Bamboo screens
Small-scale irrigation in India usually involves the use of diesel or electric-powered suction pumps, drawing water from water tables down to 7 m deep. The India-North Bengal Terai Development Project carried out pump energy analysis, which showed that tube well screens excessively restricted water flow, resulting in low overall pumping efficiency. Improving these screens resulted in a reduction of fuel consumption of over 40%. Since publication of this innovation, thousands of wells have been fitted with the new screens, with benefits for the profitability of farming and for reducing CO2 emissions.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Significantly cheaper than piston pumps. Easy to maintain. |
Not all introduction programs have been successful. |
Capacity
40 litres / min from 10 meters depth.
Costs
- US$ 20-120 depending on model.
Applying conditions
- Numbers: 50,000 in Nicaragua, 20,000 in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Tanaznia, Senegal.
- Range of depth: 1-35 meter (60 m with two cranks).
- Application Communal wells, houshold, irrigation.
- Cost of introduction: US$ 10,000-20,000 per project, including 20 pumps, engineering and hands-on training. US$ 60,000-100,000 per project, including 1,000 pumps, production workshop and hands-on training.
Rope pump building manual
PRACTICA foundation and the Technical Training Programme of the ETC Foundation (TTP/ETC) have put together a really excellent manual on how to build rope pumps (PDF, 2.5 Mbyte). It is an 86 page long document with detailed instructions.
External links
- Evaluations www.irc.nl
- Africa www.pumpaid.org
- General info www.ropepump.com
- How to build www.ropepumps.org
