Kamand, Himachal Pradesh, India March 15—May 3 of 2016 2016 Booklet.pdfTechnical Project into...

2016 WPI/IIT Project Center: Annual Report2016 WPI/IIT Project Center: Annual Report2016 WPI/IIT Project Center: Annual Report Kamand, Himachal Pradesh, India

March 15—May 3 of 2016

Welcome from the Project CoordinatorsThe Indian Institute of Technology (IIT‐Mandi) andWorcester Polytechnic Institute(WPI) fromMassachusetts, USA are pleasedtopresenttheworkfromour2016jointPro‐jectCenterteams.Since2013,theCenterhasunited 3rd year undergraduate science andengineeringstudentsfromeachinstitutiontocollaborate on projects featuring complexdesignchallengesthatemergefromtheinter‐playofenvironment,technology,andsociety.

Beyond our cross‐cultural engagement,our partnership is meant to teach studentshow to engage stakeholders in the designprocess,andtoin luencethetendencyofpol‐icymakers, designers, and scientists to sim‐plify social conditions. Over‐simpli icationreduces complex, locally speci ic challengesto targets that should quickly be ixedwiththe right technology.However, technical so‐lutions appliedwithout the full understand‐ingofthesocialcontextwillmorelikelygen‐erate unintended or negative consequences.Theendresultmightbeexpensive,environ‐mentally damaging, dif icult to sustain, andultimatelyabandoned.TheInteractiveSocio‐Technical Practicum (ISTP) encourages stu‐

dent teams toframe interactionwith communitiesas a learning ex‐perience and as acooperative pro‐cess. In thiscourse, studentsexchange ideaswith their peersacross interna‐tional boundaries,they build experi‐ence working inteams, and theyexplore complexi‐ty insocialarenasrelevant to theirprojects. This ex‐perience provides

anextraordinaryopportunitytodeveloptheempathic skills necessary for appropriatepolicyordesigndecisionsasfutureengineersandscientistsworkingintheworldtoday.DuringourtimeonsiteatIITMandi,the7studentteamsinvestigatedimproveddesignsfor traditional cook stoves, evaluated solarstreetlighting,expandedlocalrainwaterhar‐vesting,devisedlightweightorigamishelters,evaluated strategies to communicate risk oflandslides, improved solid waste manage‐mentstrategies,andenabledbettercommu‐nication between healthcare facilities. Theyconducted interviews, surveys, ield‐tests,and assessments. To that end, we wish toacknowledge the dedication and long hoursof guidance from the faculty mentors thatworkedcloselywitheachteamthroughcom‐pletion.Asalways,theWPIcohortisdeeplygrate‐fultoourhostsandcoordinatorsatthebeau‐tiful Kamand Campus of the IITMandi. Wearetouchedbythewelcomeandsupportwereceive each year from coordinators, teach‐ing assistants, support staff, faculty mem‐bers, and ieldwork participants that enablethese studies to continue. In particular,wewish to thank theDirector, Professor Timo‐thyGonsalves,forhiscontinuedappreciationforthevisionputforthbythisCenter.Dr.VenkataKrishnan,Dr. StephenMcCauley,Dr. Devika Sethi, Dr. Ingrid Shockey, Dr.DericksShukla,ProjectCenterCoordinators2016

Greetings from the Director of IIT-Mandi TheWPI Project Centre at IIT Mandi hasbeen running smoothly since 2013. Thisyear,we'veseenthesuccessfulconclusionofthe 3rd joint ISTP‐IQP projects. Over theyears,thesejointprojectsbystudentsofWPIandIIThaveexploredassortedtechnologicalinterventions in the villag‐es and towns surroundingIITMandi. These projectshave built up a valuablecorpus of knowledge andexperience. Related initia‐tives by NSS on educationforvillagechildrenandtheopening of the IIT MandiTakshila School are open‐ingthedoorsofopportuni‐ty to the residents of theKamandarea.With these initiatives,expectationsofimprovementinlivingstand‐ardsaregrowinginthevillagesoftheregion.The challengebeforeus is to translate someof the ideas generated in ISTP and relatedcoursessuchasDesignPracticumandMajorTechnicalProject intowidely‐used,sustaina‐ble technologies and products adopted byvillagers of the Himalayas. For example, anidea on livelihood issues of village womenwas explored by ISTP teams over 2 years.Subsequently,ithasbeentakenupasanMTPto develop a portal accessible by mobile.

Now,itisafundedprojectandbytheendof2016,villagewomenareexpected tobeget‐tingpart‐timeemploymentandskilldevelop‐mentopportunitiesthroughitsportal.This year, IIT Mandi has started the IITMandi Catalyst, an independent Section 8companywhosegoalisfosteringandincubat‐ing businesses promotedmainly by IIT stu‐dents and faculty to provide technologicalsolutionsandproducts for the localcommu‐

nities. IIT Mandi Catalysthas received generousfunding from the Depart‐ment of Science and Tech‐nology complemented byincubation space etc fromIIT. It is our expectationthat someof the ISTPpro‐jectswillfructifyintorural‐focusedbusinessenterpris‐esunder theaegisofCata‐lyst.Bestwishes to all teamswho have participated in

the Open House on 1st May 2016, and con‐gratulationstotheaward‐winningteams.I'msure that your careers will bene it greatlyfromyouruniqueexperienceintheISTP‐IQP.ThankstothefacultyfromWPIandIITMan‐di whose tireless dedication to this unusualconceptisresponsibleforitssuccess.

TimothyA.GonsalvesDirector,IITMandi

26thApril2016

ThereportsinthisbookletrepresenttheworkofWPIandIITundergraduatestudents.Formoreinformationabouttheprojectcenter,

see:

http://www.wpi.edu/academics/igsd/iqp.html

OrattheIIT’sISTPpage:http://www.iitmandi.ac.in/istp/index.html

Table of Contents

Improving Landslide Risk Communication in the Mandi District

Investigating Solar Street Lights in Mandi and Kamand

Improving Healthcare Coordination in the Mandi District

Mitigating Noxious Gases Produced by Traditional Cooking Methods

Pg. 21

Pg. 7

Pg. 35

Pg. 47

Table of Contents

Evaluating Waste Management Systems: Kataula and IIT-Mandi

Developing Smart Origami Shelters for Himachal Pradesh

An Opportunity for Rainwater Harvesting

Pg. 63

Pg. 77

Pg. 89

Improving Landslide Risk Communication in the Mandi District

Abstract

Ourgoalwastodevelop,evaluate,andimprovelandslideriskcom‐munication strategies inMandi, a region affected by pervasive land‐slides.Policymakers,scientistsandvillageresidentswereinterviewedtounderstandhowthestakeholdersexperiencelandslides.Wedeter‐mined the key gaps in knowledge, speci ically regarding landslidecauses and signs, the residents’ perceptions of risks and the hazardmaps,andthecurrentcommunicationstrategies.Wedevelopedaned‐ucationalplanandanSMS‐basedriskcommunicationsystemthat in‐cludesearlywarningsystemandinformationalmessages.

An Interactive Qualifying Project/Interdisciplinary Sociotechnical Project submitted to:

Team Members:

JulianBaumgartel,IIT

NiamhFennessy,WPI

SagarGhai,IIT

YoonKyongLee,WPI

KaranMahajan,IIT

NicoleMikolajczak,WPI

Project Advisors:

Dr.VarunDutt,IIT

Dr.StephenMcCauley,WPI

Dr.IngridShockey,WPI

Landslides in Mandi DistrictLandslidesarefearedinmountainousregionsfor their unpredictable and highly destructiveforces thatresult fromdownwardandoutwardslope mass movements. The District of Mandi,locatedintheheartofHimachalPradesh,north‐ern India, is prone to frequent and pervasivelandslides.ShowninFigure1below,thisregionhasadiverseterrainrangingfromhillstomoun‐tains,withmajor river systemscutting throughthevalleys.

