Tanzania Gets Moving! Thanks to Stone Age Revolution
Reaching a clinic, going to school, the marketplace, or work, for many people in rural Tanzania depends on safely traversing a river.
Around 40 million people reside in remote areas of the East African country, among the world’s poorest economies.
High steel and reinforced concrete costs and a fast-growing population suggest the national government has difficulty constricting much-needed infrastructure.
However, a fresh solution that restores the old art of stone arch bridge-building might safely and sustainably get rural Tanzanians to there destination.
Belgian charity Enabel and the Tanzania Rural and Urban Roads Agency have constructed 70 stone arch bridges for villages in Kigoma, North-Western Tanzania, over the last four years.
Dr. Adrienne Tomor, a structural consultant who teaches civil and environmental engineering at Brunel University in London, stated that stone bridges provide an ultra-low-emission option to concrete and steel with low maintenance costs.
Typical steel and concrete bridges require expensive, carbon-greedy industrial products and equipment. Kigoma’s new stone bridges are created with regionally sourced stone, sand and wood, and, importantly, labor (all in great supply).
Dr. Tomor explained that the stone arrives on motorcycles or hunks extracted from the river bed, and the regional community digs the foundations. Dr. Tomor adds that the stones are surfaced with the red regional dirt, murrum, which compacts effortlessly and endures the monsoon, which is no modest task.No equipment is needed, having Dr. Tomor expressed his immense respect for the builders that (often work in monsoon floods) create these bridges through ingenuity, skill, and muscle power.
Avoiding steel, concrete, and typical building methods for local labor and components cuts costs by 80 to 85% and reduces 50 to 80% carbon emissions. Furthermore, money invested in building them can be put back into the community instead of investing in contracting expensive machinery and paying substantial salaries for large businesses. Besides cost and ecological advantages, having had a hand in their construction, regional people are invested in the bridges and desire to maintain them.
The bridges were priced at around ₤ 35,000 each to construct and are 80% financed by Enabel, which translated a building handbook into Swahili for the roads agency to utilize. Placing the project out to tender, the agency can construct one concrete bridge a year. Incorporating regional people in the construction, that same cost can fund 10 stone bridges. It also signifies that local governments do not need to ask the central government for financial support and can improve more rural roads without their budget ballooning.
Dr. Tomor, who inspected quality and structural performance, stated that both the design and implementation depend on basic guidelines tried and tested across time. Dr. Tomor adds that masonry bridges last a lot longer than concrete or steel, most likely a minimum of twice the lifetime. There is an engaging case for restoring this exceptionally long-lasting material.
Tanzania’s government is considering a program to roll the project out nationally. Dr. Tomor claimed that there is much the developed world can pick up from this. Adding that, it raises some concerns around why masonry arch bridges are an alternative in the West, particularly with the drive for more sustainable building and a decrease in carbon.
Originally published by: techxplore.com
