. “When an individual has COVID-19, they shed the virus through their feces and we can actually detect that.” This is a method that can both show trends over time and provide an early warning system, about 3-7 days prior to a normal detection protocol using onset of symptoms. In addition, the RNA laboratory testing is a non-invasive form of detection as compared to clinical testing. 

Private water providers in rural Ghana

How well does a small privately-owned business provide safe water to a rural community in west Africa? What are the benefits as well as the challenges? These are the questions that led to Philip Deal’s research in the ecologically-diverse country of Ghana. 

Hand pumping of water from a drilled borehole is still a very common method of water acquisition in Ghana.

Governments and NGOs across the world have observed countless handpumps and piped systems falling into disrepair, despite billions of dollars of investment into the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) sector. In opposition to this challenge, Water4 (an NGO based in Oklahoma City) set out to develop a sustainable model of building, operating, and maintaining safe water enterprises through their Numa water delivery kiosks. These kiosks became the product of a private water service company, Access Development (AD), in Ghana, West Africa. 

The water delivery system pumps water to a tank using solar power, disinfects the water with UV and chlorine disinfection, and supplies water to a kiosk where it is sold to local villagers. The borehole is owned by the community, but the pump and treatment center are owned by AD. Customers ‘pay‐to‐fetch’ vendors for their water with cash - 0.20 GHS per 18 L - equivalent to less than a cent per gallon.

Numa piped system network.

This water delivery kiosk provides clean water to Ghanaian villagers for a small fee

The goals of the water delivery system are to:

• increase the reliability and functionality of the systems,

• reduce the time needed to respond to breakdowns, and 

• increase the revenue for these water systems so as to provide more long-term management.

Customers ‘pay‐to‐fetch’ vendors for their water with cash - 0.20 GHS per 18 L, equivalent to about 3 cents, less than a penny per gallon.

Private water service delivery is a result of a partnership between the University of Oklahoma, Water4, and Access Development. Pictured (left to right): Dr. David Sabatini, Mr. Wellington Amankwa, Dr. Philip Deal, Mr. Philip Aratuo

Ghana is a water-rich country and was found to have a sustainable supply of groundwater to meet domestic water supply. However, more mechanized drilling would be needed to make this water available to more people. 

Philip discovered that Access Development was giving equal or superior service to its customers, both poor and rich, compared to traditional water systems. Water had significantly better quality and was consistently available throughout the year. Yet, only about 35% to 40% of the population was using Numa water. With ongoing competition from free alternatives and seasonal challenges of affordability, customers would not always choose to use Access Development’s water service. Low residual chlorine for secondary disinfection was also found to be an area for improvement.

Water queue in Ghana observes social distancing during the pandemic.

As of the Fall of 2020, Access Development has grown to serve almost 90,000 people. The private company has plans to expand to more districts in Ghana in 2021, while other partners in Sierra Leone and Zambia are growing rapidly as well. Philip is now the Director of Community Engagement at Water4, where he is able to continue serving and supporting safe water enterprises in 15 different countries.

 A kiosk vendor is happy to serve you!

Building a wave-powered water pump in Tanzania

John Makonda lives in Geita, Tanzania, just south of Lake Victoria. Since Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa, many view the lake as an economic resource or a local recreation spot. However, John Makonda sees the lake as an experimental playground for the testing of his new wave-powered water pump.

John Makonda is testing his water pumping device on magnificent Lake Victoria.

Beginning in 2014, John has dedicated himself to the careful design and development of the pump which utilizes the upward and downward motions of a buoy connected to a lever in order to pump water as if it were a hand pump being operated by an invisible hand. The following sketches exemplify John’s attention to detail and his well-thought-out design.

Sketch of original design - Leonardo da Vinci would be proud!

These sketches are examples of John's creative impulse.

Since then, John has been able to build a prototype that shows promising results. Without schooling nor training, John gracefully manipulated the concepts of buoyancy, pressure head, and hydraulics in his invention which could prove to be extremely useful in the development of new water distribution systems. Since John’s pump is powered by the constant rise and fall of Lake Victoria, this could significantly decrease the cost and energy required to pump water from the lake to surrounding communities. Increasing populations in not only Tanzania, but Uganda and Kenya, will further expose the significance of John’s wave-powered water pump as the demand for potable drinking water rises.

John builds efficient cookstoves in his outdoor workshop, alongside a treadle pump.

Many who have come before John have tried to harness energy from the visibly powerful waves of the ocean with the likes of underground turbines. However, John Makonda takes a different approach, reminding us once again of the power of innovative thinking. His hard work and dedication will bring forth a new technology that can then be utilized by communities in search of a cost and energy efficient method of pumping freshwater inland.

John Makonda is a designer and innovator of appropriate technologies in central Africa.

Well done, John, and keep up the good work!