Final Presentation

Link to Prezi Presentation

Hey everyone!  We had the final presentation today, and it was a great way to wrap up a great semester.  The presentation gives a good overview of the conclusions we drew from our field trip and from our work throughout the course.  It was also great to have Nassib sit in via skype.  He gave a little speech at the end, and I think it gave the rest of the class a really good feel for the mission of the Rock Village and our contributions.

We want to send a huge thank you to Nassib for his time today, as well as all of his hard work setting up the field trip.  Thanks are also in order to Aino and Mari for all of their help and guidance as well.  

We will continue the polish our VERY rough draft, and have a final copy ready for you all by the 12th.  Thanks to all who made this project possible :) 

To be continued....

RVG2013

And our insights are...

...soon to be found in our final report.

We are working hard on structuring everything we found out in the last months, you will soon be able to read the full report on the project. Stay tuned!

Mid-Review

As soon as we came back from inspiring Lebanon, it was time to put together a simple presentation that would highlight our efforts of the last months to our peers in the Aalto University course Sustainable Global Technologies. As there was no time yet to digest all the information we gathered during the trip,  this resulted in an information overload in this 6-minute presentation. What was aimed at providing concise insights into our work, turned into an extensive summary of our meetings, brainstorms, research and presentations during the week in Lebanon. This emphasised even more, how much we learned during our stay.

Rock Village - SGT course mid-review from Nina Martin

The feedback was mainly positive. We did manage to get across our holistic approach by including last year's project work around renewable energies in the area and linking those insights with the needs we defined around water management. The course leaders were eager to here more about our collaborations previous to and during the trip, as these can prove relevant also for the continuation of the project. Overall, we are happy to have conveyed the mindset that we got into throughout our participation.

Of course, this mid-review was a very rough and simple presentation about our activities, in one month we will have completed a final presentation and report that will be much more thorough on the Rock Village in Arnoun, South Lebanon.

Any comments regarding the presentation are welcome, we would appreciate your input!

Now, after the refreshing Easter break, we are ready to dive into the subject again.

LEBANON: Day 4

Our final working day in Lebanon had on agenda a meeting at the American University of Beirut (AUB). In attendance were:

Professor Mounir Mabsout, director of the Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service (CCECS) at AUB and his team,

Mr Vesa Jaakola, Minister Counsellor at the Embassy of Finland in Damascus, currently working from Beirut,

Nassib El-Solh and Maria El-Solh of the Al-Amal Institute,

and our group from Aalto University.

We did a presentation recapitulating our endeavors so far and elucidating where we are heading with the Rock Village project; our goals and hopeful partnerships.

There was also a presentation from CCECS on similar projects they have carried out in villages in South Lebanon, followed by discussions around the following themes:

- Creating the project/concept proposal based on scientific data to back relevance of the project.

- Designing a relevant project through comprehensive participatory methods.

- Working on the liaison between AUB and Aalto University. Aalto University needs to create a formal institution in the manner of CCECS that can organise and coordinate the project and its funding. AUB is interested in knowing how far Aalto University is ready to go with their collaboration, funding and continuity of the project.

- Possible sources of funding. Vesa Jaakola was instrumental here in making recommendations on options for funding.

In a nutshell, the vision of the Rock Village project is quite clear and pursuable at the moment, but for the next steps there is still work to be done on the working structure, partnerships and funding mechanism.

It was a fruitful field trip to Lebanon with enormous learning outcomes, thus a befitting night out in culmination of our trip. We return with a clearer insight on how to proceed with our project. 'Merci' to Nassib and family,  and to all the officials who fitted us in their hectic schedules.

Please, keep following our blog for progress on the Rock Village project.

Day 3 - Meetings, meetings, meetings!

The third day of our Lebanon tour was probably our busiest but it was most insightful in to the challenges that we will face and has made it more clear, what we should focus on with our research project. 

Tight squeeze for 8!

