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EVALUATING THE POTENTIAL FOR LOW ENERGY EMITTERS TO FACILITATE SOLAR-POWERED DRIP IRRIGATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Part of: Socio-technical Issues in Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2020

G. Van de Zande ,
S. Amrose  and
A. G. Winter
G. Van de Zande*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States of America
S. Amrose
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States of America
A. G. Winter
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States of America
*
*gdvdz@mit.edu

Abstract

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Introducing irrigation to smallholder farms in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) can increase food security, improve nutrition, and reduce poverty. To explore the possibility of using drip irrigation on smallholder farms in SSA, we introduce a feasibility study that views the design space from both a user-centered lens, explaining how drip might be successful in the future, and from an engineering lens. With a first-order model, we compare estimated capital costs of drip and sprinkler systems for various farm profiles and show that drip has the potential to be a viable technology for many farms in SSA.

Keywords

sustainable designenergy efficiencyengineering designtechnology development

Information

Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society: DESIGN Conference , Volume 1 , May 2020 , pp. 2177 - 2186
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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