Our names are NSENGIYUMVA Placide and NDAYISABA Wilson; we are students of STES-Rwanda in Civil Engineering. We are working on the USE OF PERMEABLE PAVEMENTS FOR RAINWATER HARVESTING AND HAZARD CONTROL and we have described why and how we want to apply this project in Rwanda starting from our campus. It is our pleasure to have view points from the community of via water about our project.

In Rwanda precipitation is unevenly distributed in space and time though it is the main source of water for production. In Rwanda we receive average rainfall of 1400mm according www.minirena.gov.rw . Rwanda experiences the highest rainfall from March to May and driest period from June to August. Runoff was indicated to be 4.3km3. This runoff and dry period create a lot of hazards of flood, erosion and drought and these affect people’s lives and the production. With this amount of rainfall Rwanda remains among countries with lowest per capita water availability and storage in Africa and faces hazards related to rainwater.

Engineering students of STES-Rwanda came with a vibrant engineering solution that will efficiently wind up with the causes of water scarcity, erosion and other rain water related issues that Rwanda is facing. Under the influence of SINGHAD TECHNICAL EDUCATION SOCIETY-Rwanda students are working on the use of permeable pavements, which can be built in plots compounds. Permeable surfaces of these pavements exhibit aesthetic appearance. Besides the appearance, beneath these pavements we put three layers of sand for the purpose of filtration. The clear water out of sand filtration process enters the perforated pipes inserted below the filters on a polysynthetic material which is impermeable to water. These perforated pipes lead filtered water to the reservoir. In California they applied permeable pavements for storm runoff control and it was recognized as a Best Management Practice (BMP) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. However, we are doing the same but with the purpose of harvesting rain water to be re-used for different needs of people. 

Nearby our campus located in Kigali/Rwanda there is high scarcity of water and this makes water expensive. It is for this reason we want to apply the project in the compound of STES-Rwanda so that the water harvested will be accessed by the neighbors of our campus. We have attached an image showing layers of permeable pavement for the project.

       Layers of permeable pavement