Tatirano Social Enterprise

How does this work?

This statistics dashboard amalgamates data from various sources to show information on all systems installed by Tatirano Social Enterprise. You can see where our systems are, their capacity, rainwater harvesting potential, maintenance history, photos, and other information about the system. For most systems, you can see the amount of water dispensed, and estimated current volumes where the data is available. We also provide accurate beneficiary estimates, and water quality test results.

Weather forecasting data provided by AccuWeather.

Types of system

School

Provides water to a school or educational institution.

Community kiosk

Provides water for public consumption for a small fee.

School/Community kiosk

Provides water to a school as well as a public kiosk.

CSB

Provides water for a public health clinic or hospital.

Household

Provides water for a private individual or organisation.

Tank types

Concrete

Reinforced concrete "Calabash" tank.

Labasy

Welded tarpaulin bladder tank.

Technical terms

Total collection area

The area (typically of a roof) in metres squared collecting rainfall which is fed into the system.

Collection potential

The total amount of water a system could be expected to harvest in a period, given average rainfall in the location and collection area.

Beneficiaries

People using a Tatirano system. Further information on how we calculate these figures is available in-context.

Water quality testing

We regularly monitor the quality of water provided by our systems to check it is clean and safe, and carry out maintenance work if there are any issues. The parameters tested are:

Conductivity

Measures the salinity of a water source. The sea, for example, has a conductivity of between 40-50,000 micro siemens per cm, whilst the WHO recommends drinking water to be <2000 micro siemens per cm.

Temperature

Measured to ensure that no extremes are experienced since extremely high or low temperatures can vary other parameters, such as conductivity and CFU.

pH

Taken to ensure that there are no spikes in acidity which can be detrimental to health upon consumption, with a target pH of 7. Acidity can be an indication of external pollution (man-made or natural) in the surrounding environment. In fact, Tatirano's ferrocement calabash tanks usually measure more alkaline (between 8-10 pH) because of the infiltration of cement into the water. High alkaline water is sometimes sought after for its health benefits.

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)

In layman's terms, this is the amount of combined organic and inorganic solids in a water sample and can be an indicator of general water quality. The WHO states that a TDS of greater than 600g/l usually begins to become unpalatable.

Colony Forming Units (CFU)

CFU (colony forming units) or TTC (thermotolerant coliforms) per 100 ml are measured to give the microbial quality of the water. Put literally, TTCs are the number of microbes that can withstand 44°C, and thus originate from the gut of a mammal. These are the harmful bacteria that make people sick and the WHO targets 0/100 ml for drinking water, although <10/100 ml is usually considered low risk and acceptable for community water sources.

Turbidity

Turbidity (measured in Nephelometric Turbidity Units or NTU) is the measure of how translucent a water source is i.e. how see-through or clear it is. We measure it using a turbidity column, which is essentially a long transparent plastic tube with a black circle at the bottom. If you have 40cm of water in the tube and can still see the circle perfectly, the water is very clear and thats the aim! However some water you can only see the circle through 10cm, for example because of the brown colour of the water.

Free Chlorine

When chlorine is added to water, it will attack organic matter and attempt to destroy it. If enough chlorine is added, some will remain in the water after all possible organisms have been destroyed. What is left is called free chlorine. Free chlorine will remain in the water until it too dissipates or is used to destroy new contamination. So, if water is tested and found to contain some free chlorine, it proves that the most dangerous organisms in the water have been removed and it is likely to be safe to drink. However, levels of chlorine higher than 5ppm can start to have serious health consequences. The method we use for chlorine testing is the dpd (diethyl paraphenylene diamine) indicator test, using a comparator.