AQUA Solution & Environmental Consultancy SL Ltd

23/03/2025

World Water Day
23rd March 2025
Makeni, Sierra Leone

As the world commemorates another World Water Day, the management and staff of AQUA Solution and Environmental Consultancy would like to sincerely thank and appreciate our various stakeholders—clients, customers, partners, working communities, and the general public—for their continuous support.

As we commemorate this occasion, let's reflect on our responsibilities for the sustainable protection and management of our water resources. This year's global theme focuses on "Glacier Preservation," while our national theme in Sierra Leone highlights "Water Ecosystem Preservation." In Sierra Leone, water ecosystems have faced deterioration in both quality and quantity, underscoring the growing need for ecological protection. This decline has been exacerbated by various indiscriminate human activities, including domestic waste disposal, mining, changes in land use for settlements, agricultural practices, and other industrial activities.

The depletion of water ecosystems creates ripple effects that impact both humans and the natural environment, as these subsystems are directly interconnected and dependent on each other. For instance, pollution of a wetland due to mining activities can poison water sources for both plants and animals within that ecosystem. Additionally, the groundwater and surrounding streams and rivers that rely on the wetland for their water supply can also become contaminated, given that water is hydraulically connected. This issue is further intensified by climate change, leading to more extreme and frequent rainfall and drought conditions.

At Aqua Solution and Environmental Consultancy, we have been actively engaged in various water resource projects aimed at addressing these pressing challenges within Sierra Leone's water sector. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our partners—thank you all!

It is essential to embrace a holistic and sustainable approach that involves multiple stakeholders to effectively tackle the nation's water crisis.

God bless you all.

Ramadan Mubarak!

Abdul Rahman Turay (PhD in Geohydrology Candidate)

CEO & Principal Consultant
Aqua Solution and Environmental Consultancy

15/12/2024

Season's Greetings to our dear customers, clients, and well wishers. We wish you good health, joy, and prosperity in the coming year!

Have blessed holidays!
Thank you 🙏!

24/11/2024

Please check out our new website address for all your consulting services in water resources, mineral resources, agricultural land management, and environmental management:

https://sites.google.com/view/aquasolutionandenvironmental/home

@ AQUA Solution & Environmental Consultancy Sustainable and Innovative Solution is assured.
Thank you!

Water Resources Management | WASH | Mining and Mineral Resources | Agricultural Soil & Irrigation Management | Land Restoration/Remediation | Environmental Management

02/11/2024

Water Quality Management:

Many water resources projects tend to focus on the quantity with little or no consideration about the quality. The quality of water is as important as the quantity. For instance, more than 70 % of the earth's surface is covered with water but less than 1 % of this water is portable and fit for drinking purposes. Although, most of these contaminated water are from ocean water, there are also human related activities that make it unfit for potable use.

There are several human activities that pollute water resources; these include wastes from both households and industries (faeces, garbage, heavy chemicals and metals, etc.), agrochemicals (fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides), mining, construction, and other human endeavors.

Contamination of water may be generally derived from either natural sources or human activities, however, the later is the most common while cases of natural contamination are dependent on geological formations and local conditions. For Example South East Asia countries (Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc.) have natural high arsenic concentration in their water while Eastern Africa nations like Kenya and Ethiopia experience natural elevated flouride contamination from their water supply. These high concentrations have detrimental health issues to the local population and can even lead to high fatality annually.

Sierra Leone on the other hand does not have widespread natural heavy metal (trace elements) concentrations in its waters, but human activities (induced contamination) is common especially from faeces (open defecation and poor disposal). These types of contamination have led to disease outbreaks (like cholera, diarrhea, typhoid), less productivity due to illness, expense for medication, and even lost of many lives. Therefore, of the three water quality parameters that are tested for, the microbiological parameter is of great concern in Sierra Leone.

Nevertheless, concern are being raised about the other parameters (physical and chemical) due to indiscriminate activities such as mining and other developmental endeavors. These activities have caused severe problem in most of our major rivers making them useless for other purposes and even the lost of aquatic ecosystem.

Challenges arise from the implementation of the environment and social impact assessment (ESIA) recommendations.
There have been challenges with the water quality standard as we do not have our own standard of measurement for drinking water, we have adopted the WHO standard for drinking water. Environmental water monitoring is again constraint with similar problem.

At AQUA Solutions and Environmental Consultancy we know the local challenges that are being faced in water quality management (testing and monitoring), as such we can profer innovative and sustainable solutions to your water quality project.
Just let us hear your story and we can design your sampling techniques that can exceed your expectations.

