Literature Review

The population of Solomon Islands is increasing rapidly and access to water is very difficult
especially in the Rural Communities. The three fundamental problems are: scarcity of freshwater
sources, lack of sanitation infrastructure, and aging water systems that are not sufficient. Rural
Communities in the Solomon Islands don’t have sufficient access to water for hygiene and
sanitation along with clean and safe water for drinking. Most will have to purchase water from
shops. However, in the village communities, some will have access to fresh water because their
land contains rivers and so they will have access to water. In contrast to that, other village
communities don’t have enough access to clean safe water for drinking. Even though 98% of
surface water covers Solomon Islands, the country has very little fresh clean safe water for
drinking. For example, rural communities that were affected by the massive earthquake and
tsunami have to walk several kilometers to fetch for clean safe water for drinking in the forest
and into the hills. A village community called Vudutaru in the Northwest of Choiseul Province
suffered severely from the disaster and freshwater for drinking was really hard to get. Conflicts
occurred when they tried to collect fresh water for drinking from a nearby village. This happened
for 10 years. Luckily, the World Bank company were fortunate enough and came up with a
catchment system project and now Vudutaru were able to drink and use the clean safe water from
the catchment system. However, other villages that also suffered from the earthquake and
tsunami still don’t have good access to freshwater for drinking.
In the Western province of Solomon Islands in a place called Munda, people rely on rainwater
for drinking. If there is no rain for 3 or 4 months, people will suffer because there is no place to
get fresh water for drinking. There’s a river located nearby, however, it is too far to access and
there are no piping systems to supply water to Munda. When there is no rainfall for a long period
of time, people from a different village will have to go to another village to collect fresh water
for drinking.
There are plenty of other rural communities encountering the same problem which is the limited
supply of clean and safe water for drinking in the Solomon Islands.
Vanuatu is also an interesting country because it is a place that accommodates tourists coming in
sporadically and so maintaining clean water for drinking, hygiene and sanitation is the number
one priority in Vanuatu. The main supply of water in the urban areas of Vanuatu comes from
shallow aquifers. In the rural villages, they access water from different sources such as bores,
wells, springs, rivers and rainwater catchments.
One factor that affects the island communities in Vanuatu is that they cannot access freshwater
sources located nearby. This is a major concern for the Ministry of Water. The Ministry is
focusing to ensure freshwater is accessible to the island communities to promote the health of the
public as well as supporting social and economic development. Groundwater drilling is main
source of collecting freshwater for drinking. One of the country’s large cities have no problem
accessing freshwater but the rural places have very limited access. A way they came up with to
address this problem is by groundwater drilling. Samples of the water are collected regularly to
make sure that water is safe for the people to drink and use for hygiene and sanitation ensuring
tourists and locals are protected from water-borne diseases such as scabies, skin diseases and
malaria. Water quality in Vanuatu is a priority and the government will support any type of
projects that can help the locals and visiting populations to access freshwater for cooking,
drinking and sanitation.
Water purification is a method involving the process of removing unwanted chemicals such as
biological contaminants such as e-coli, alkaline, dirt (suspended solid particles) and gases. The
aim is to process the water and the final outcome must be safe to use for hygiene and sanitation
purposes and for drinking.
The tap water supplied to every household may seem clean but the process the water went
through causes the water to contains bacteria and viruses that can affect the health of people such
as fluorine, chlorine, mercury, lead, pesticides, etc.
Water that is contaminated and consumed by people can lead to health issues and the outcomes
can be really harmful to the people. Diseases like diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, polio and
other dangerous diseases not mentioned is one the main cause of deaths around the world.
Millions of people become ill from drinking tap water according to plenty researches. This is
why ecological purification of water is needed, because it cleans the water thoroughly and is
more suitable for drinking and hygiene and sanitation in comparison to tap water.
Purification of water assist in maintaining the environment to be safe and clean. It also helps to
reduce the risks of getting cancer. Contaminated water can cause different kind of diseases which
can increase the probability of cancer once it is the main source of drinking.
Swimming pools use chlorine because it kills germs. However, it is not suitable for drinking at
all. If chlorine can kill germs, then definitely it can harm human beings. Therefore, when doing
purifying process, it is not a good idea to put chlorine in the treated water.
Purifying water can help people in rural communities to save money because they won’t have to
pay water bills.
It will also remove lead which is good because younger kids can get disorders from lead.
Due to the limited supply of clean safe water in the rural communities in Vanuatu and Solomon
Islands, this project team decided to come with an ecological purification system for surface
water. The project team came up with three possible solutions.
