In 2012 the Oxford research team started a trial in Kenya where hand pumps in 60 villages were fitted with data transmitters. The idea was they would monitor the motion of the pump and the amount of water extracted on an hourly basis - if the pump wasn't working, a message was sent to a repair company and workers were dispatched to fix the problem.
Now the scientists have found another way to interpret the data from the accelerometers fitted to the pump handles. They discovered that when the water is being drawn from a deep aquifer, it produces different vibrations than when the liquid comes from a shallow one.
"It's quite a simple and elegant solution to estimating groundwater and how it varies over time," co-author Dr Rob Hope from Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment told BBC News.
Farah E. Colchester et al, Accidental infrastructure for groundwater monitoring in Africa. Environmental Modelling & Software. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364815216308325
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Tuesday February 28 2017, @01:39AM (1 child)
It'd be interesting to know why they can't count on the people using the pumps to report when they are broken. No tools to communicate with the authorities that repair them, perhaps?
Likely a good guess--or maybe that their pay is so low that they buy cell time in seconds, or can't afford to pay someone to charge their phones with a bicycle and a car battery?
or, as someone said upthread, maybe they live so close to the edge that if the pump is out, they immediately have to start off for the next village in the hopes of finding a working pump--and maybe they don't carry their phones around with them--if you only can afford seconds of time, you don't want to waste them inadvertently butt-dialing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 28 2017, @07:56AM
Is this a variant of the problem we have here in California trying to maintain public toilets?
Seems like every time a toilet is provided in some "bad areas", it is quickly destroyed.