Innovative Solution

Water, drinking water, capacity building, climate change, water treatment unit, immediate response team

technical

In case of emergency situations (floods, tsunami, earthquake…), safe drinking water is one of the first thing missing. To provide safe drinking water in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, technology alone is not the solution. Aquasure has developed a standardized package of trained person and module of equipment to be ready for deployment in the most extreme situation on short notice.

Technology has to be simple, efficient and easy to operate at community based level. Aquasure water treatment tablet and Aquasure mobile water treatment unit have been developed to fit these objectives.

Aquasure water treatment tablet is an innovative double-layered tablet allowing the treatment of clear and dirty contaminated water through a sequenced double action. First by coagulation-flocculation and second by chlorination (patented sequenced effect). 

Developed by emergency specialists, Aquasure  mobile water treatment unit is a trunk containing a full set of equipment’s to store, to treat and to distribute treated water. Designed like a “small scale factory packed into a suitcase”, it provides to the operator a complete and efficient “all in one stand alone ” solution, fully self-sufficient, to operate rapidly in the most remote places in full autonomy.

The beneficiaries have to be the first actors, pre-trained volunteer operators, community based and putted in network with specialists, constitute an Immediate Response Team, decentralised and community based force. 

In the immediate aftermath of floods or other emergency situations, they provide essential services and are flexible enough to adjust quickly to the specificities and practices of the affected region or of the crisis type. It will allow a rapid, easy and efficient high quality and standardized response.

It must be noted that :

• One bucket of 6,7 kg of Aquasure tablet is the equivalent of 5 trucks of  6 tons of drinking water. These trucks would have much difficulties to reach the isolated populations in extreme situation.
• One Aquasure Kit (mobile water treatment unit) and one bucket of Aquasure tablet (150 tablets/6,7 kg) can provide safe drinking water to 1000 people for 1 week (5 liters per person per day) 

Operational in the field within a day, Immediate Response Team speed up disaster response at local level and enabled National Response to be implemented. 

The Immediate Response Team – IRT are a disaster response tool. 

The project focusses on 5 rural regions of Bangladesh, regions which are annually affected by permanent and/or flash floods. The proposed locations, subject to validation, are: Rajshahi; Dhaka; Syleth; Khulna; Chittagong.

In each region, 40 villages will be selected regarding following criteria during flood times: severity of permanent or flash flood ; lack of drinkable water ; lack of other facility ; low income population.

Aquasure S.A.S. is a start up, french social enterprise, that developed a unique water treatment tablet, efficient on both clear and turbid water, and a mobile water treatment unit to implement it on the field of emergency situation. The objective is to be efficient in the first hours for an immediate response. 

As a partner of the Crisis Center of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Aquasure had the opportunity to improve its immediate response technology. Over the past five years, Aquasure water treatment tablet and Aquasure mobile water treatment unit have been tested and approved on the field of emergency response around the world (floods, earthquake, tsunami), in collaboration with Governments, NGOs and Civil Security actors. 

In the same time, work in progress with NGOs and United Nations Agencies reveal the necessity of a decentralised and community based response team. 

Aquasure Immediate Response Team project is actually under construction in Bangladesh in order to be tested before scaling it up at a country level.

Over the past five years, Aquasure water treatment tablet and Aquasure mobile water treatment unit have been tested and approved on the field of emergency response around the world (floods, earthquake, tsunami), in collaboration with Governments, NGOs and Civil Security actors. Aquasure water treatment tablets have been tested in laboratories with successful results, among them Pasteur Institue (Lille – France), DPHE laboratory and BSCIR laboratory( Dhaka – Bangladesh).

- Adaptation to climate change, capacity building, Adaptation to new type of crisis with scattered pockets of population to assist : 

• To support communities and people in rural areas  to strengthen their resilience and adapt to climate change  specifically in time of floods, inundations and other natural catastrophe.
•  To continue to learn with and from local communities thru a grass root program building up on their knowledge of their local environments.
• To further research the linkage between climate change, poverty and health (waterborne diseases impacts ) in order to identify possible messages, education campaigns to increase resilience of poor and vulnerable households to climate change  (research and knowledge managment). 

- Impact of floods and natural catastrophe on health: To provide local access to potable water during floods and emergency situation to local communities in order to  reduce the spread of waterborne diseases among the most vulnerable populations.

- Improve emergency response, in terms of rapidity and efficiency on scattered populations : To pilot test a network of Immediate Response Teams. These teams will be trained to treat surface water locally and to distribute safe drinking water to local communities during floods and / or emergency situations. They will integrated local operators, selected and trained to operate  Aquasure mobile treatment units (Kits ) and technology (Aquasure tablets). Disaster preparedness plan at all level

- Improve capacity building, sharing of experience: To build up a successful  community based program to strengthen population resilience and adapt to climate change and to lead the way to promote best practices in this field, ensuring the creation of an enabling environment to promote climate resilient investment, and on ensuring that knowledge, data and experience is shared with other countries in the region. 

