The standards of ground water drilling technology

The search for more water here in Tanzania is more demanded and necessary than ever before. For a sustained water source and the drilling technology, people want piped supplies or from tube well ends. Living standards are rising and people especially those living in towns are demanding more sophisticated arrangements. Reliable water sources and supplies are required to enable such sanitary systems to work properly. Rural communities on their part require more reliable underground water supply systems as surface water sources are much more subject to seasonal fluctuations. Over the period of several centuries, water supply systems have developed from crude technology to a number of fairly sophisticated technologies. In the 1950s, the down hole hammer drilling method was introduced. The efficiency of this proved to be remarkable even in hard rock formation may now be drilled in fraction of the time previously required. Thus the technologies of reaching the ground water ways, methods such as the simple digging of well with hard tools to the sophisticated drilling machines (drilling rigs) capable of making a tube well hundreds of meters deep even in hard rock formations. Drilling is more appropriate for larger diameter tube well designed for the withdrawal of considerable amount of water at greater depths or for tapping aquifers that are overlaid by hard rocks or similar formations.
However, it requires complicated equipment and considerable knowledge and experience. It is mostly done in special drills says a geologist with a Dar es Salaam based Make Engineering and Water Works Ltd, a company specializing in drilling borehole. The overall objectives of the company is to develop sustainable and safe water sources through efficient means and at cost effective charges. The objectives is in line with the national objective of alleviating poverty and improving the health of the people through the provision of clean, safe and adequate water supply to rural and urban population. According to an expert, to ensure an efficient drilling work, preliminary survey is first conducted in order to establish a number of things.
This includes the location of the area required for drilling, the surrounding areas and the proximity to things like toilets and underground oil pipes. Then it follows the actual hydro-geological survey to determine the depth to which drilling would be done through the rock formations. This depth would vary from 50 meters to several hundreds meters. Primarily the types of rock formations determines the choice of equipment to be used in the drilling work. The depth of which the water level is expected to be struck has also a strong bearing on deciding which equipment is to be used. The company being among the leading and specialized body in the drilling work in Tanzania, has a variety of equipment ranging from PAT drilling rig machines with a capacity of up to 300 meters deep and over of drilling capability.