Sustainable Community-based Arsenic Removal Systems in Remote Villages of Cambodia in South East Asia

Lehigh University, 2008 - $47,250

Drinking water drawn from underground sources has caused extensive arsenic poisoning among villagers in remote areas in Cambodia. Consequently, there is an urgent need for sustainable treatment processes that can provide arsenic-safe water to the affected population. This Sustainable Vision project aims to develop and implement a sustainable, community-based, wellhead technology modeled after an arsenic removal system operating successfully on the Indian subcontinent. More than 175 such units currently provide arsenic-safe water to nearly 200,000 villagers in West Bengal, India (near the Bangladesh border), a geologically and socially similar region. The project will place the arsenic removal technology at schools and other selected locations. 

Summer 2009 update: The project is in progress to install the first community based system in a village near Pnom Penh, Cambodia.