Compact water purification for small-scale use
The Dutch company Bluecon has designed a very compact water purification unit that will be installed in four locations in Chile as a demonstration project. This is not part of the GIRAgua project, though one of the locations is in the region where GIRAgua works. Paul van de Grift of Bluecon says that “Worldwide, outside the large cities, little is done about water purification. This is unfortunate because you want to use all the water that is available, and certainly so in dry areas. Why would you not reuse purified wastewater?” One obstacle to water purification is that the large traditional purification facilities are rarely suitable for small application in rural areas, small towns or villages, explains Van de Grift. “We have designed a unit that can convert domestic wastewater into reusable good quality water simply. It is extremely suitable for small-scale application. The purified water can be for irrigation and it can also be stored underground for later use. It fits seamlessly in a circular system and perfectly complements GIRAgua’s goal of making efficient use of water possible in a dry rural region.”
“We are looking at the options of filling up the emptied underground aquifers with water.”
Monitoring is crucial
“To really build on the availability of underground water stocks and to be able to rely on them requires a good monitoring system,” says Van Duijne. “That is also one of the aspects that we are targeting in this project. Monitoring shows the amount of water that is available. And we can use monitoring models to predict the effect of water abstraction by one farmer on the water abstraction of his neighbour. When you make this visible and prove that your model really shows what is happening, you will build trust that it really does work.”