Maji Walinzi Monitoring Project

Groundwater is affected by climate and global climate change is happening.  I am a professional hydrogeologist with over 30 years of experience in the consulting field in the US.  For the past 5 years I have been volunteering with Engineers Without Borders installing water supply wells in rural Kenya and providing clean sources of drinking water for rural villages.  However, climate change threatens these and other sources of water as dwindling rainfall impacts recharge to the aquifers.



I am proposing to develop a groundwater monitoring network throughout rural Kenya to monitor long-term changes in groundwater levels and rainfall recharge in order to answer the question "Is the groundwater supply sustainable?"  By installing self sufficient monitoring devices in wells within critical groundwater basins, accurate groundwater information can be obtained and shared with both government agencies and NGOs for trend analysis and decision making.  Data will be freely shared on a website for use by scientists, grad students or local agencies.

My companies,  Maji Walinzi and Insight Geologic, will donate the first 20 pressure transducers to begin the monitoring effort.  The transducers will be programmed to collect groundwater levels twice each day and will be installed in local water supply wells with the permission of the village.  Location data including lattitude, longitude and elevation will be logged with GPS for each monitoring location

I am humbly requesting funding for in-country expenses to develop the monitoring network.  In the future, I will be requesting donations from instrument providers such as In-Situ and Solinst for additional equipment to broaden the network.  Thank you in advance for your contribution to this cause.