After a painfully early start and navigating our way through the chaos that is Beirut rush hour traffic, pleasant smells of orange blossoms followed immediately by the stench of the infamously alive trash mountain of Saida, we headed South for our first meeting of the day with the Litani Water Administration of the Nabatieh region. After almost an hour waiting for our man to show up we learnt that the administration is responsible for the management of ten large wells, at 450m deep, pumping out 1000m³ which services the Nabatieh region. The region has 45,000 subscribers that pay a flat rate of around US$100 for their supply. When asked, we were informed that there has never been a case of water shortage from these wells and as such there has been no investigation in to rain water collection or other water conservation methods. The only issue the administration faces are the electricity cuts that is common throughout Lebanon, however that is solved simply by diesel powered generators. In relation to the Rocky Village, we were informed that there is a well that has been constructed in Arnoun that is awaiting a 50kW pump to be installed before being serviceable. It was stated that it would be no issue to install infrastructure to provide the Rocky Village with a domestic water supply of around 10-20m³ per day but unlikely to provide for agricultural use. We also asked about the possibility of a well to be established at the Rocky Village site, and the response was that it is possible, just requires a simple application to the appropriate authority in Beirut and we would know the result after two days and if approved the administration will install and maintain the well at no cost to the Rocky Village. By the end of the meeting, there was some doubt about the authenticity of the information given to us. However, it was an educational experience in to the kind of situations that can arise when speaking with government related authorities. 

Office of the Litani Water Administration 

After a short drive, we reached our next destination, the headquarters of The Confederation of Municipalities Union of Shqif region. This was a very formal meeting with the head of the confederation and some advisors and assistants. However, due to the language barriers it became a tedious process having to repeat everything that was said twice. However the attitudes of these official was much more realistic. They seemed genuinely interested to collaborate and support this project as they see the importance and community benefits it could bring to their region. However, their predominant focus is to secure water supply not only for the Rocky Village but also for the region as a whole. Unlike the scenario painted by the Water Administration, the Confederation was quick to point out there are water supply issues for the region, with half their water requirements being supplied by private water companies delivered by truck, a costly process. They highlighted that the problems include the climatic conditions - six months of the year there is close to no rainfall, problems with the water supply network where maintenance requirements are not fulfilled by the Water Administration and pushed on to the municipalities, which puts further pressure on their resources. 

In the meeting we also learnt that there is one rain water collection facility already in existence in Arnoun, but it is old, not maintained and the water collected is only suitable for tobacco plantation and nothing else. We were also advised that smaller initiatives is the appropriate way to approach the problem, rather than attempting to find a large scale solution. They also agreed that rain water harvesting would be beneficial and a suitable approach to the problem as on average, there is sufficient rainfall in the region, just that there is a surplus of it in the winter months which needs to be captured. 

Government bureaucracies and inefficiencies were also highlighted as challenges to our project. As an example, there have been plans for thirteen dams in the region, but so far only two have been implemented and unlikely any more will be constructed in the near future. Again, the issue of funding recourses came up. The confederation relies on funding from higher authorities or sometimes from NGOs and they do not have an independent, decentralised budget system (unlike European practices). We asked about awareness of the residents to their water supply situation and weather it would be beneficial to conduct an educational campaign about water conservation techniques, and their response was that it would be beneficial, but realistically economic incentives, such as metered water supply, would be the most effective approach. Lastly, we discussed the process of obtaining private funding for the project outside of the government and we were informed that even private donations to the Confederation must be reported through a "independent, unsupervised government agency." The words used there, speak for itself. 

Meeting with the confederation - along with great cakes and juices from a nearby café!

We then finally made it to the Rock Village site! Here we appreciated the beauty and tranquility of the surroundings and made the most of the sunshine! We also met with Castro, a friend of Nassib's and a farmer that has been using the land of the Rocky Village for some farming in the past couple of years. We asked about his farming methods and whether he has faced any significant problems when farming here. Surprisingly, he has only relied on natural rainwater fall for his crops so far, and they have been successful. However he has been using commercial farming methods and informed us that Organic farming would not be commercially viable for him. He has also attempted to persuade Nassib to look in to olive tree plantation as they are more financially rewarding, and highlighted what we learnt at ICARDA,  the importance of wheat farming subsidies. 

With Castro the local farmer on the Rocky Village Site

The final meeting took place with the Mayor of Arnoun province. He confirmed that the well in Arnoun has been constructed and will begin operation this coming summer. It will pump out 90m³/hour with the and will provide sufficient water supplies for three towns for both domestic and agricultural use. He also gave us a brief outline of the process of application and construction of the well. With regards with water conservation, there has been no plans for water conservation previously but especially not now as there will be sufficient water supply. However, personal rainwater harvesting is already in existence in the towns by the form of underground concrete tanks, but the water is only used for irrigation purposes. We also learnt that there is no sewerage network for the region, which is not overly surprising as it is semi-rural, however raw sewage is fed directly into underground pits, not sceptic tanks. The potential for ground contamination was raised, but it has not been a problem, and in fact, sewage is sometimes used to irrigate tobacco crops. 