Naturalhazardssuchasmonsoonalrains,harshwinters, and earthquakesmake the region vul‐nerabletolandslides,andhumanactivitiessuchas farming and forestry practices, animal graz‐ing,androadconstructionexacerbatethesenat‐uralconditions.In order tomitigate the impact of landslidesin prone areas, effective risk management andcommunicationarenecessary.Riskcommunica‐tion strategies generally aim to provide stake‐holders with information to reduce risk, to re‐

spond to an event, and to recover afterwards.Currently,thereisnouniversalsolutiontoman‐aging landslide risks; however, adaptations ofearlywarningsystems(EWS),whichdetectfac‐tors that indicate potential disasters and com‐municate the risk information to the affectedparties, have been themost effective risk com‐municationstrategy.Nevertheless,EWSandoth‐er landslide risk communication strategies arecontroversial because their poor implementa‐tionincommunitieshasledtonumeroussocial,economic, and environmental issues. As a keytopicattheThirdUnitedNationsWorldConfer‐ence onDisasterRiskReduction in 2015, land‐slide risk communication initiatives were out‐lined to educate vulnerable communities aboutthe causesand consequencesof landslides, andto promote awareness of the warning systemsandriskmanagementinplace.Although the Himachal Pradesh governmenthasformulatedaDisasterManagementPlan,aneffective risk communication strategy does notcurrently exist. The de icient communicationbetweenstakeholdersabouttheprevalenceandhazards of landslides increases the associatedrisk. The goal of this project was to develop,evaluate, and improve landslide risk communi‐cation strategies in theMandiDistrict. Inordertoreachourgoal,weassessedthecurrentcondi‐tions in the district to generate a baseline as‐sessment,collaboratedwithstakeholderstoun‐derstand how they experience and confrontlandslides,anddevelopedandevaluatedaland‐slideeducationprogramandatechnicalcommu‐nicationsolutionspeci ictotheMandiregion.

Landslides: Causes and Communication In thischapter,weaddress thekeyelementsof risk communication and the terminologiesassociated with landslides, and evaluate earlywarningsystemsthroughcasestudies.Causes of Landslides Therearetwomaincausesoflandslides:natu‐ral and human causes, both which can lead tolandslidesthatdamagelifeandproperty.Exam‐pleswithineachcategoryoflandslidecausescanbefoundinTable1below.

Two reports detailing the fundamentals of hu‐man‐caused landslides are described in theBackgroundsectionoftheSupplementalMateri‐alsfoundontheWPIandIITwebsites. Risk Assessment and Risk Communication Risk assessment is used to identify potentialhazards,includinglandslides,andanalyzepossi‐bleoutcomesintheeventthatadisasteroccurs.Iftheriskassessmentmadebythestakeholdersresultsinanimproperresponsetothesituation,the stakeholders thenbecomemore vulnerabletotherisk.Oftentimes,thestakeholders’

Figure1.MandiTown,HimachalPradesh

Table1.CausesofLandslides(LandslideTypesandProcesses,2013)

NaturalCauses HumanCauses Prolongedrainfall

Earthquakes

Soilcomposition

Deforestation

Animalgrazing

Construction

response is dependent on their perception ofrisk,whichcanbein luencedbyculture,experi‐ence,andeducation.Thus,itiscriticaltoassessthestakeholder’sperceptionoftheriskathandbefore considering technical solutions(Breakwell,2014;Patra,2015;Devi,2015). Whilelandslideriskassessmentinvolvesana‐lyzingpossibleoutcomesoflandslides,riskcom‐munication involves the dissemination of thisprediction. It is important to understand thetypeofriskthatanareaexperiencesinordertocreateaneffectiveriskcommunicationstrategy.In India, there are many agencies and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) that at‐tempt to provide tools for better risk assess‐mentandcommunicationthroughmethodssuchas landslide hazard zonation mapping. Earlywarning systems have been successfully usedas a risk communication strategy to mitigatethe effects of landslides in mountainous re‐gions by providing warning information withsuf icient time to reducedamage.Satteleetal.(2015) categorize three classesofEWS: alarmsystem, warning system, and forecasting sys‐tem. These classi ications are determined bythe systems’ functionof automation, and theircharacteristicsareshowninTable2. It is important to establish warning criteriadescribing when, how, and to whom an EWSshould distribute awarning. These criteria canensure proper communication between stake‐holders and ful illment of responsibilities, sothat the risk communication strategy does notbecome ineffective and cause further damage(Cloutier, 2015). An example of assigned re‐

sponsibilities for each stakeholder is shown inFigure2.

Case Studies on Early Warning Systems We compare four case studies from Japan,China, Malaysia and Mexico that address howeach country implemented an EWS for naturaldisasters.  Each case study pertains to our sitebecause of the similar geography, climate, and

causesoflandslides.Thesecasestudiesaresum‐marizedinTable3.

Information from each casestudy was utilized to help developan effective risk communicationplanfortheMandiDistrict.Inordertocreateaneffectiveriskcommuni‐cation strategy for landslides, it isimportant to consider the stake‐holders’ risk assessment and the

componentsofacommunicationstrategy.Foroursite’slocation,theconstraintsoftheEWS

include Mandi’s location in a mountainous re‐gionwith rivers and intense rainfall, combinedwith improper road construction due to moretourism in the region, increasing the district’ssusceptibility to landslides.

AlarmSystem WarningSystem ForecastingSystem

Autonomous Semi‐autonomous

Non‐autonomous

Detecton‐goingprocess

Detectprecur‐sors

Detectpre‐cursors

Shortleadtimes

Extendedleadtimes

Extendedleadtimes

Threshold Threshold+expertdecision

Expertdeci‐sion

Table2.CharacteristicsofEarlyWarningSys-tems,adaptedfromSättele,2015

Table3.SummaryoftheJapan(NaturalHaz-ardsObserver,2008),China(Wen,2005),Ma-

laysia(Abdullah,2013),andMexico

Figure2.ExampleofresponsibilitiesassignedtoeachstakeholderinanEWS

Problem EWSSolution Japan Tectonicplatesa

earthquakes Groundsen‐sors+educa‐tion

China Highrainfallaland‐ Rainlevel

Malaysia Highrainfallaland‐slides

Rainlevel+education

Mexico Deforestationalandslides

Residents+experts

Methodology: Data Collec-tion and Prototype Develop-ment In order to develop, evaluate and improveriskcommunicationstrategiesinMandiDistrict,weestablished threeobjectivesoutlined inFig‐ure3.

Our irstobjectiveassessed thecurrent con‐ditionsinMandiDistrict.Todeterminetheloca‐tionsofthevillagestovisitforinterviewing,weutilized the landslide hazardmap from theNa‐tionalRemoteSensingCentre.Thismapand its

corre‐spondingkey areshown inFigure4.In or‐der toobtain aselection

ofvillageregionswithvaryinglevelsoflandslidehazard, we identi ied the coordinates of loca‐tions with various hazard levels using the GPScoordinates feature on the landslide hazardmap. TheGPS coordinateswere then applied toGoogleMapstodeterminetheidentityofthevil‐lagesintheselectedlocations.Thelistofvillageregionswevisitedis:Katindhiregion(lowrisk),Dudarregion(moderaterisk),Nelaregion(highrisk),andKhaliarregion(veryhighrisk).Themapof their locations is locatedunder theMethodologysectionoftheSupplementalMate‐rialsontheWPIandIITwebsites.When traveling to the villages, we recordedany signs of recent landslide activity by takingphotographsinordertogathervisualdataaboutthe prevalence of landslide activity in the area.Additionally,wevisitedtheremnantsofa land‐slideneartheIIT‐MandiKamandCampus.

