Building Rainwater Collection Systems for Crop Irrigation in Colombia

Gotero, Gotero, Gotero, …

By Luke Bowman and John Gierke, F2F Volunteers in February 2023

A dripper (gotero) watering a young stalk of maize. Goteros were spaced in accordance with the spacing of plants. The drippers are adjustable by hand and can be taken apart for cleaning.

About the Assignment: Dr. John Gierke and Dr. Luke Bowman supported Fundación Cartagena Nuevo Amanecer as a Small-Scale Irrigation Systems Expert and Water Capture (Hydrology) Specialist respectively. Dr. Gierke and Dr. Bowman assisted the Fundación in the design of a small-scale water catchment and irrigation system for FCNA’s school garden beds as well as local backyard gardens. Dr. Gierke has a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering and teaches at the Michigan Technological University. Dr. Bowman has a Ph.D. in Geology and is a research assistant professor at the Michigan Technological University. 

We have collaborated on many projects over the past 15-plus years, mostly in El Salvador. This was the first project work for both of us in Colombia and our first time volunteering for the Partners of the Americas. 

A water-storage tank was the linchpin component of our two projects: receiving water from a roof-rainwater collection system and dispensing the collected water to a gravity-fed, drip irrigation system designed for a small-scale crop-production system. Spoiler alerts: it did not rain during our project, so the rainwater collection system was not tested; we filled the tank from a garden hose attached to the community water supply to test the irrigation system, which did work! We eagerly await the April rains and news from our hosts about how the rainwater collection system performs.

The projects were aimed at building demonstration systems that can serve as exemplars for replication. In addition to designing and building functional systems in the 10 days of work, we provided our community partners with user-friendly, Spanish-language, spreadsheet tools to explore design considerations for sizing, purchasing components, and building new systems. These simple tools are flexible for sizing rainwater collection systems for low-pressure drip irrigation systems and include a lot of lessons learned in plumbing terminology used in Colombia.

Our biggest challenges were finding the materials for the irrigation system and building the support for the water-storage tank, neither of which we were capable of solving ourselves. The community partners are the Fundación Cartagena Nueva Amanecer (FCNA, presently known as the Fundación Colombia Nuevo Amanecer)) and our Partners’ Field Officer, Mauricio Mendoza, were adept at eventually tracking down the materials in a nearby (100 km) city. The tank support was built by our project team and masons they hired over the middle weekend to finish the project during our time there.

Project work is especially rewarding when it works and when there are significant challenges to overcome. The rewarding aspects were enhanced by the pleasure of working together, despite the hot, dry conditions. In addition to the pervasive gratitude our partners shared, we shared so many laughs as we learned together how to build the concrete base and how to do our own weekend-warrior-style plumbing. 

The project team at the conclusion of the work. 

Plumbing is nuanced. Like many skilled trades, it ascribes to its own unique vocabulary. Some terms are intuitive (e.g., elbows and tees) and readily translatable (e.g., válvulas are valves). Other terms, however, are unique, mysterious jargon (e.g., “bulkhead” fitting and unions). Translating U.S.-English-plumbing jargon was a major challenge in finding the right components; especially since each item must be described to a hardware store helper who then does their best to find the item in the back inventory. Persistence paid off. In the end, we created a “plumbing translator” to simplify purchasing system components in the future. 

The 2-hr midday lunch breaks were a constant period to factor in our work schedule to sustain progress. Back home in the U.S., we often use our lunch breaks to shop for our home-project supplies, but in Magangué, Colombia, most shops are closed between noon and 2 pm due to the intense midday heat and sun. Additionally, technical specifications are not as prevalent in the supply shops and online as we are used to at home, making our system-component acquisition something of a plumbing scavenger hunt. 

The reputation of Colombian food fare is not exaggerated. The traditional soups with lunch were terrific. We thought about eating way too often. 

The kindness of Colombians is understated. Being from the Midwest, we take being kind for granted, so we think of ourselves as desensitized to random acts of kindness. We encountered random acts right from the outset. We arrived late in the evening and learned upon arrival that street protests by international rideshare company drivers had prevented vehicle access to the El Dorado International Airport. Others waiting for their hotel shuttle at the airport overheard our tribulations and asked their shuttle driver, who somehow had sneaked through the blocked streets, if he would take us to our hotel along the way to theirs. Despite our staying at a competing hotel, he was kind enough to bring us nearby and drop us off. 

That first night’s kindness was not an exception but the rule. The staff at our hotels and the irrigation/plumbing-supply stores and at restaurants and fuel stations and neighbors who loaned us tools for the project were universally and persistently kind. 

We left Colombia on time, with a finished project under our belt, and a strong sense that the demonstration system would be replicated in other small, rural communities to expand their crop production in the severe dry seasons. As we traveled home, the FCNA field technician shared pictures of some plumbing repairs he was doing on the community supply using leftover materials and newly gained plumbing knowledge. Apparently, some plumbing seeds planted figuratively in this project are already germinating.