Traditional hand-dug wells

These are shallow wells which draw water from a natural aquifer or man-made aquifer, e.g. near sand dam or around ponds, but which are not located inside a riverbed. It can include wells that are far from a river, or wells that receive water from shallow aquifers hydraulically connected to the river. Sometimes the holes dug are very large, allowing people and sometimes animals who are able to walk into the well to where the water is located.

Suitable conditions

• Care should be taken to avoid siting wells in perched aquifers (shallow aquifers with limited recharge capacity and water storage).

Avoid contamination

Site wells at a sufficient distance away from sources of contamination. For microbiological contamination, the distance from the source of contamination (e.g. latrine) to the water intake (screen) needs to be sufficient so as to pose a “low” to “very low” risk – this translates into a minimum of 25 days of potential travel of pathogens in the ground. Travel time is influenced by porosity, hydraulic conductivity (permeability) and hydraulic gradient. For medium size sand with an average porosity, the distance equivalent to 25 days is around 30 metres, but this can increase to over 100 metres for coarser sediments. However, the distance from contamination to water intake can reduce significantly where the screen intake is at a sufficient depth – this is due to greater variation of aquifer properties in vertical directions than lateral, meaning that a borehole with handpump could be placed very close to a latrine with low risk. However, screen depth must increase with increased extraction rate.

Advantages

Disadvantages/limitations

- Manual access, that can be deepened or maintained easily at a later date - Can be privately owned/operated - Circumstances which make the construction of large diameter wells necessary: Inability to obtain or maintain pumps or special buckets necessary for small diameter wells Water lifting device requires more space (than is available in a small diameter well), e.g. continuous chain and buckets Desire to improve or repair existing large diameter wells Where the aquifer (water storage) is of extremely low permeability Low cost labour and skills are available

- Greater effort and longer construction time - Greater safety hazards during and after construction - Difficulty in preventing contamination - Generally lower rate of inflow for the effort involved - Smaller wells can dwindle in supply during long dry periods and heavy use, especially in perched aquifer areas - All disadvantages related to handpumps also relate to boreholes, including operation and maintenance issues, lack of ownership, and spare parts availability - Hand-dug wells near a river can be contaminated by pollution from agricultural runoff in river water - High cost of construction ($1,000 USD or more) – due to construction materials and labour to make a well (about 1 month depending on depth and ease of digging) - Can be difficult to sink to required depth especially in areas of flowing sand - Water levels in the aquifer can drop over time, resulting in possible mining (where aquifer is compressed and cannot hold water any longer afterwards)

Manuals

An excellent guide to a relatively safe method of digging hand dug wells can be found at: Consallen

External links

An excellent but slightly outdated summary of hund dug wells by Koegel is made available by the UN FAO at Large Diameter Wells
An excellent guide by the highly experienced British Drilling Company can be found at Consallen