To understand the stakeholders’ percep‐tions of landslides and risk communication,we conducted interviews with three stake‐

holder groups: policymakers, scienti ic experts,and residents. When interviewing village resi‐dents,weemployedasemi‐structuredinterviewstyle. If the interviewee did not speak English,our IIT teammates conducted the interview inHindi and their responseswere translated intoEnglish. Through the interviews with the resi‐dents,wewereabletoevaluatetheir initialun‐derstandingofthecausesoflandslidesandpre‐ventionmeasures, their perceptionof landslidehazardinthearea,andtheiraccesstotechnolo‐gyandpreferredmethodsofwarning.Togaugethe residents’ perception of landslide severity,

we performed a brief survey with a randomsample of 40 people. Residents were shownthree pictureswith different levels of landslideseverity, andwereasked to specifywhichonestheyconsideredlandslides.Additionally,weconductedopen‐endedinter‐viewswith thepolicymakersandwritten inter‐views with the scienti ic expert. In the inter‐viewswithemployeesfromtheDistrictCommis‐sioner’s of ice including the Assistant DistrictMagistrate,anda landslideexpert fromtheDe‐fense Terrain Research Laboratory, we investi‐gatedthecurrentriskcommunicationstrategiesinplaceand thepotentialopportunities for im‐provement.AllinterviewmaterialscanbefoundintheMethodologysectionoftheSupplementalMaterialsontheWPIandIITwebsites.Theinformationgatheredfromourgroupsofinterviewees was organized in a database. Wethenanalyzedthedatathroughcodingandcre‐atedhistogramstodisplaythekey indingsfrommultiple sets of variables including village, age,and level of education. We established criteriatodeterminewhichwarningsaresenttowhom,andwhen,anddevelopedanearlywarningsys‐tem and bulk SMS messaging communicationstrategytodisseminatethesewarnings.Anedu‐cational program involving an animated videoand informativepamphletwerecreated tosup‐port the technical solution. Additionally, weconductedaStrengths,Weaknesses,Opportuni‐ties,andThreats (SWOT)analysis toassess theeffectivenessofourproposedstrategies.

Figure3.Projectobjectivesandassociatedstrategies

Figure4.Landslidehaz-ardmapofMandiandsurroundingareas(Bhuvan,

2015)

Results: Site Assessment and Interviews In this section, we present our results ac‐cordingtoourobjectives. Objective 1: Site assessmentBelow,wepresent the results of our site as‐sessment and interviews corresponding to ourobjectives. In total, 59 people were inter‐viewed from the village regions of Katindhi,Dudar,Nela,andKhaliar. Additionally,policy‐makersfromtheDistrictCommissioner’sof iceand a scientist from the GeoHazardMitigationDivisionoftheDefenseTerrainResearchLabor‐atorywereinterviewed. When travelling to the different sites for in‐terviews,photographsofthedamagecausedbylandslideswere taken. The photos provided uswithanunderstandingofthelevelofseverityoflandslideeventsthathaveoccurredintheMandiDistrict.Forexample,wevisitedtheremnantsofa landslide that occurred near the IIT‐MandiKamandCampus. This landslide can be seen inFigure5a.This landslide is larger inscalecom‐paredtoothersobserved,suchastheoneshownin Figure 5b. From the site assessment, it wasclearthatlandslidesofvaryingseverityoccurinthearea,but landslidessuchasthesmalleroneshowninFigure5baremorecommonthanthelargeoneshowninFigure5a.Objective 2: Collaboration with our Stake-holders Ouropen‐endedinterviewswiththe

AssistantDistrictMagistrate(ADM),theheadofthe relief department, and two representativesfrom theUnitedNationsDevelopmentProgram(UNDP)revealedimportantinformationregard‐ing the current policies and strategies in placeforlandslideriskcommunication,aswellastheprogress that is currently being made to im‐provedisasterriskcommunicationintheMandidistrict.TheinterviewwiththeAssistantDistrictMag‐istrate (ADM) revealed that currently, there isno automatic prediction method for landslidesinplaceatthedistrictlevel.Rather,theirdepart‐mentreceivesrainfallinformationfromtheIndi‐anMeteorologicalDepartment and then the in‐formationisdisseminated.AmassSMSmessageis sent to the functionaldepartments thatneedtobeinformed,butthismulti‐stepprocessdoesnot reach the residents Additionally, when alandslideoccurs,peoplecall inthedisastertoa24‐hour helpline in the police departmentwhere the operator then transfers the infor‐mation regarding the disaster to the relevant

party.AgenciessuchastheIndianRedCrossSo‐ciety,anddisastermanagementteamsatthelo‐callevelrespondtothedisasterfollowinganes‐tablishedprotocol that includes informationre‐gardingreliefmoneytobeallocatedandrespon‐sibilities for responding to the disaster. ThemoneyisallocatedaccordingtotheStateDisas‐terResponseFund(SDRF)andtheNationalDis‐asterResponseFund(NDRF)andvariesaccord‐ingtothetypeofdamageincurred.Forexample,4.00 lakh may be paid to the family of a de‐ceased person, if a person is killed by naturaldisaster,andRs.3,000canbepaidforthelossofasheep,goat,orpig.Thecomplete listofassis‐tance available can be found on the HimachalPradesh government website. The head of therelief department supported the informationreceivedfromtheADMandalsoprovidedinfor‐mationaboutthehierarchyofcommunicationinthe case of a disaster. This hierarchy can befoundinFigure6.

Figure5a. Figure5b.

Figure5.Theaftermathoflandslidesofvaryingseverityobservedduring ieldwork

Figure6.HierarchyofcommunicationinresponsetoadisasterintheMandiDistrict

According to the interview with the repre‐sentatives from the United Nations Develop‐ment Program (UNDP), they are currentlyworking as a liaison between all functional de‐partmentsofthestategovernmenttohelpfacili‐tate the communication for disaster manage‐ment. They are focusing on community‐basedstrategies, which include community feedbackandoutliningtheresponsibilitiesofeachperson.Additionally, they are working to train villageleadersonhowtorespond toearthquakes,andare implementing informational sessions aboutearthquakereadinesswithlocalstudents.Thewritten interviewwith a scientist in theGeo Hazard Mitigation Division of the DefenseTerrainResearchLaboratoryprovidedmorein‐formation regarding the scientist’s perspectiveon landslidesandriskcommunication. Accord‐ingtothescientist,landslidesarecausedbypro‐longedrainfall,seismiczones,andanthropogen‐icactivitiesandcancauseeffectssuchastraf iclams,injuries,fatalities,andeconomicandprop‐erty losses. The scientist stresses the im‐portance of educating people about the causesand consequences of landslides by providingsimulationsofthedamagecausedbylandslides,as well asmitigationmeasures in order to ad‐vancethewaypeopleperceivelandsliderisk.Fromourinterviewswithvillageresidents,itwasevidentthatmanyresidentshavedevelopedaperceptionoflandslideriskthatdoesnotcor‐respondwiththelevelofriskshownonthehaz‐ardmap.Figure7showstheperceptionofland‐slidehazardriskoftheinterviewedresidentsintheKatindhi,Dudar,Nela,andKhaliarregions.