Aquasure Immediate Response Team -IRT presents the advantage to:

- respond quickly to suddenness floods and other disasters

- provide fast and efficient disaster response at community base level (community level program)

- ensure that emergency relief is timely and standardized (the right time at the right place)   

- assist in the diverse and long-term needs of affected people

- allow to treat the problem of access to drinking water on the spot, reducing population migrations

- help to reduce waterborne disease propagation

- reinforce mitigation thru local capacity and local autonomy 

On the long term, Aquasure Immediate Response Team – IRT is a strategic opportunity to reduce burden at National Level and allow ownership of the response at local level. 

Another development in the long run will be  the successful adaptation of Aquasure Immediate Response Team - IRT to link up with various regional disaster response initiatives. This will give Aquasure Immediate Response Team - IRT  greater flexibility to respond to specific needs, improve awareness and improve cooperation with existing community level programs. 

The present pilot project of Aquasure Immediate Response Team in Bangladesh could become a way to promote best practices in this field Ensuring  the creation of an enabling environment to promote climate resilient investment, and on ensuring that knowledge, data and experience is shared with other countries in the region.  

Access to potable water rapidly after flooding thru community level solutions will have an environmental and social impact, an also contribute:

- to reduce waterborne diseases and to faster recovery

- to tighten relationship with local authorities, boost morale and self esteem among the most vulnerable populations

- to reduce vulnerability and increase capacity building

- to reduce school absenteeism (faster recovery, less diseases, lower needs for  wood for boiling water….) 

- to reduce water scarcity with an immediate response when no safe water available

- to reduce population migration towards city when their regions are flooded

- to foster quicker recovery and  return to economic development 

In Senegal, Aquasure technology is being used for more the four years on another application in several villages. A recent audit of the project revealed following impacts:  Reduction of  diarrheas: 50% ;  Reduction of abdominal pains: 60% ; Reduction of dysenteries: 70% ; Reduction of family health cost from 15.000  CFA /month before the project to hundred  CFA /month after the project ; Reduction of children absenteeism (water borne disease) from  7% to 1% ; Better understanding of relationship between water quality and behavior changes and health impacts.   

Aquasure Immediate Response Team – IRT could become a crucial part of national disaster response capacities. They will provide an  independent operational platform, self-contained and flexible enough to meet basic needs of people in crisis anywhere in the  country. It is a system that produces both flexibility and coherence to meet the specific challenge of each crisis.

This solution could become part of the integrated disaster management programing, which deals with emergency response, preparedness and rehabilitation. Such programs are adapted to local needs, and vary from environmental preservation through to developing social safety nets for victims of floods and resulting socioeconomic impacts. 

As for Bangladesh, disaster prone countries, and/or countries affected by climate change could be interested in this solution.

Thanks to the simplicity of Aquasure technology, the solution could be easily adapted to specific needs or resources. Implementors could be teachers and young adults in case of the equipment of schools; nurses and doctors in case of the equipment of isolated health centers, etc.

Safe drinking water is one of the first thing missing in case of emergency situations (floods, tsunami, earthquake…).

Immediate response to a crisis is a strategic key to minimize its impact on the affected population.

Technology alone is not the solution.

Technology has to be simple, easy to store, easy to transport, easy to operate at community based level to be efficient in emergency situations.

Using the train the trainer concept, the first beneficiaries become the actors and guarantee the sustainability of the action. 

Aquasure technology is unique to provide safe drinking water in the first hour after a crisis, even in most isolated area. Big water treatment unit are very efficient in terms of volume of water treated per hour, but they need some days to be operational on the field. Aquasure technology allows to cover the gap of the very first hours and days. 

The solution as it is presented, at the scale of a country, has not been implemented yet.

Today, Aquasure technology is already used as an immediate response tool by emergency actors. It is appreciated for its simplicity and for its mobility which allows :

• to provide isolated or remote areas with safe drinking water and so not to limit the immediate response to big urban regions
• to answer a need as soon as it has been identified: during evaluation missions, at least two Aquasure mobile water treatment unit can be transported in the trunk of the car and deployed in the field in order to start providing safe water before the installation of a bigger treatment unit in the following days.  

Edouard Rooses

edouard.rooses@aquasure.fr / contact@aquasure.fr

+33 (0) 6 08 46 46 52

www.aquasure.fr

Each Aquasure mobile water treatment unit is equipped with a complete set of documentation:

- the operator manual: detailles the complete procedure, written in english, with precise illustrations. 

- the user manual summary: one single page presenting the five steps of the water treatment process – pictures only, titles in four languages with the possibility to adapt it to local language.

- the storage manual: one single page to help the operator store the elements in the trunk – pictures only.