Designing Ecological Habitats - Gaia Education

132 Designing ecological Habitats
Non-cement water
tank filled with water,
which will now
be covered with a
wooden trap door.
stands (depending on the size of the spring) are
built, also from stone and wood rather than the
conventional cement. One village may use more
than one spring to supply its drinking water, and
springs can be used even if they are seasonal.
This has meant that systems can be constructed
at 10% of the cost of conventional cement-built
systems, due to not needing cement, sand nor
skilled technicians to construct it with (all of
which are needed again if the scheme breaks
down). Non-cement systems, however, are cheap
to build and maintain and both can be done by the
villagers themselves, as they use the same local
tools and the same resources used to construct the
systems in the first place (i.e. mud, rock and wood).
Waste-water from tap stands is directed towards areas needing irrigation
such as kitchen gardens and tree nurseries. These factors combine to
make the technology more participatory, productive, cost-effective and
sustainable. After construction, village stakeholder beneficiary groups are
encouraged to set up micro-finance schemes where each household puts in
a small amount each month (typically 5 to 10 Nepalese rupees, or about
U.S.12 cents) that they use if new pipe or tap fittings are needed, that is that
they can’t make from local resources. Since 1990 over 40 small and medium
scale systems for around 2,000 households (around 12,000 beneficiaries)
have been established in various hill villages of Surkhet, Jajarkot and Humla
districts, and most are still in good working order. This innovative system
was nominated for the Water Globe Award 2003 in Austria.
Micro-irrigation for Kitchen Gardens, Nurseries, Fruit Orchards
and Agro-forestry
The systems used combine drinking water with micro-irrigation in order
to increase and diversify outputs from each activity. In this way, drinking
water is piped to taps arranged around the periphery of each village. From
here, shorter pipes attachable to the taps provide water for drip and sprinkler
irrigation to areas of kitchen garden and nurseries for fruit and multipurpose
agro-forestry seedling production. Meanwhile, grey-water from
washing activities at the taps is also used for irrigation purposes. This work
involves both retrofit and repair of existing drinking water systems that have
fallen into disrepair as well as construction of new systems.
Water Conserving Activities: Mulching
Mulching is a well known method of water conservation, where biomass
cut from adjoining areas is layered as a covering on bare soil. This protects
it from the drying influences of sun and wind and the impact of raindrops.