Other questions from the interviews provideadditional information regarding residents’opinionsonvarioustopics.Theseresultswereanalyzedbasedonvillage,age,andeducation.Additional graphs detailing the complete re‐sultscanbefoundintheResultssectionoftheSupplementalMaterialsfoundontheWPIandIIT websites, but the key indings are high‐lightedhere.

When asked why landslidesoccur, the highest percentage ofinterviewees believed that rainwas amain cause, regardless oftheir village, age, or educationlevel.Additionally,37%ofinter‐viewees were unsure of whatphysical signs to look for in alandslide prone area that couldindicate potential landslide oc‐currence. “Unsure” was a morecommon response than anymentioned by the policymakersandscientists.Figure 8 shows additional re‐sponses, and illustrates howthese responses vary betweenvillages.Themiscellaneouscate‐

goryencompassestheresponsesfrombothresi‐dentswhowereunsure,andthosewhodidnotprovideananswertothequestion.

Figure7.Residents’perceptionoflandslidehazardinKatindhiregion(LowRisk.),Dudarregion(ModerateRisk),Nelaregion(HighRisk),andKhaliarregion(VeryHighRisk)basedoninterviewswiththeresidents

Figure8.Residents’responseswhenaskedwhatsignstheylookforinlandslidesproneareas

Whenaskedaboutmethodstoreducetheoc‐currence of landslides, approximately 44% ofresidents believed that planting trees was anappropriatemethod, regardless of their village,age, or education level. Another common re‐sponse was building retention walls, whereassomeresidentsdidnotbelievethatanymethodswould reduce the possibility of landslides. Re‐sponses regarding the types of land usewhichtrigger landslides varied by village, as seen inFigure9.AsinFigure8,themiscellaneouscate‐gory encompasses the responses of residentswhowere unsure, and those who did not pro‐videananswertothequestion.

Dudar was particularly less knowledgeable

about the effects of land use, with most resi‐dents answering “unsure”, or failing to answerthequestionat all, asdepictedby themiscella‐neouscategory.Theresidentswereinterviewedaboutthecurrentpoliciesinplacetoreducethishigher‐risk landuse,butmore than60%of theinterviewees said theywere unsure of the cur‐rent policies in place.When asked if therewasany funding available in the case of damagecaused by a landslide, there was a fairly evendivide between “yes” and “no”, but some resi‐dentswereunsureordidnotanswer theques‐tion.Additionally,more than60%ofpeople in‐terviewedwereunsureaboutcurrentstrategiesinplacetomitigatelandslides.Whenaskedwhatinformationtheywouldliketoreceiveinaland‐slide warning, many residents responded with“location”, “severity”, and “time” regardless ofvillage,age,oreducationlevel.Additionally, residents were shown threewaysofpresentingthesameinformation:aninfo‐graphic (metagraphic), a pie chart(graphic), and a table (tabular) and wereasked which method of presentation was theeasiest to understand. Whether or not theirplace of residence directly impacts their re‐sponse isnot clear,but the responses inDudardiffermorethantheothervillages.TheseresultscanbeseeninFigure10.Figure11showsthatwhenaskedabouttheiraccessto technology,mostresidentsrespondedthat they have access to a television, mobilephone, and the local newspaper, which manyalsomention as their common sources of ob‐tainingnews.

Whenaskedabouttheirpreferredmethodsoflandslidewarning,residentsrespondedthattextmessage, loudspeaker announcement, and tele‐vision were their preferred methods. Althoughthese threemethodswere themost commonlymentioned, there were a wide variety of re‐sponses,depictedinFigure12.

Figure9.Residents’responseswhenaskedwhattypeoflandusetriggerslandslides

Figure10.Residents’preferenceoftheeasiestmethodofpresentinginformation

Figure11.Residents’accesstovarioustypesoftechnology

Residents were also asked if they would use ahazardmap ifonewasprovided for them.Fiftypercentofpeoplesaidtheywoulduseahazardmap, contrasting the 0% of people who men‐tionedthehazardmapsastheirpreferredmeth‐odofriskcommunication.

Discussion Our interviews with the residents of MandiDistrictrevealed important informationregard‐ing their perceptions of the level of hazard intheirvillageandtheirgeneralknowledgeaboutlandslides and the current policies and strate‐giesinplace,aswellastheiraccesstotechnolo‐gyandpreferredmethodofreceivingawarning.Theinformationobtainedfromtheseinterviewswas then utilized accordingly with the infor‐mationobtained from the interviewswithboth

thescienti icexpertandtheemployeesintheDistrictCommissioner’sof iceinordertodetermine themosteffectiveriskcom‐municationstrategytoimplement.Perception of Landslide Hazard The results obtained from asking theresidents about their perceived level oflandslide hazard in their village indicatethat residents’ perceptions consistentlyunderestimate the level of risk shownbythe Bhuvan landslide hazard map forthoseareas.Themajorityof residents in‐terviewedinNelabelievedthattheywereliving in a low hazard zone, rather thanthehighhazardzonedepictedbythehaz‐

ard map. In Dudar, 50% of residents believedthat thevillage is located ina lowhazardzone,and40%ofresidentsbelievedthatthevillageislocatedinamoderatehazardzone,correspond‐ingwith themap. InKhaliar,90%of residentsinterviewed believed that the village is locatedin a low or medium hazard zone, whereas thehazard map categorizes the zone as very highhazardzone.EightypercentofresidentsinKat‐indhipredictedthelevelofhazardinthevillagetobelow.Althoughthehazardmapdoesnotin‐clude Katindi, we hypothesize that the level ofhazard in the village is lowbecauseof its loca‐tiononamountaintop,awayfrompotentialde‐brisfall.Itisalsoimportanttonotethatsigni i‐cantpercentagesofresidentswereunsureabouttheleveloflandslidehazardinthearea.Thisnu‐ancecouldbeattributedtolocalresidentsactu‐allybeingunawareofthelevelofriskinthear‐ea,orbeingafraid toadmit that theyare living

inanareawithahigherlevelofrisk.Thereisacleardiscrepancybetweenresidents’perceptionand the information presented by the hazardmap,thepolicytoolcurrentlyusedforlandsliderisk communication, according to the policy‐makers and scientists. Thehazardmapmaybeinaccurateinplaces,butregardless,thediscrep‐ancybetweenwhat themappresentsandwhattheresidentsperceiveplaysacrucialroleinthesuccess of a risk communication strategy be‐cause the stakeholders’ perception of risk candetermine how they will react to landslideevents.In order to determine if a difference in per‐ception of the de inition of landslides betweentheresidents,policymakersandscientistsplaysarole in thegap inhazardperception, theresi‐dents’ perception of severity was gauged withanadditionalsurveyinvolvingphotosofvariouslandslides. From the survey, 63% of respond‐entssaidthattheydidnotconsiderthesmallestlandslideshowntobealandslide.Thisresponsecould provide a reason forwhy residents’ per‐ception does not alignwith the current hazardmaps: the probability of all sizes of landslidesmay be considered when creating the hazardmaps,notjustthelarge‐scalelandslidesthatres‐idents think of. Contrastingly, when the ADMwas asked about the sizes of landslides, he re‐spondedthatthede initionofalandslideisverysubjective and that there is no speci ic size in‐volved in the de inition. He stated that largelandslides are reported if they cause a roadblockageordamagetolifeorproperty,butotherthanthat,themajorityoflandslidesgo

