In the summer of 2007, Christina Tang '09 traveled to Kuttanad, Kerala in southwest India with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation to help conduct a water quality and management study.
The environmental studies concentrator found the water system there in desperate need of repair. The canals where most people in Kuttanad gathered their water were contaminated, tap water flowed only sporadically and the well water was too acidic. Of all the sources analyzed, rainwater had the lowest E. coli counts.
Now, two years later, Tang is the initiator of Rainwater for Humanity, a project meant to provide sustainable, clean drinking water by harvesting rainwater for over 700,000 people in Kerala. Peter Boyer '09, a civil engineering concentrator and international projects coordinator for Brown's chapter of Engineers Without Borders, is in charge of the technical aspects of the project, while Tang works directly with community groups both in the United States and India.
A diverse group in Providence, including industrial design and architecture students from the Rhode Island School of Design and civil engineering and biomedical engineering students from Brown, is also involved in the collaboration, Boyer said.
Improving the water supply is important to keep up with the growing population in Kerala and to ensure its continued development, Boyer said.
"The project is a combination of a design issue and a sustainable implementation problem," he said.
The project is still in its early stages. Tang has completed surveys of the local community to ensure that there is interest in rainwater harvesting systems and has developed partnerships with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Mahatma Gandhi University, the local government and Better by Design, a Brown/RISD-based organization that promotes socially conscious, real-world applications of design.
Perhaps the group's most unusual collaboration is with the Asparawa Screwpine Society, an 8,000-strong women's self-help group in India. Rather than simply building the structures themselves, EWB wants to "develop a method by which the women's self-help group can market and manage the implementation of these systems," Boyer said.
Rainwater for Humanity is focusing on designing roof rainwater harvesting systems, that are a viable solution to Kerala's water supply problems because of the spread of impervious roofing materials in India and the development of cost-effective water storage methods.
In order to be effective in Kerala the systems will have to take into account local conditions, such as the region's annual monsoon season. The systems must also be affordable, Boyer said, and the structures must be straightforward enough to be constructed by local groups.
This semester, Rainwater for Humanity will be designing the rainwater harvesting systems and building prototypes in Providence. Boyer said he hopes to be able to send the designs to India, where they will be constructed remotely, by the end of the semester. The students working on the project are planning a trip to India over the summer.
Rainwater for Humanity still has challenges ahead. "At the current moment we are still looking for funding," Boyer said. The project received a grant from Better by Design, but Boyer said it is still seeking additional funding from Brown sources, such as the Office of the Dean of the College.
