A comparative study of manually and remote-controlled valves in Dar es Salaam : Efficiency of remote-controlled water valves in water supply systems

Sammanfattning: Water is an essential resource for basic human survival, but today several cities and people lack access to both reliable and clean water. Dar es Salaam in Tanzania is undergoing a rapid population growth and need to improve their current water delivery system in order to provide water to the city’s inhabitants. This report’s objective is to examine if Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA) manual water valve operation is improved with the usage of remote-controlled valves instead. The remote-controlled system will consequently be evaluated and compared against the manually controlled valves. In order to obtain necessary data for this study interviews and field trips were conducted at DAWASA as well as at the local market at Kariakoo. Additionally, information has also been gathered from the collaboration partners at College of Information and Communication Technologies (CoICT). The results provided information that a remote-controlled system could, in the measured reference area of 52 km of water pipes, save up to 900 U.S dollar monthly and 46 m3 of water daily for DAWASA. These savings would consequently contribute to an increase in resources which leads to further improvements to the current water distribution system. Because, today’s system is in need of a development in order to sufficiently provide potable water to the city. The remote-controlled system could also help to reduce the spread of waterborne diseases, destruction of roads and create a more reliable source of water since the water valves would be regulated more efficiently. A remote-controlled system would however need a sufficient amount of funding in order to be installed, but is both simpler to install and a more feasible solution compared to other alternatives. For these reasons, the designed system is concluded to be a more effective, sustainable and economical feasible solution for handling and managing the outdated valves.