Figure12.Residents’preferredmethodsoflandslidewarning

unreported. This lack of consistent de initionaddstothegapincommunication.Aneffectiveriskcommunicationstrategywilladdress the existing discrepancy in a two‐prongedfashion:byraisinglandslideawarenessthroughaneducationalprogram,andbyprovid‐ing a customizable warning based on locationand severity of the landslide that will informstakeholdersofalandslideoccurrence.Guiding Principles for Education Our indings suggest that there are gaps inunderstanding of knowledge of landslides andthepoliciesinplacebetweentheresidents,poli‐cymakers, and scientist. Many residents areawareofoneortwocausesoflandslides,butareunawareofthehumancauses,someofthenatu‐ral causes, the signsof a potential landslide, orthetypesoflandusethatcantriggerlandslides.The education strategy thatwedevelop shouldaddress this gap inknowledgeandaim to edu‐catetheresidentsinawaythatpromotesacom‐munity‐centered approach rather than a top‐down approach. Additionally, many residentsmentionedthattheywoulduseahazardmapifonewereprovidedfortheminordertoincreasetheirawarenessof thehazard level in locationsthey typically travel to,but that theywould re‐quireeducationonhowtousethemap.Becausetheresultsdonotshowsigni icantdifferencesinknowledgelevelbetweenvillages,agegroups,oreducation levels, for themajorityof topics, oneset of educationalmaterialsmay be developed,insteadofneedingtoaltertheeducationmateri‐altoeachgroup.

Guiding Principles for Landslide Warning Systems The results regarding the residents’ access to technologydemonstratethatalargemajorityofthe 59 residents interviewed have access to atelevisionandamobilephonewithtextmessag‐ingcapabilities.Onthecontrary,amuchsmallerpercentageofintervieweesusearadio.Aneffec‐tive landslidewarningshould incorporate tech‐nology such as the television or text messagebecauseitwouldaccommodatealargemajorityofresidents.Itisalsocrucialtoconsidertheresidents’pre‐ferredmethodsofreceivingalandslidewarningwhen creating a new strategy. Most residentsareunawareofthehierarchyofcommunication,described in Figure 6, through which theyshouldreceive information,asexplainedby thehead of the relief department. Therefore, ourstrategy should address the hierarchy of com‐munication and include the village residentswhoarecurrentlynotinvolvedinthecommuni‐cationpathway.In order to bridge this gap, our developedlandslide warning strategy must consider boththedesiresoftheresidentsandwhatthepolicy‐makers and scientists believe is feasible. Themostcommonlypreferredmethodofcommuni‐cationofthe59intervieweeswastextmessage,followed by television, and then loudspeakerannouncement.Althoughthemajorityofpeopleprefer text messages, televisions, and loud‐speakerannouncements,eachmethodhas lawsthat cannot be overlooked. Some intervieweesmentionedthattheydonothaveaccesstoamo‐bilephone,orthattheyareilliterateandwould

onlybeabletounderstandaphonecallandnota textmessage.Other residentsmentioned thatthey would be frightened and confused by aloudspeakerannouncement.Zeropercentofres‐identspreferredahazardmapasacommunica‐tionmethod.Thepreviouslymentionedneedformore education, combinedwith the lack of im‐mediate noti ication provided by a hazardmaparethemostlikelyreasonsthatahazardmapisnotapreferredmethodofcommunication.Textmessageandtelevision,strategiesthatresidentsalready have knowledge about and which canprovide immediate noti ication in the case of apredictedorexperiencedlandslide,arethepre‐ferred methods instead. When deciding whichstrategy to implement, we considered thesetechnologicalpreferencesandlimitationstode‐termine the optimal solution. Additionally, theresults obtained from questions regarding theinformationresidentswouldliketoreceiveinalandslide warning: location, time, and severity,combined with the response that a graphicalmethodofpresentinginformationwillbeusefulincreatingatechnicalsolution.

Project OutcomesFrom the analysis of our results, two mainproblemswith thecurrent conditionsemerged:alackoflandslideeducationforresidents,andagapinriskcommunicationbetweenpolicymak‐ers, scientists, and residents, particularly re‐gardingthedisseminationoflandslidewarningsand alerts. To address these shortcomings, wehaveformulatedtworecommendations,

supported by SWOT analysis and cost‐bene itanalysis.1. Develop an education plan to implement inconjunction with the United Nations Develop‐ment Program (UNDP)’s Earthquake EducationProgram.2.Implementariskcommunicationstrategyuti‐lizingmobilephones andSMSmessaging to in‐formstakeholdersoflandslideoccurrences.Recommendations for an Education Plan Toincreasetheawarenessofvillageresidentsabout landslides, their causes, theirprevention,and theirmitigation,we recommend thedevel‐opmentofaneducationplan,tobeimplementedin conjunctionwith the UNDP earthquake edu‐cation program.Our results indicate thatmanyvillage residents are unsure of the causes oflandslides, and either do not believe that thepossibilityof landslidescanbemitigatedorareunsureofthewaystoreducethispossibility.Ad‐ditionally, many interviewees responded thatthey are unsure of the current communicationstrategies, and many residents answered thattheywereawarethattheycouldreceivegovern‐mentalfundinginthecaseofdamage,butmen‐tionedan inaccurateamountofassistance.Thisgap in knowledge needs to be addressed. Be‐causethereiscurrentlyaprogrambeingimple‐mented by the UNDP for earthquakes, imple‐menting a landslide education program in con‐junctionwiththeUNDPprogramhasthepoten‐tial to be successful. We recommend the crea‐tion of an informative video animation to beshown in the schools during the earthquaketrainingsessions,andpamphletsasatake‐away

materialforstudentstobringhometotheirfam‐ilies. In general, the video animation and pam‐phletsshouldaddressthekeydiscrepanciesandgapsinknowledgethathaveariseninourinter‐viewssuchasthecausesandsignsoflandslides,and the policies and sources of funding availa‐ble. We have created a sample animation andcorrespondingpamphlet,whichcanbefoundinthe Project Outcomes section of the Supple‐mentalMaterials on theWPI and IITwebsites.Thevideohighlightsrainastheleadingcauseoflandslidesandfallingrocksasakeysigntolookfor,aswellasphonenumbers tocontact in thecase of an emergency and where viewers canlearn more information about the assistanceavailable to them. The pamphlet reiterates thesameinformation,butalsoincludesmorespeci ‐ic details about the causes and signs of land‐slides, as well as the assistance available, withimportant funding information detailed in achart.When combinedwith an improved tech‐nical solution, the education plan will help toimproveriskcommunicationinthedistrict.Recommendations for a Risk Communica-tion Strategy Tobridgetheexistingcommunicationgapbe‐tween policymakers, scientists, and residents,we recommend the implementation of a riskcommunication strategy using mobile phoneSMSmessagingaspartofanEWStoinformpeo‐pleofpotentiallandslideoccurrences,postland‐slide occurrences, and general informationabout landslides.Theuseofmobilephonescanallowforawidespreadwarningwithimmediatenoti ication.ThetextmessagesshouldbesentinHindi,andshouldincludeinformationregarding

