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Sand Dam at Kpaloworgu in Ghana

Collaborative venture by the Kpaloworgu community, Coalition for Change, funded by the Rotary Clubs of Scarborough Cavaliers and Stainborough, with Ghana Outlook providing water for irrigation and for domestic use.


Subsurface Sand Dam at Kpaloworgu in Ghana

The Upper West region of Ghana is the country's poorest region. It has an eight month long dry season with a hostile dry and dusty Harmattan wind; the flat, semi-arid Savannah supports a sparsely distributed population which survives from subsistence farming, rearing animals and growing millet.  Supplies of water for irrigation and safe water for drinking are woefully inadequate. The Region has significant problems related to water borne disease resulting in mortality, malnutrition, absenteeism because of illness, low income, under achievement and outward migration of young adults. Ghana Outlook has been working since 2014 with Upper West partner charity Coalition for Change to give some relief to these severe water, sanitation and agricultural issues.
One significant intervention has been to construction of a sub-surface sand dam in 2015 on a sandy, ephemeral tributary of the Black Volta near to the Kpaloworgu community. The sand dam makes available a reservoir of retained water, in the deep riverbed sand, for irrigation and for domestic use throughout the long dry season.  The subsurface reservoir, so created, is 3.0m deep at the dam, 350m long, at least 8.0m wide and stores over 3 million litres of water which is recharged from the upstream catchment.  Construction was carried out entirely by the Kpaloworgu community, managed by Coalition for Change and funded by the Rotary Club of Scarborough Cavaliers in partnership with UK charity Ghana Outlook and the Rotary Club of Stainborough.
To assist in accessing the stored water during dry and wet seasons, it is planned to sink a shallow well just upstream of the dam. 

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