Capacity Development and Water Security for Kiribati

Kiribati’s is a sovereign state in Micronesia whose ocean territory spans 3.5 million km2 but the 33 coral atolls and isles that make up the total land area covers just 0.2% of this. As most of these atolls lie only a few meters above sea level, Kiribati is being drastically affected by climate change and the resultant water security issues.

Over half of Kiribati’s 110,000 population is located in the city of South Tarawa, making it an area with one of the densest land uses in the world. This puts a great toll on the limited remaining land and resources. The recharge zones of the delicate freshwater lens are under pressure from the presence of squatting communities, and the difficulties in managing human waste on the small atoll pose a challenge for its ongoing environmental management. This paper outlines the scoping component of the Tarawa Solar Distillation Water Supply Project, a two-year project to deploy solar distillation technology in Kiribati to demonstrate the suitability of this technology as a sustainable alternative potable supply for households and remote communities in the Pacific. Solar distillation cells use solar energy (of which there is plenty in the Pacific) to evaporate water, which is then collected on a hydrophilic plastic sheet as condensate. The benefit of this technology over many others currently in use is its ability to treat brackish groundwater and sea water with low to no energy demand. This project seeks to examine not only the technological viability of these cells, but also how they will be accepted and used within the local cultural context.

This project is being undertaken by the Kiribati Ministry of Infrastructure and Sustainable Energy (MISE) with Engineers Without Borders NZ (EWBNZ) providing technical and project support. The objective is that MISE implement the activity from concept to completion and in so doing build their project management capacity. EWBNZ’s technical involvement in the project also aims to assist MISE in developing their capacity to later deploy this technology themselves, with the wider engineering sector in Tarawa. In addition, the use of local engineers who understand the cultural and social context in which the technology is being applied will ensure that the technology is appropriate and valued by the community, and by extension will continue to be maintained over its entire design life.

Major partners of this project include MISE, The Pacific Community (SPC) and Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA). It is funded through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) New Zealand Aid Programme, which delivers NZ’s official support for developing countries.