the location, severity, and timeof the event, asmentioned by residents in our interviews. Be‐causetextmessagingiscurrentlythestrategyinplace for communication at the administrativelevel,theprinciplesareinplaceforef icientim‐plementationatthelocallevelaswell.OurproposedlandslideriskSMScommunica‐tion system is an early warning system that isbased on rainfall data. It uses a user‐friendlyprogramthatcalculates theprobabilityof land‐slide occurrence in speci ic regions. This is asemi‐autonomoussysteminwhichtheprogramallowstheusertochoosetosendaneducationalmessageorawarningmessagebasedonthecal‐culatedprobability.Theprobabilityiscomparedagainst a threshold calculated from a study ontheNationalHighway‐58fromRishikeshtoMa‐na in the Gartwal Himalaya (Experimental,2015).ThisprobabilityisshowntotheuserinaGraphical User Interface (GUI) so that the usermay decide to send awarning, send an educa‐tionalmessage,or tonotsendamessageatall.Themessage is then sent to registered partici‐pants using Twilio Applications Program Inter‐face (API). More information about Twilio, in‐depth process low of the communication sys‐tem, system architecture, and code of the pro‐gramcanbefoundintheProjectOutcomessec‐tion of the SupplementalMaterials on theWPIandIITwebsites.This recommended communication strategyinvolves participant registration. In order toprovide a platform for registration, we recom‐mendthecreationofawebsite.Thewebsitecanalsoincludeaccesstotheeducationalmaterial

andemergencycontactinformation,andameth‐od of communicating concerns and feedbackabout the communication strategy and educa‐tional material. In our prototype, the registra‐tionpageandeducationalmaterialaretranslat‐ed into Hindi, but in the implemented version,the entirety of the page should be in Hindi.Whenregisteringfortheservice,thereceiverofthemessagewill provide their telephone num‐ber and their location of residency, which arenecessary for the landslide risk SMS communi‐cationsystemtosendmessagestotheappropri‐ateaudience.TheregistrationwebsiteiseasytoaccessforthosewhousetheInternet,butisun‐easyforthosewithoutInternetaccess.Anaddi‐tionalrecommendationwhenimplementingthisstrategy is for villages to hold registration ses‐sionsinwhichacomputerisaccessible,orinfor‐mationcanbemanuallycollected,andresidentsmayregisterfortheSMSservice.Toexpandthebene itsof the registration sessions, the educa‐tionalanimationmaybeshown,andeducationalpamphletsmaybedistributed.

Conclusion Landslides are common in the mountainousMandiDistrictduetoprolongedrainfall,seismicactivity, and construction. Our study revealedtwo main indings: there is a lack of landslideeducation in the district, and there is de icientcommunication between the policymakers, sci‐entists,andresidents.Agapbetweenresidents’knowledgeandthescientist’sinformationexists,andoftentimes,theresidentsunderestimatethelevelof landslide risk in theirareaswhencom‐paredtothehazardmapsinplace.Additionally,

the residents are not currently included in thehierarchyofcommunicationwhendisastersoc‐cur.Basedoninterviewswiththethreestakehold‐er groups, we recommend the implementationofaneducationalprogramtoincreaselandslideeducation and hazard awareness among resi‐dents.Wealso recommend the implementationof a landslide risk SMS communication systemasanearlywarningsystembasedonrainfallda‐tatowarnresidentsofpotential landslideoccurrences, inform themafteralandslidehasoccurred,andprovidethemwithadditionalgeneralinformation.To increase the scope of the recommenda‐tions, suggestions include conducting furtherresearchwithresidentstodetermineifthelevelof landslidehazard in the area they live affectstheir knowledge of landslides or perception ofrisk. If theirplaceofresidence isadeterminingfactorinknowledgelevel,theeducationalmate‐rialscouldbealteredaccordingly.We also recommend the implementation of asensor‐basedsystemtoacquirerainfallandsoildata from regions to more accurately predictlandslides,andtoinvestigatealternatemethodsofregisteringfortheSMSservice inadditiontothewebsite.Additionally,werecommendtransi‐tioning to an Indian‐based messaging servicerather than an American‐based one to ensureef icient communication. Our prototypes areeasily adaptable initial steps to create an effec‐tive risk communication strategy in the MandiDistrict.

ThefullreportandSupplementalMaterialsforthisprojectcanbefoundat:

http://www.wpi.edu/E-project-db/E-project-search/search,usingkeywordsfromtheprojecttitle.

OutcomesdeliveredafterMay1willappearontheIIT’sISTPpageat:

http://www.iitmandi.ac.in/istp/projects.html

Acknowledgments WewouldliketothankWPIandIIT‐Mandifortheopportunitytoparticipateinthisinterna‐tionalproject.WewouldliketothankourAdvisorsIngridShockey,StephenMcCauley,andVarunDuttfortheirguidanceandsupport.Wewouldalsoliketothankthefollowingfortak‐ingtheirtimetointerviewwithus:AssistantDistrictMagistrate(ADM),headoftheMandiDistrictreliefdepartment,representativesfromtheUnitedNationsDevelopmentProgram(UNDP),Er.PrateekChaturvedifromGeoHazardDivisionofDefenseTerrainResearchLabor‐atory,andvillageresidents.

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Breakwell,G.M.(2014).Thepsychologyofrisk.PublishedbyCambridgeUniversityPress

Cloutier,C.,Agliardi,F.,Crosta,G.B.,Frattini,P.,Froese,C.,Jaboyedoff,M.&Marui,H.(2015).TheFirstInternationalWorkshoponWarningCriteriaforActive

ExperimentalLandslideEarlyWarningSystemforRainfallTriggeredLandslidesalongRishikesh‐Badrinath,Rishikesh‐Uttarkashi‐Gaumukh,Chamoli‐Okhimath,Rudraprayag‐KedarnathandPithoragarh‐Malparoutecorridors,Uttarakhand:Approachdocument.(2015).GeosciencesGroup.RetrievedApril25,2016,fromhttp://bhuvan‐noeda.nrsc.gov.in/disaster/disaster/tools/landslide/doc/landslide_warning.pdf

Hernandez‐Moreno,G.,&Alcantara‐Ayala,I.(2016).LandslideriskperceptioninMexico:aresearchgateintopublicawarenessandknowledge.Landslides,1‐21.

LandslideTypesandProcesses.(2013,January9).RetrievedFebruary1,2016,fromhttp://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2004/3072/fs‐2004‐3072.html

NaturalHazardsObserver.(2008).Earthquakeearlywarningsystems:Aninvestmentthatpaysoffinseconds.NaturalHazardsObserver,32(5).

Patra,P.,&Devi,R.(2015).Assessment,preventionandmitigationoflandslidehazardintheLesserHimalayaofHimachalPradesh.Environmental&Socio-EconomicStudies,3(3),1‐11.

Slides:technicalissues,problemsandsolutionsformanagingearlywarningsystems.Landslides,12(1),205‐212.

Sattele,M.,Brundl,M.,&Straub,D.(2016).Quantifyingtheeffectivenessofearlywarningsystemsfornaturalhazards.NaturalHazardsandEarthSystemSciences,16(1),149‐166.

Wen,B.P.,Han,Z.Y.,Wang,A.J.,Wang,E.Z.,&Zhang,J.M.(2005).RecentlandslidedisastersinChinaandlessonslearnedforlandslideriskmanagement.Landslideriskmanage-ment.Rotterdam:AABalkemaPublisher,427‐434.

Mitigating Noxious Gases Produced by Traditional Cooking Methods

Abstract

Forgenerations, rural village residents inHimachalPradeshhaveused traditional cook stoves, or “chulhas”, which rely on irewood.Ourprojectaimedtomitigatethegasproductioncausedbythisfuelandtoalleviatethenegativehealtheffects.Wedesignedanimprovedcookstoveprototypewithventilation.Localwomentestedourproto‐type and provided feedback on the design, usability, and ef iciency.Finally,wemadeapamphletof recommendations for thecommuni‐tiestomitigatethesmokeandtoxicgaseswithintheirhomes.