It was a very busy day for us, but as you can see, one that was very important!! 

Day 2- ICARDA

Today we met Dr. Hassan Machlab a representative from ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in Drie Areas) at Gerbil research center in Beqaa, Lebanon. A great exchange of information took place, some very promising for the future of the rock village. ICARDA is 1 of 15 worldwide centers all involved increasing agricultural productivity in dry areas. To do this they specialize in breeding plants to select the best traits for these dry regions. The GMO's for Lebanon are bred to be disease resistant and to be better adapted for cold climates. This organization also has access to the regions largest gene bank in Syria, and has had some positive impacts on farms in the Beqqa region.

ICARDA is trying to provide these technologies to poor farmers, because higher yields provide more money for these people. They also work closey with LARI (Lebanese Agricultural Research Institution) and together have trained over 16,000 people through short course, masters, and PhD programs.

Despite all of these excellent programs, the direct impact ICARDA and LARI can have on the Rock Village is limited due to tight budgets and lack of funding. Dr. Machlab said the most direct thing they could provide were wheat seeds designed for the region. He said he would also be available by phone or meeting to talk about best ways to grow (how much fertilizer, water, etc).

He also introduced us to the idea of seed multiplication where the seeds of the crops are collected and treated so they can be planted for the next season. In two or three years this technology would allow the village to not have to buy any seeds and also possibly sell the seeds to surrounding areas. This is an area we would like to research because he said the process was quite intensive.

From here we at least know the knowledge and materials are available for the Rock Village, but funding is one of the biggest obstacles. To successfully implement these programs in the Rock Village, people first need to be educated in the methods enough so they will be able to instruct others.

Fields of ICARDA.

LEBANON: Day 1.

After an almost hitch-free flight we touched down on Beirut at about 03:15 on 19/03, beheld the magnificence of the country that would be our host for the next 6 days. The climb to our residential quarters in Al-Amal premises in Broumana and the panoramic view from that altitude was only an 'avant-gout' of what marvels awaited us.
Day 1 started after just 4 hours of sleep with a walk to the farms of Mar Chaaya monastery where we were guided through the running (the methods, resources and products) of the farm.
After the tour of the farm was the tour of Al-Amal Center where the Director (Nassib), the staff and the residents were a pure delight to know. We were treated to a delicious meal and thrilled by a drama rehearsal (thanks Shadia, Nadia and all). We concluded Day 1 with a fun trip to the streets of Beirut, and fun it was indeed.

Trip Itinerary

Marhaba,

With the help of a power generator we can finally update our blog tonight. Firstly our busy itinerary that we have planned:

Tuesday
Visit to Mar Chaaya monastery in Broummana to get an insight to their agricultural practices in their successful small scale farm.

Meeting residents of the Al-Amal centre for the disabled and tour of sweater making and wheat packaging areas.

Wednesday
Meeting with ICARDA (International Centre of Agricultural Research for the Dry Areas)

Thursday
Meeting with Litani Water Administration
Meeting with Union of Chqeef Municipalities
Field visit of Rock Village site
Meeting with Arnoun Municipality

Friday
Presentation to AUB (American University of Beirut)

Off to Lebanon!!

We set off tonight towards Beirut via Istanbul. We're all a bit excited to finally visit the country we've been researching about.

For our trip we're aiming to get some quality local insight on the environment we are researching solutions for, some reliable weather data and some knowledge of local perceptions for the ideas we have proposed.

We'll also be presenting to the American University of Beirut on Friday and hopefully we receive some quality feedback from them!

Stay tuned for live updates when we touch down!

Making progress

Today we met up again to discuss our research and to start planning our trip to Lebanon, which we are getting very excited about. 

This week we have had some responses about some enquiries made about waterless toilets and given some useful literature to consider in terms of operation and maintenance requirements of different kinds of these "alternative toilets" We have also begun to work on some presentations explaining the concepts which we hope to share to those involved with the project in Lebanon. 