The first one is the two bucket system. This involves two buckets along with twiggy taps, tank
fittings, 15 mm filter and hex socket. One bucket will be at the top and one will be at the bottom.
A hole will be drilled into the bottom bucket for the twiggy tap. Once the twiggy tap is fitted into
the bucket, the hex socket will be joined with the twiggy tap from inside the bottom bucket.
Another hole will be drilled through the lid of the bottom bucket for the 15 mm fitting. A file
will be used to smoothen the hole that was drilled. A corresponding hole will be drilled at the
bottom of the top bucket. The fitting will be assembled into the corresponding holes between the
top and the bottom bucket. Then it will be checked to see if it is fit and tight. From there, a filter
will be screwed into the 15 mm fitting from inside the top bucket and it must be nice and tight.
Then assemble the top bucket onto the bottom bucket and test if there are no leaks. If there are no
leaks, then the first part is done.
After that, the materials for the mediums in the buckets are large gravels, small gravels, sand and
charcoal. The large gravel will be arranged onto the first layer of the up top bucket. Then the
next layer is small gravel, the next layer is washed sand and the layer after is activated charcoal.
Then another layer of clean sand, a layer of small gravel, then a layer of large gravel.
This method is also good, the outcome of the purified water is really clear and drinkable.
The second solution is the One Barrel Bio-sand filter. The materials are charcoal for barbeque,
sand and gravel. This can filter water enough for one family.
A hole is drilled through the bottom of the bucket for a fitting that will be joined with a hose.
Gravel will be the first layer on the bottom. Then a fabric is placed on-top of it. Next, sand is
placed on-top of the fabric, then another fabric will be placed on top of the sand, and then
charcoal. The last part is to put gravel on-top of the charcoal to avoid the charcoal to float around
inside the barrel. Once that is done, fit the fitting into the drilled hole at the bottom and connect
the hose. The hose must be the same height with regards to the charcoal.
This method is also very effective to provide for one family.
The third possible solution is to use 4 buckets. The four buckets have to be placed on top of a
platform at about 1m high from ground level. Holes will be drilled into the 4 buckets for the
fittings and the connection of the pvc pipes. In the first bucket, the first medium will be chunks
of bricks and rocks, then large gravels, followed by small gravels. The water will be filtered in
the first bucket and will travel to the second bucket. In the second bucket, the first medium on
the bottom of the bucket is small gravel, then smaller gravels and then sand. From there, the
water is filtered and travels to the third bucket. The first medium in the third bucket is small
gravel, then smaller gravels, followed by charcoal.
This method is like a prototype for a larger design which can be used to supply a community. It
was first tested by the Pun Pun University in Thailand.
A community in Thailand has been using this system but with larger tanks. They get they’re
water source from a catchment area nearby. The community is situated near hills. Above the hill
lies a reservoir that is 2km away from the community. So a canal runs from there to the village.
The water traveling through the canal from the reservoir and then to the community will pass
more than 50 field farms and all the farmers use chemicals every month because they have
irrigation systems. The water then settles in a pond located within the community and they purify
the water with the catchment system.
Turbid water from the pond is pumped into a 4 concrete tank system similar to the third possible
solution this project team came up with. The materials used are exactly the same as the materials
stated for the third possible solution but in larger amounts. This system filters 1000 Litres per
day and it is enough to provide for the community around 50 people per day minimum. This
system is used in that community for 16 years now. This benefited them a lot because it
decreases the expense for water and decrease buying plastic bottle water. Also no one has
experienced contamination from the water.
The diagram of this design plan will be explained in detail in the Methodology section.
People might ask if it is best to boil the purified water before drinking. Logically, it is good to
boil the water before drinking it. But from the community’ experience, they always send samples
twice a month for three years to check if the water is contaminated. They found out that, the raw
water is not clean, it contains very high ebusite, pesticide, fungicide and chemical fertilizer in the
water. E-coli, sand monuli and germs in the water. However, when the water comes out of the
system, it is clean, there is no sand monili, e-coli.
Due to all the tests, the community confirms that the water is safe because they have been
drinking it for 16 years so far.
Therefore, this project team concluded that the best possible solution is possible solution 3. This
is because it is a prototype of a larger design that can cater for 50 people. The rural communities
in the Solomon Islands and in Vanuatu will benefit a lot from this kind of design.
Overall, the purifying system can purify water that can be used for cooking, hygiene and
sanitation as well as for drinking. This is good for promoting public health in the Solomon
Islands and in Vanuatu.

https://www.preventionweb.net/news/water-getting-scarce-heres-how-three-pacific-island-states-are-
securing-their-access
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2018/03/22/solomon-islands-rural-communities-end-the-
water-walk

https://www.beltecno-global.com/blog/10-reasons-why-purification-of-water-is-important-for-human-
health

https://borgenproject.org/water-quality-in-vanuatu/