Team Members:

AndrewBaker,WPI

KimberlyCodding,WPI

VipulGupta,IIT

VivekSharma,IIT

ShivaVerma,IIT

MandyZhang,WPI

Project Advisors:

Dr.RajeshGhosh,IIT

Dr.RikRaniKoner,IIT



Dr.RamnaThakur,IIT

Cooking and Heating Practices in Northern India Inmuchof northern India, rural populationscontinuetousetraditionalfuelsources,primari‐ly irewood.Thoughresidentsrelyonthiseffec‐tive and easily accessible fuel, it releases toxicgases,suchascarbonmonoxide,whichcontrib‐utetoroughly500,000deathsperyearinIndiaalone(Lakshmi,Virdi,Thakur,etal.,2012).Re‐searchhasfoundthatexposuretothesegasesisalsoindirectlyaccountableforarangeofdiseas‐es such as chronic bronchitis, pneumonia, andother acute respiratory and eye infections(Sood,2012).Inthesestudies,womenandchil‐dren are identi ied as the most at risk due tolong‐term exposure in their homes (Parikh,2011). The levels of noxious gas has sparked avarietyofproposedsolutions includingalterna‐tive power sources, stove tops, and heatingmethods.Despitesubstantialpromiseof the in‐novations, the targeted populations maintaintheir preference and reliance on traditionalmethods,thuscontinuingtheexposure(Jeuland,Bhojvaid,Lewis,etal.,2015).The District of Mandi, India, hosts a largenumberofruralvillageswhoseresidentsusethetraditionalmudandbrickcookstovesknownas“chulhas”(seeFigure1)(Jeuland,Bhojvaid,Lew‐is,etal.,2015).Overthecourseofsevenweeksinthisregion,weexploredoptionsforbasicven‐tilation that could be an effective yet simpleamendment to existing cook stoves. The goalwastomanagethenoxiousgasesproduced

Figure1.Traditionalchulha(Baker,2016)throughtraditionalcookingmethodsandtomit‐igate the effects on household residents. Tomeetthisgoal,weoutlinedthefollowingobjec‐tives:(1)tounderstandtherisksandlimitationswith current cooking and ventilation practices,(2)todesignandbuildimprovedcookstoveandventilationprototypes,and(3)togathertestda‐ta and feedback to develop recommendationsforthecommunities.Theseobjectivesestablishedadeeperunder‐standingofregionalpreferencesinordertoap‐propriatelyandeffectivelyreducenoxiousgasesinparallelwithraisingawarenessforsaferprac‐ticesinthecommunities.

Traditional Cooking and Ventilation Practices and their Impacts on Residential Health Before performing our on‐site ieldwork, wecompleted background research to identify thecurrent methods of cooking and ventilation intheregion,aswellastoassesstherelatedissuesandanypossibleexistingalternatives. Community Resources Inordertobetterunderstandthescopeoftheproject, it is important to recognize that stake‐holders using traditional stoves are situated insmallandoftenremotevillages. Whilepartsofthe Mandi District are urban, the region hasaround 400 villages, sometimes consisting ofjustforty‐threehomes(seeFigure2)(CensusofIndia,2001).

Figure2.VillageinMandiDistrict(Codding,2016)

Traditionalbuildingtechniquesinthesecom‐munities rely on locally sourced materials in‐cludingwood, slate, and cement. Typical struc‐tures featurewood framing,withcementwalls,aslateroof,andacement loor.Thecookingare‐as are sometimes detached from the home butare constructed with similar material with theexceptionofmud‐coatedwalls.These structures, however, present certainlimitations.Thereisnocentralheatintradition‐alHimachalibuildings,andconventionalelectricappliancesarerare.AccordingtotheIndianNa‐tionalCensusof2011,58%ofhouseholdsinthestate of Himachal Pradesh rely on irewood asfuelforheatingandcooking(TheRegistrarGen‐eral & Census Commissioner, 2011). Mosthouseholdsgatherwoodonadailybasistofueltheir chulhas (NIC Himachal Pradesh, 2015).However, as noted in numerous studies,“cookingwithsolidfuels(biomasssuchaswood,cropresides,dung,charcoal,andcoal)overopenires or in simplestoves exposes house‐holdmembers to dailypollutant concentra‐tions that lie betweenthose of second‐handsmoke and activesmoking” (Pope et al.2009,2011;SmithandPeel 2010). The openstove surface does not include a chimney andkitchenwindowsareoftenplaced too far awayfromthecookingarea toactasnaturalventila‐tors.

Health Risks and Guidelines In this scenario,whereventilation is lacking,thelargestandmostdirectlyaffectedhouseholdmembersarewomen,astheyaretheonesmostexposed to the noxious gases and smoke pro‐duced through traditional cooking practices.Across India, 34,000women die annually fromchronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)as a result of long‐term exposure to solid bio‐mass fuel gases within their homes(Balakrishnan, Ramaswamy, Sambadam, et al,2011). These gases contaminate the home andcauseadversehealtheffectswhenreleasedintoa con inedareawithpoorventilation.Commonconditions range from acute respiratory infec‐tions to eye infections to chronic health issues,suchascataracts,cardiovasculardisease,chron‐ic lung disease, pneumonia, tuberculosis, andproblemswithpregnancy(Epstein,Bates,Arora,etal,2013;Parikh,2011).The science behind these practices is well‐known.Anycombustionreactionfueledbysolidbiomassfuelshasthepotentialtoreleaseharm‐fulchemicalsorparticlesintotheair.Theprima‐ry noxious gases caused by biomass fuels arecarbon monoxide and dioxide, nitrogen oxide,sulfur dioxide, and hydrocarbons (Lakshmi,Virdi,Thakur,etal,2012).Whilecarbonmonox‐ide can be directlymeasured as a gas, the ineparticles simultaneously produced by combus‐tion are measured as levels of “particle pollu‐tion”, or PM. Speci ically, inhalable particulatematter caused by ires are classi ied as PM2.5,meaningtheyare2.5micrometersorlessindi‐ameter. These are the ones that contribute to

respiratory problems and other hazardoushealthissues(seeFigure3)(EPA,2015).

Figure3:PM2.5:Hazardousparticlepollution.(EPA,2015)

The United States Occupational Safety andHealthAdministration(OSHA),theUnitedStatesEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA), andtheWorldHealthOrganization (WHO)have setstandardsfor themostprominentparticlesandnoxiousgasesproducedthroughthecombustionofsolidbiomassfuels,buttheyassumeaneight‐hour workday. In the typical poorly ventilatedkitchenenvironment foundwithinmanyvillagehomes, these gases accumulate, exposing theresidentsforamajorityoftheirtimeintheday.Thepolicy guidelines fail to account for the in‐consistencywithin a residential setting, includ‐ingdifferinglevelsofgasproductionthroughoutthe day, temperature, house settings, and thenumberofpeopleexposedatone time.Variousresearchershavetriedtoestablishanewsetof

“Cooking with wood over open fires or in simple stoves exposes household members to daily pollutant concen-trations between those of second-hand smoke and active smoking.”

