preview

Implementing Sustainability And Adaptation For Sustainability

Better Essays

Incorporating sustainability and adaptation

Introduction:
Mayukwayukwa is a refugee settlement in Zambia that is home to over 11,000 refugees (Engineers Without Border, 2016). The town was established in 1966 and relies on diesel generators to power there boring devices (1). However, these generators only run for a few hours a day leaving the community to hand pump for the remainder of their water supply. The design that is proposed in the design section of the report will function all day and through the night to combat this issue. This report will also demonstrate how climate change is an issue related to sustainability. It will demonstrate how these issues are incorporated into the design of the project for the people of Mayukwayukwa. …show more content…

However, the generators only run for a few hours a day due to insufficient funds for diesel. During the time the generators are not running the staff have to walk to the closest borehole to collect the water for use (Engineers Without Border, 2016). This is where the design could be integrated into the community. Implementing solar, and wind boring systems running simultaneously to bore the water in to tank storage facilities. This solution runs without labour and without the need for fossil fuels. This would mean, a constant supply of water for the health clinic. This allows the nurses to focus on the patients rather than retrieving water.

Possible sustainable measures to be incorporated into the design:

Table 1:

Environmental:
Social:
Economic:
1. Minimum environmental footprint (including embedded energy)
1. Efficient and effective
2. Discrete
1. Benefits to outweigh the cost
2. Low cost over time

The following paragraph explains how the design is influenced by the triple bottom line - shown in table 1 – to promote sustainability.
The design is environmentally sustainable as none of the material required to build these systems are wood, eliminating the factor of deforestation. Also, the design eliminates the need for fossil fuel generators, mitigating the ongoing cost to the community to supply diesel to the generators. This is one of the reasons why the design is economically sustainable. Alternate reasoning is the design cost nothing to maintain

Get Access