A borehole -whether drilled by machine or manually- is always costly and involves a lot of work. As a driller, you do not want to disappoint your customers by telling them that the borehole is dry or that you cannot drill because the ground is too loose or hard.
To avoid disappointments, Water Resource Management Authorities (WARMA) has introduced that any request for drilling a borehole must come with a borehole siting report that includes data on the soil structure. This is to prevent too many boreholes from failing.
However, there are not enough qualified people in Zambia to do these surveys and the common equipment for it is very expensive. Together with Professor James Clarck, Jacana has developed a low-cost version of the device that you can make and maintain yourself with common components. Jacana has now gained so much experience in working with the device that together with a donor ‘Skat Foundation’ it was decided to organise a training course for potential borehole siters from all over Zambia.
The training took place in August in Lusaka. Three groups of 15 people were trained and participants came from all regions of Zambia. There were participants from NGOs, WARMA, the Ministry of Water, the University of Zambia, drilling companies, teachers from technical schools and students. Each participant learned how to conduct borehole siting in a professional manner (using Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) and Horizontal Electrical Profiling (HEP)).
After theory, participants went into the field to learn how to operate the equipment themselves.
Once they mastered this, they learned how to make the equipment themselves using locally available materials.
Every organisation, school or drilling company owner was eventually given a device to start working with the new skills immediately.
Testimonial
“After advising the client on the place to drill, I received a video showing drilling in progress.
Client is very happy with his successful borehole.
Thanks @Jacana team for the great counsel given”.
Besides analysis of measurement results, finding the best drilling location requires data from various sources such as: conversations with people in the area, visual inspection but also existing water levels in the area. The trainees learned to use the following two Android Apps:
1. The drilling toolbox: this App is used to analyse the data from the VES and HEP measurements (app developed by Practica).
2. Water statistics: allows you to easily get records of existing wells and boreholes in the area where you want to do borehole siting. There are currently 16,000 records available in Zambia, supplied by the participants (app developed by Jacana).
Both apps can be downloaded from the Google Play store via the above links .
Testimonial
On behalf of the Organisation, department, and myself, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to you and your team for the training opportunity on borehole siting, making of a VES Machine, and the use of both the Driller’s toolbox and Water Statistic Apps respectively.
I wish to confirm that, the training was great and timely, we sincerely appreciate your role in empowering entrepreneurs and ourselves with such great knowledge. I can assure you that, the knowledge delivered will go a long way in serving better our communities.
We thank you most sincerely for your unwavering support throughout the training. Looking forward to more trainings of such nature.
Thanks
Jacana and all the participants are grateful for the support of SKAT foundation that makes this possible.
