CESA AWARDS
WINNER
Best International Project
The UN Millennium Development Goals include to ‘Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation’ (GoaI 7.C).
T
HE OMDURMAN Water Supply and Optimisation Scheme in Sudan has recently been completed. This project, which has provided safe, clean and potable drinking water for about 1.5 million people in Omdurman, a suburb of Khartoum, goes a long way towards improving the poverty-stricken population’s access to basic services. The project comprised the development of a 240 Mℓ/d intake works in the Nile River, a 200 Mℓ/d water treatment works, pump station, reservoir and related pipelines outside Omdurman, all of which illustrated how the project team successfully addressed the following challenges in taking on this project: • Design and construction in dry, desert-like conditions. • Extreme variations in turbidity in the Nile River. • Extreme variations in water quality in the Nile River. • Pipeline construction in extremely limited spaces. Sudan, the 10th largest country in Africa, has been working to implement macroeconomic reforms since 1997 and began an economic boom in 1999 with the initiation of crude oil exports. However, several factors, such as the Darfur conflict, the aftermath of 20 years of civil war in its southern regions, its general lack of basic infrastructure and the reliance of most of its population on subsistence agriculture have prevented Sudan from
Omdurman Water Supply and Optimisation Scheme achieving economic freedom and prosperity, and have kept the majority of the population at or below the poverty line. The scheme was initiated in 2005 to develop the infrastructure required to improve access to clean, safe drinking water in Omdurman, where the majority of the population comprises low-income households that rely on water vendors selling untreated water drawn from boreholes for their regular supply of domestic water. The state-owned Khartoum State Water Corporation (KSWC), responsible for providing potable water in the capital city and Khartoum State, identified the need for additional potable water supplies and
distribution systems. Biwater was appointed to undertake this huge project on a turnkey basis and appointed BKS for the conceptual and detail design and construction supervision of a 200 Mℓ/d water treatment plant and distribution systems to supply water to parts of Omdurman. The aim of this project was therefore to provide a sustainable and economical water treatment and distribution network that would maximise the social and health benefits of an accessible and affordable supply of clean, safe drinking water for the medium to long term in Omdurman. The project increased the production of treated, safe water and extended the service coverage through an optimised distribution
Representatives of BKS receive their award from CESA president, Zulch Lötter
IMIESA OCTOBER 2011 - 81