Although some average rainfall data was located for Lebanon we are still seeking a more comprehensive historical set of data, as this will aid in the calculations for rainwater tank sizing, which is in the works with aid from a professor at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Hopefully we will get some contacts whilst in Lebanon that will be able to assist with the data. We are also looking at arranging a meeting with some representatives from ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas) as their headquarters are situated in Beirut. Hopefully we hear from them soon! 

In the coming days we will continue to brainstorm and finalise our list of questions we would like to answer when we are present in Lebanon as well as a structured itinerary of our activities and meetings so we make the most of our time! 

Lastly, we would like to share an executive summary of our project, which we submitted with our project plan and we plan to bring some copies with us to Lebanon to distribute to interested parties of our project. We'd appreciate some feedback on it, so please don't hesitate to leave us a comment or two! 

Until next time, 

RVG2013

Update

Just a quick update on the workings for the project.  We met up today to talk about goals before the trip.  We plan on collecting sources and doing research this week.  Next week we will come together with our information and develop a plan for our trip on the 18th of March.

We are also planning on developing a survey for the residents/mentors of Al-Amal to see what their needs are along with their understanding of water issues in the area.

Hope you all have a great week!

RVG2013

Marhaba everyone,

it was an interesting week in Beirut, Lebanon. What a great city to wake up in.

Since we are already interested in working more closely with the American University of Beirut, it seemed like a perfect match to involve the Nature Conservation Center, previously IBSAR, a research group at the AUB. From previous experience, Dr. Najat Saliba, a chemical engineering professor, had been of great help. Her expertise in native rural farming can come in truly handy as agricultural behaviour can greatly influence the use and management of water in a community. In the past, NCC as Ibsar has published a recipe book of native meals that can be easily made using the existing plants in Lebanon's rural areas, that often remain undermined. The recipe book is an aesthetic approach to community outreach and to create more civic engagement in maintaining Lebanon's rich biodiversity.

The Nature Conservation Center states their aims "to promote conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for the purpose of enhancing wellbeing of people and nature by providing an open innovative and collaborative platform. Their mission is achieved through research, education, community outreach and knowledge dissemination. They hope to establish a recognised reference centre for the study and sustainable use of dry land biodiversity."

This is extremely interesting for us as the Rock Village is, as the name implies, an arid area of rural land. Together with the NCC we thus discussed not only the issues of water management in general terms but also the possibility to promote native agriculture, rather than invasive and imported species of agricultural seeds, that can also lead to extra produce so that farmers can build a strong network with economic benefits to the community. This will be discussed further in the coming month together with skilled staff and academics that could potentially join us in Arnoun.

Nassib and Maria El-Solh, the wonderful people of the Al-Amal Center, will take these discussions forward from now on.

At the same time, the timing of these meetings with the NCC worked well for everyone of us as many AUB professors and courses are participating in the IBDAA competition, the International Biodiversity Day At AUB in April this year. This means, students from various disciplines, such as Computer Science, Chemistry, Biology, Engineering, Writing, Social Sciences, Landscape Architecture and many more, come together to form teams and work on projects around the theme of Water and Biodiversity in the region, preferably Lebanon. As there were still students who had not chosen a project, we were able, with Maria, to present the Rock Village project in one morning class and offer it to students to get involved in. Within a day, several students from varying courses showed interest and are now looking into setting a focus to investigate further. They will also travel to the site to gain a better understanding. This can help us advance a lot in the research phase as we are slowly but steadily building a bigger picture of the project.
As the final IBDAA presentations are not too far from our final presentations, we can easily highlight their contribution within Aalto as well, which would benefit all the students involved and bring some attention towards the doings of universities in the Middle East, a field often overlooked in Finland.

HERE you can find the short presentation we held at AUB.

Thanks for a great week and many interesting meetings. We will be back in March and are looking forward to visiting the site!

- Nina

Project Plan

Today we met to go over our project plans.  After going around with other groups we realized how broad of a topic we have chosen to cover.  We plan to start our research and have it mostly completed by the time we travel to Beirut around the 18th of March.  Hopefully the engineer from American University of Beirut can help us answer some questions about water availability in the area.  

Project Planning

The group met today to discuss and work on the project plan that will need to be completed in a couple of weeks time. We started off by revisiting our objective and strategy trees from the workshop from last week and confirmed that the main objective and strategy we will be focusing on is achieving a self-sufficient water supply and management process for the Rock Village project. 

