A Pictoral History of Water Tanks in Africa and Asia

We

recently came across this part of a book by similar title on the internet. Unfortunately it pointed to Chapter 2 but the link was broken and so were other links to the author. It is a wonderful collection of pictures and interesting text tracing the different types of water tanks used in Africa and Asia over recent history.

One of the oldest known water tanks in Kenya was built by the railway at Makindu River in 1907. It appears the tank was connected to a hydram pump that used the power of the flowing water in the river to push water into the tank from where it was used by steam locomotives.

Large circular tanks were built at Simba near Makindu. Water was gravitated from Mount Kilimanjaro to the tanks for watering livestock in the ranching schemes of ALDEV in the 1950s.

The author built his first water tank of concrete blocks at his house at Kibwezi in 1976. Rainwater from the roof flows directly into the tank without gutters.

Another water tank was built of concrete blocks at a cattle dip in Kajiado in 1977

The first tank built of ferro-cement in Eastern Africa was constructed at Kibwezi in 1978.

Although the early white settlers had built water tanks to harvest rainwater from their roofs, the technique was only replicated by installing corrugated galvanized iron sheet water tanks at a few schools in the 1970s.

The lack of interest might have been due to corrosion and improperly installed gutters.

13 large water tanks were constructed of concrete blocks for roof catchments as the only, and fully sufficient water source for 10 houses, 6 offices and a store at the Danida/MoA compound in Mutomo, Kitui, in 1982.

Several NGOs promoted water jars for roof catchment at schools in the 1980s. To reduce costs, the jars were built over a formwork made of sticks that also served as reinforcement.

After a few years, termites had eaten the sticks and parts of the walls fell off thereby leaving the jars in ruins.

The Diocese of Kitui made a cost-saving experiment using sisal fibres as reinforcement instead of chicken mesh and galvanized wire.
The fibres in the pilot tank, seen in the photo to the right rotten away in a couple of years and the tank was abandoned.

In Ovamboland in Northern Namibia, many water jars made of asbestos were installed at schools for harvesting rainwater from asbestos roofs in the 1980s. Local health authorities claimed that there was no risk in drinking water collected and stored in asbestos.

Students of the University of Gaborone in Botswana are studying rainwater harvesting from roofs using this testing unit.

In Thailand, the International Ferro-cement Information Centre has an impressive library and exhibition dealing especially with water storage in containers made of ferro-cement.

In the Delta Zone of Myanmar (Burma), every house has several ceramic jars for harvesting rainwater from roofs.

Water is channeled from the gutters to the jars by funnels attached to hosepipes that can be easily moved from a full jar to the next jar.

The simplest means of storing rainwater is to place a jerrycan under a short length of gutter onto which a rope is tied. The rope guides rainwater into the jerrycan without wastage.

The green spots on top of the jerrycan are melted plastic that was used to seal holes in the jerrycan.

At a neighbouring house, the owner has enlarged his rainwater harvesting system by installing gutters along the whole side of the house and placing an oil drum underneath the lowest part of the gutter.

This farmer, who lives at Simba next to the Nairobi-Mombasa highway, has made good use of an abandoned petrol tanker that had an accident nearby.He simply hired a tractor to pull the tank to his house and repaired a few leakages in the tank with bitumen paste.

All the water tanks made of corrugated galvanized iron sheets, which were installed at private houses and schools for roof catchment, have been abandoned due to leakages caused by corrosion.

From the late 1970s to the mid 1980s, the Diocese of Machakos in Kenya, trained farmers to build their own water tank of concrete poured in a mould, while being reinforced with barbed wire.

The technique was so popular that about 7,000 tanks were constructed and financed by the farmers themselves.

Several millions of this type of jar have been built of ferrocement by communities and individuals in Thailand.

The photo is from a training course on roof catchments for UNDP/ Habitat in Myanmar (Burma).

A larger version of a water jar with a storage volume of 2,500 litres of water has been introduced during training courses in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Water Tanks can be built fairly easy of burnt bricks that are reinforced with barbed wire wrapped tightly around the tank before plastering.

A cheaper type of tank can be built of soil-compressed blocks having a content of 1 part of cement to about 20 parts of soil.

Water tanks can also be constructed of blocks cut out of coral or lava formations.

The photo shows a tank being built of concrete blocks during a training course at Arusha in Tanzania.

The cost of the concrete blocks can be reduced by half by inserting 50% rubble stones in the concrete when making the concrete blocks.

An experimental tank was built of rubble stones but it turned out to be too expensive in terms of skilled labour and high usage of cement.

Ferro-cement tanks, such as this 11,000 litres tank, were popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

Unfortunately, many tanks were constructed by careless builders using poor sand and inadequate curing, which resulted in porous walls that gave way to seepage.

Another popular ferro-cement tank has 23,000 litre storage capacity as this one under construction in Myanmar.

A total of several thousands of these ferro-cement tanks having a storage capacity of 48,000 litres were built in half a dozen countries.

This tank is being properly cured under polythene sheeting for 3 weeks in Trans-Mara, Kenya.

This 90,000 litres hemispherical ground tank was built of ferro-cement. A considerable number of similar tanks were constructed in Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Rwanda and Mozambique.

The photo shows the formwork being made ready for concreting of the dome. The staircase leads down to the water tap.

Hemispherical ground tanks can also be constructed of burnt bricks
that are reinforced with chicken mesh nailed onto the interior of the tank.

Alternatively and at lower cost, hemispherical tanks can be built of a mixture of 1 part cement, 2 parts lime, 4 parts anthill soil and 6 parts river sand.

Spherical ground tanks are manufactured of seamless polyethylene by several firms in Nairobi.
Spherical tanks are placed on a 2000 mm concrete slab in the bottom of a cylindrical excavation.

The space around the tank is back-filled with pea gravel or sand, while the tank is filled with water to the same level to avoid localized stress concentrations

Cylindrical tanks are also made of two seamless layers of polyethene; the inner layer being white and the outer being black.

The tanks are UV stabilized and will not break down under harsh outdoor weather conditions.