A Survey of Water Losses – The Case of The Ramotswa Village in Botswana.

Sammanfattning: Water-related problems in major populated areas of Botswana continue to grow unabated. At the heart of these problems are escalating demands, dwindling water supplies, deteriorating infrastructures and water losses. Several reports indicate that water managers in this area have been engrossed more on increasing supplies and less on demand management and conservation. The latest construction of the Dikgatlhong Dam is an example of the measures taken to supplement the existing water sources. However, much of the supplied water continues to be lost from the distribution systems of some of the villages. The highest losses have been reported in the Ramotswa village. This study surveyed the causes of the water losses and factors affecting their developments and frequencies. The study’s view was that reducing those losses would improve the system efficiency and save more water for supplies. The data for the study was acquired from reports of earlier studies, field visits and oral interviews administered on the water managers and consumers. Leakages from the Boatle-Ramotswa supply pipeline, service pipes, reservoirs and valves, unmetered fire-fighting consumptions and water theft were identified to be the main sources of the losses. The utility’s loss control activities were inefficient due to the lack of measures for identifying and reducing each individual loss. The study proposed that all the different uses and losses into which the system input volume goes should be identified and measured and measures for controlling each of them be designed and instituted.