We then began to analyse the components of our project plan which will involve: 

• Background
• Beneficiaries 
• Monitoring objectives
• Implementation
• Risk analysis and risk management; and
• Budget 

It was a productive meeting and we have made a solid start in our project plan. Desmond has already begun significant research of the current water sourcing and supply situation  of Lebanon and it has provided an excellent foundation for the group to begin the task ahead of us. 

In other preliminary research, it was discovered that there are other NGOs in Lebanon with projects that share some of our more general aims and goals, and we plan to investigate further about these other projects to establish whether there are any elements which will be useful to our own research. 

Conveniently, one of our group members will be visiting Lebanon very soon and will be setting aside some time to meet representatives of the Al-Amal Institute, and so between now and when she leaves we endeavour to brainstorm a set of questions for the organisation, and in particularly the current plans and goals for implementation as well as a clearer indication of what they wish to achieve in the social context of the project. 

At the conclusion of this meeting, I would be confident to say the group has a relatively clear idea of where our research will be heading towards this semester and that we all look forward to providing worthwhile research towards the eventual implementation of this project! 

Best, 

RVG2013

Hard at work, with our objective and strategy trees providing inspiration.

Start to the semester.. Intro RVG2013

Hey everybody!  So I guess a few introductions are in order.  Four of us have been selected to continue the excellent work done so far the Rock Village in Lebanon.  After looking at last year's report it looks like we have quite the big shoes to fill!  The energy stuff you guys did was great, and it looks really promising for the future of the village.

So for the introductions:

Erik

I am a Geological Engineering major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and am studying in Finland during the spring through an exchange program this spring.  Hoping to get a Certificate in Energy Sustainability as well.

 Santo

A Architectural Engineering & Finance major from Adelaide Australia   Both of his skill sets will be put to good use during this project.  He is also on exchange, but he is lucky enough to be here for a whole year!

 Nina

Currently getting her master's degree in New Media, and she already has a degree in International Design Business.  Again both skill will be very useful as we continue the work you have all started. On top of that, she is already very active in Lebanon and travels to Beirut quite often.  It will be nice to have some connections over the course of the semester.

Desmond

Majoring in Creative Sustainability and Real Estates, Desmond hails from Cameroon Africa.  Once again his skill are well suited for the challenges presented by this product.

So far we are still planning how to attack the giant challenge creating a sustainable community in a country known not only for it's volatile politics, but its volatile energy supply as well.  During our brainstorm session today, we decided that the energy part of the project had been well discussed previously, and to provide another element to the project we decided to focus on the availability of water in the village.

Here is our problem tree.  We decided that the water would be used in village in three main ways: Agriculture, Everyday Use (Washing and Drinking), and Waste Water.  The lack of infrastructure poses a problem because there are no wells from which we can get data about ground water, and no way to transport the water.  There is also little info about rainwater in the region, and if it is a viable option to collect it.

Another large problem is the cleanliness of the water.  Is it suitable to drink? Are the ways to sanitize that don't use tons of energy?  How much energy is needed for hot water in the region?  All of these questions relate to the energy issue which in turn relates to the cost of water in the region.

After feeling a little depressed about all the problems we were facing ;) we looked to create a strategy tree to help us attack the problems:

There are two main sources of water in the region: Groundwater and Rainwater which both need research into how much is available for use, how to collect it, and how to efficiently use it once we have.  Perhaps the farming methods in place are not the best going forward.  Would greenhouses lead to better water conservation and crop yields? Physically installing observation wells and running pumping tests to determine aquifer properties is not really an option, so we will have to rely mostly on research of nearby areas to develop a plan that can be used to determine properties in the area.  On top of this, the people of the village need to be informed and aware of how precious this resource is.  This way they can be an active part of the project.  The way the project is presented is also an important part of this.  Specific terminology can be used to reinforce these principles, especially because the population has special needs.  This also leads to another important aspect of the project, because the majority of our clients are special needs, are there different ways water can be incorporated as therapy for the village?

As the semester continues we will search for answers to these questions and more, and we will definitely be keeping you all updated on our progress.  Any help would be greatly appreciated, and we all hope we can contribute to this amazing project in a significant way.  More to come, and until next time hope you're all having a great spring :)

Sincerely,

RVG2013