Reducing water leakages in the Province of Banten, Indonesia

As usual, we were warmly welcomed at the Water supply company of Kabupaten Tangerang. It feels very familiar to be back again.

 

During this mission Rene and Ron will keep themselves occupied with the Geographic Information System, whilst Teun is teaming up with the Unaccounted for Water (UFW) team in the district of Banten.

The PDAM’s (Water supply companies) are all aware of the fact that the UFW has to be decreased to acceptable standards. In some areas, companies deal with UFW of more than 50%: over 50% of the produced water, is not being charged. Setting up and execute UFW projects have already resulted in positive outcomes; in some areas it has been reduced to nearly 0 %.

 

The need of equipment such as distribution- water meters, dataloggers and valves are an obstacle for the execution of UFW-projects. On the other hand all information about the use of water in several households has been screened and are a good source for research on abnormalities.

According to these abnormalities, there is a possibility to search for illegal connections or damaged household watermeters. Altogether this leads into the right direction, and most likely the activities will be continued.  

 

These days we concentrate on the GIS. An update will be executed in a few months time, and in preparation we are controlling the existing files. We will also organise a training for application management of Aquarta. Aquarta is an application that has been built by “Waternet” in 2006, which registers, manages and devises water control networks. The update implies that now other underground cables and controls can be incorporated in the program, which can be profiled from English into the Dutch language. This time, as often occurs unexpectedly in missions, more Water supply companies in the district of Banten gladly want a presentation concerning the use of Aquarta. We are very much in favour of a central GIS in the district, or in any case cooperation between the companies in the field of GIS. So between the activities we have a presentation to make for approximately twenty Water supply companies, which will be given here in Tangerang next week. So there is no time for sitting back and relaxation, but we came here to work, didn’t we? We are very pleased with the success of Aquarta, and the interest that is now shown by other companies.

 

Rene Burgers, Ron Stend, Teun Verkaik