UCTS research team engineers community water supply system for Kampung Abit in Sri Aman
Prashobh’s team is determined to help the villagers of Kampung Abit secure a more reliable and more efficient water supply system.
WALKING up to 1km to the river or harvesting rain is now a thing of the past for residents of Kampung Abit in Sri Aman – thanks to a team of researchers from the University College of Technology Sarawak (UCTS) who has implemented a community water supply system project.
The project, which reached completion end of May this year, involves enabling the water being directly pumped in from the river near the village and supplying it to the individual houses through a network of pipes.
The commissioning marks the operation of a proper water supply system in Kampung Abit – for the first time ever during a dry season, the villagers need not worry about not having collected any rainwater.
Led by Dr Prashobh Kumar Karunakaran, a lecturer from UCTS’ School of Engineering and Technology (SET), the project kicked off at the end of November 2018.
“Kampung Abit has 38 individual houses. The village, although located near to the main road, is not connected to any main piped water supply network.
“So at the end of November 2018, we initiated a community project to provide this village with water supply.
The arrow affixed on this image from Google Map indicates the river near Kampung Abit in Sri Aman. The symbol marked with the number ‘1’ shows a section of the Pan Borneo Highway.
“Prior to this project, the villagers would need to walk between 0.7km and 1km to reach the river (to obtain their water supply).
“According to the villagers, the river water is clean because the source is directly from the mountains and it flows down to the river in Balai Ringin,” Prashobh told thesundaypost.
On harvesting rainwater, he said the villagers would collect it using high-density polyethylene (HDPE) tanks.
During droughts, however, these tanks would be empty, he said.
Making it happen
Combo-photo shows shots around Kampung Abit in Sri Aman.
Utilising the UCTS grant provided to them, Prashobh’s team was determined to help the villagers secure a more reliable and more efficient water supply system.
The main aides in the project were final-year project (FYP) students of UCTS – Dylan Greve, Timothy Jesse, and Abdul Hakim Bistar; while the lecturer’s own three children Prashanth, Shanthi and Arjun – all of whom are also engineering students – had been consistent helpers throughout the project.
It took them more than two years to set up a comprehensive water supply system at the village’s community hall, consisting of a house containing a 9,000-litre holding tank, a pump platform and a combustion engine.
Elaborating, Prashobh said the pipe fittings had undergone many trials and errors throughout the research period before they could get the installation right.
Such meticulousness, he said, was necessary to ensure there would be no pipe burst and for the water pressure to be at a maintainable level.
“There were a lot of ‘gotong-royong’ (work parties) too involving the villagers.
“They had came together to build a strong foundation (for the tank house), considering that a full tank of water would weigh around nine tonnes,” said Prashobh.
Photo shows the tank house.
In the first few weeks of installing the four-horsepower pump, the researchers had to gradually move the heavy machinery from the village to the riverbank.
A sturdy structure had been built using wood sourced from the village, for the pump to sit on.
The researchers then tied the wooden structure onto two floating recycled chemical drums.
The incoming point of the one-and-half-inch pipe is placed in the deepest point of the river.
“The high-pressure pump was finally energised, sucking in water from the river with such force and channel it to the tank house,” said Prashobh.
Not without any setback
Combo photo shows (from left) Timothy, Dylan, Prashanth and Arjun busy at work.
Nevertheless, it was not a walk in the park every day for the research team.
“Things did not work well all the time.
“We had to prime up the pumping again and again for hours.
“Finally, we figured out that the incoming point of the one-and-half-inch pipe was, at times, above the river water level.
Prashobh (left) and Dylan undertaking research and development works on the water supply system in Kuching before applying it to Kampung Abit. The images at right (from top) show a polypipe that has been cut using an electric grinder; and another polypipe that has been cleanly sliced off using a manual cutting tool (bottom).
“To address that, we cemented four red bricks together and after one week, we tied them to the incoming point of the one-and-half-inch pipe in the river; thereafter, the water supply had become very consistent,” the lecturer described the remedial process.
After the project reached completion at the end of May this year, the villagers expressed their gratitude to Prashobh and his UCTS team, as for the first dry season ever in their lifetime, they had water supply in their houses – and just before the Gawai Dayak celebration too.
The commissioning of the project marks the operation of a proper water supply system in Kampung Abit – for the first time ever during a dry season, the villagers need not worry about not having collected any rainwater.
Established on April 1, 2013, SET is one of the pioneer schools set up in conjunction with the establishment of the UCTS. Also the largest school within the university, SET currently provides both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
The undergraduate programmes offered are Bachelor of Civil Engineering (Hons), Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (Hons), Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Honours), and Bachelor of Food Technology (Hons); while the school’s four postgraduate programmes (by research) are Master of Engineering, Master of Science in Applied Science, Doctorate (PhD) in Engineering, and PhD in Applied Sciences.
Currently, the school has five buildings comprehensively equipped with modern teaching and learning facilities.
The school always welcomes linkage with communities and industries, including community-based activities, research collaborations and consultancy.
The water supply project in Kampung Abit was among the list of SET’s research works slated for commissioning for the 2020 cycle. The other projects were ‘Performance studies of polythylene terepthalate concrete brick for construction of building’ by Dr Dayang Siti Hazimmah Ali; ‘Treatment of palm oil mill effluent with natural coagulants for achieving environmental sustainability’ by Dr Lee Man Djun; ‘Production of hydrothermal biochar for environmental remediation’ by Ir Sie Teck Sung; ‘Integrated wireless electronic healthcare sensing and monitoring system’ by Tonny Ling Heng Yew; and ‘A study on reverse osmosis as a method to pre-concentrate Nipa fruticans sap’ by Mohammad Hafsanjani Salleh.
*Note: All photos for this article are supplied by the UCTS, taken before the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Hence, the individuals depicted in the shots are not wearing face masks.
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