26/10/2024

Pumping Test:

A pumping test is another important step in the drilling and construction of boreholes. It preceded drilling and development of boreholes. It is conducted to determine the yield and whether the well will be able to supply the desired amount of water for consumption. It actually measures the well/aquifer characteristics such as transmissivity, storativity, hydraulic conductivity (permeability), and others. Basically, there are two main kinds of water well testing, namely, Step-drawdown and Constant discharge test.

19/10/2024

We are here to bring you innovative and sustainable solutions for your water and environmental projects.

13/10/2024

Water Borehole Drilling Process:

Drilling of boreholes is considered as the main aspect of the drilling process. It is the stage that immediately proceeds the hydro-geophysical siting. Information derived from the siting is being used by the driller and his crew for the drilling. The drilling of borehole in Sierra Leone have some constraints which stem from technical/availability of right drilling equipment, skilled drilling personnel, and poor supervision.

The drilling operation entails various steps which normally start with the mobilization of equipment, materials, personnel, and other resources to the site for the drilling. This task should be well planned ahead of the drilling because if not done properly, it can cause delay and even extra expenditure for the operation.

After the mobilization, the other steps of the drilling operation may include the following:

1. Boring with the rig bits and rod/pipe - the main functions of this step are to effectively penetrate/bore the overburden and hard rock, to stabilise the bore walls from collapsing, and to lift/remove the drill cuttings to the surface.

2. Bore log recording, collection and storing of drilling soils and rocks - to help in the actual borehole design. To be able to determine the aquifer layers or aquitard layers, and the kind of materials encountered during the drilling.

3. Lining/casing of the borehole to avoid collapsing of the well. There are two main types of casing - the plain casing [prevent both water and sediment flow into the well] and screen casing [allow water flow into the well but prevent sediment flow]. Also, the casing materials can be stainless steel or uPVC. The uPVC type is mainly used in Sierra Leone because of its affordability and availability. In some cases of low yield well, open boreholes are installed instead of casing especially at the lower hard rock portion of the well.

4. Gravel packing and sanitary sealing - the gravel pack helps to filter water that enters the well from finer particles or clay materials which will deposit into the well; clog it and gradually affect the well productivity over time. The sanitary seal is mainly installed from the surface level down to about 15 m depth. The depth is mainly dependent on the geological materials, the groundwater flow rate, and the proximity of contamination sources. For the Bullom Group aquifer and built-up environment in Sierra Leone, it is highly recommended that the sanitary seal depths be increased.

5. Borehole development - this consists of surging and airlifting of the well to get rid of fine particles that may have entered the well during the drilling operation; chemicals, or any other impurities that may have enter into the well. The recommended time for this step is 3 hours, however, it should be done until clean and clear water starts pouring out for some time.

Please note that the above mentioned steps of drilling operation mainly depend on the type of drilling and the geological formation of the site. Normally for Sierra Leone terrain we used two main types of water drilling methods - the Air/Down-The-Hole drilling method and Rotary Mud drilling method.

At Aqua Solutions and Environmental Consultancy we provide our clients with the requisite resources for drilling in Sierra Leone. We provide the best consultancy services and guide you throughout the process to achieve your project goal and objectives.

04/10/2024

Hydro-geophysical Siting for Borehole:

Borehole hydro-geophysical siting is an important aspect of the drilling process that is carried out before the drilling operation. It can be the major cause for a failed borehole; if not conducted well. A lot of people called it a geophysical survey, which I see as a misname because it is actually a component of hydro-geophysical siting.

Hydro-geophysical siting is made up of hydrogeological survey, topography survey, contamination assessment, and geophysical survey. The primary goal for a hydro-geophysical siting is to determine a borehole drilling site that has the greatest groundwater potential [good aquifer properties] and that is free from any source of contamination. Therefore, borehole siting goes beyond determination of good subsurface hydraulic properties [aquifer]. The report that is produced for this survey should be used as a reference point during the drilling process. As such the survey should be able to define the depth of various layers [overburden, laterite, and bedrock], fractured or water bearing formation, and other vital information for the driller and drilling supervisor/consultant.

However, the conduction, interpretation and utilisation of hydro-geophysical siting info during drilling has been a major problem in the drilling operation in Sierra Leone. This problem mainly stems from different challenges ranging from professionalism, poor supervision, and lack of equipment.

We have come a long way; that's why AQUA Solutions and Environmental Consultancy is here.
We have wealth of experience working in the Sierra Leone terrain.

Please contact us for your consultancy projects on groundwater [borehole], water quality laboratory testing, surface water, soil and irrigation, geotechnical, remediation, land restoration, and environmental services 🎉
Mobile/WhatsApp: +232 78 036347
Email: [email protected]

05/09/2023

Geophysical sitting and drilling operations for UNICEF

04/09/2023

Pumping Test to determine the productivity of the well whether it can supply the desire yield

04/09/2023

Some drilling operations. Solutions & environmental consultancy