Design of a Sustainable Water Supply Network for Goma Township in Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

Water constitutes a basic and a daily need for human beings and hence should be provided in sufficient quantity and quality to the communities through adequate and sustainable infrastructures. However, a study carried out in 2019 showed that only 56% of citydwellers in Sub-Saharan Africa had access to piped water. This statistic reflects the situation in many African cities where the population growths have outpaced the capacity of the water supply systems such as the Goma township, in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Indeed, only 57.6% of the Goma township is covered by a water supply network, which also has demonstrated a poor level of reliability, no resilience, and poor hydraulic performances. Therefore, this study provides a solution to the current challenge through the estimation of the water demand in the township at the horizon 2045, the assessment of the actual network, and the design of a sustainable alternative. The research utilized secondary data comprising reports from review of the literature, GIS data sets, and a database of the existing network converted into an EPANET model to assess the performances of the water supply system of Goma. Moreover, for the sustainable alternative, 2 approaches were modeled in EPANET to solve differently the issues of the existing facilities. The results have shown that both the pumping and the gravity schemes are possible for the township, however, the pumping was the most economic. Finally, the findings constitute a master plan for water professionals and water companies, as well as a solid background for investors and decision makers to ensure the provision of clean and potable water to all the city-dwellers of the Goma township