international guidelines that take into accountthedifferenceingasexposurelevelsinresiden‐tial settings compared to strictly industrial set‐tings (Clark, 2013; Jetter, 2012). However, thefactremainsthatthelevelsofnoxiousgasespro‐ducedinthehomesaredangerouslyhigh,withalargenumberoflastingadversehealtheffects.Proposed Alternatives: Successes & Failures Inearly2015,inruralwesternIndianvillages,alternative cook stoves (ACS) speci ically de‐signedwiththeaimtoreducenoxiousgasemis‐sionsweretestedinhomesandcomparedtotheemissions from a tested traditional clay stove.Thehouseholdairpollution(HAP)levelsofeachweremonitoredandcomparedtoeachotheraswell as to theWHOstandards.The testedACSsshowed a reduction in noxious gas levels, butthetraditionalcookstovesproducedanaveragePM2.5measurementroughly36‐foldhigherthantheWHO health recommendation of 25 ug/m3(Muralidharan,Sussan,Limaye,etal,2015).Theimportance of this case study is twofold. First,theelevatedlevelsofairpollutionreinforcetheneed for improvement of current cooking andheatingmethods.Second,itconveystheneedforabetterstandardofresidentialexposurelevels.Inthecaseofproposingalternativecookingandheatingmethodsorventilationsystemsolutions,a baseline measurement of CO and/or PM2.5 isessential.Thesigni icanceof thevalue isnot inits precision compared to theworld standards,butinitsuseasacomparisonwhendeterminingthesuccessofanimprovementmethod.

In2012,GuntherBenschandJorgPeterspre‐sentedacasestudy inwhich theyrecorded theoverall response to the introduction of an im‐proved cook stove (ICS) in a controlled trial inSenegal, Africa. When observing the impact ofthe implementedICS, theauthorsexaminedthepopularityof various typesof cookingmethodswith both the experimental “treatment” groupandthecontrolgroup(seeTable1).Table1:UsagePercentageofVariousCooking

Methods(Bensch&Peters,2012)

UnlikeotherICSs,BenschandPeters’ICScon‐tinuedtousetraditionalbiomassfuel,butitwasmuchmoreef icient in its fuelconsumption.Bycontinuing the use of traditional fuel, Benschand Peterswere able to extend the technologytoamuchwiderbaseofrecipients. Inaddition,theICSconsumedlessbiomasspermealcooked,and thus resulted in shorter meal preparationtimes. Bensch and Peters’ ICS acted more as a“bridging technology”, rather than a completeshift in the current culturally accepted cookingmethods (Bensch & Peters, 2012). This ap‐proachcanbeparalleledtothevillagesinHima‐

chal Pradesh, India, where this “bridging tech‐nology”maybemorewidelyaccepted.Meanwhile,arecentcasestudyinKwale,Ken‐yafocusedontheeffectivenessofdifferentven‐tilation strategies on the reduction of biomass‐related particle exposure in homes. Throughsome adjustments to a real‐life kitchen replica,fourscenariosweretested.Theresultspresent‐edthattheuseofanyventilationtypedecreasedthe concentration levels within the kitchens,with the chimneybeingmost effective. The ab‐senceofaventilationsystemdidnotshowsigns

of lowered concentrationlevels.Thestudyindicatedthat simple ventilationsystems, especially chim‐neys, were an effectivemethod in mitigating thegas level exposure in in‐doorareas.

Althoughamyriadof casestudieshavebeendone to improve traditional cooking methods,manymodelshaveonlyproposedmodernalter‐natives like liquid petroleum gas (LPG) stoves,solarcookers,rocketstoves,andsoforth.Whilethese are suitable devices, they have not beenwidely adopted. Some villages even have LPGstoves, butnevertheless relyprimarily on theirtraditional stove for cooking purposes. In sum,our reviewof literature revealed somepositivecasestudyrecommendations,aswellasseveralmodern cooking advancements that have failedto take hold. With these precedents, our teamworkedto indabalancebetweencurrentcook‐ingpracticesandadvancedcookingtechnology.

Methodology: Fieldwork and Prototype Development The goal of our project was to manage thenoxious gases produced through traditionalcookingmethods. Figure4,below,summarizesourobjectives.

3.1: Understand the risks and limitations with current cooking and ventilation prac-tices Our team identi ied participants from sur‐roundingcommunitiesthatwerewillingtopart‐ner with us so that we may understand localcooking and heating practices.We conducted abaseline assessmentof the village communitiesthrough interviews with these participants byHindi‐speaking teammates. Responses were

translated into English immediately followingtheinterview.Additionaldocumentationinclud‐edphotographingand ilmingthekitchensetupfor thephysicalspacesandequipmentused forcookingandheating.Inaddition,wemadequali‐tativeobservationsofthekitchen,whichinclud‐ednotingiftherewasevidenceofasmokesmellandblackenedwalls.

3.2: Design and build improved cook stove and ventilation prototypes We designed a cook stove using traditionalmaterialsthatincludedasimpleventilationsys‐tem.Weconstructedan initialprototype insideanenclosedsimulatedkitchenstructureoncam‐pus. Local materials were used to build thechulha in the traditional manner, and this in‐cluded choppedpineneedles, bricks, soil, freshcow dung, iron rods, and a metal sheet. We

learnedthepropermixtureofthesematerialsaswellashowtouseitmosteffectivelyinbuildingby a campus worker familiar with the art ofbuilding traditional stoves. As per convention,thechulhaincludedthreeholesforcookingpotsand an open area in the front for feeding ire‐woodandcookingchapatis.Weaddedaventtoourprototype thatwouldnotbe found incom‐mon traditional cookstoves, for thepurposeofconnectingapipetoactasaventilationsystem.This irst prototype required several days fordrying.Meanwhile,wecreatedasecond,smaller‐scale prototypewith a slightly varied and im‐proveddesign.Whilestillmadeoutoftradition‐al conventionalmaterials, this prototype addedseveral innovations inorderto furthermitigatethe smoke production and increase stove ef i‐ciency:abrickbaseplate,anenclosedboxshape,one side intake vent pipe for air low, and onechimneypipetochannelsmokeoutofthehouse.

3.3: Gather test data and feedback to devel-op recommendations for the communities Aftertestingourimprovedcampusprototypefor its ability to hold a ire andboilwater in awok, we invited several primary householdcookerstouseourprototype.Weaskedtheminsemi‐structured interviews to communicatefeedback regarding its usability and ef iciency.The ieldtestgeneratedresultsonboththefunc‐tionality of the designed prototype and partici‐pantinterest inusinganon‐traditionalmethod.Empiricaldataincludedfactorssuchas irewoodef iciency,smokecontainment,

Figure4:Objectivesfor ieldworkandprototypedevelopment

constructioncosts,anddesignlimitations.Userfeedbackwasessentialfordeterminingpercep‐tionofqualityandusability.Thesecriteriawereusedtore inethedesignandbuildrecommen‐dationsforourstakeholderpartners.Thead‐vantages,materials,visualconstructioninstruc‐tions,andmaintenanceoftheimprovedcookstovewithventilationwereincludedinthe inalrecommendationpamphlet.ItwasprintedinbothHindiandEnglish.

Results and Discussion Theresultsofourbaselineassessmentinter‐viewsand ieldworkcon irmedoursuspicionsabouttraditionalpracticesastheymaypromoteundueexposuretonoxiousgases.Thedataarepresentedherebyobjective.

Objective 1: Understand the risks and limi-tations with current cooking and ventilation practices. Wevisitedsixvillagesandengagedwithato‐tal of twenty‐seven households. In these inter‐views,wefoundthat98%ofhouseholdshadei‐ther women or children cooking, and 2% ofhouseholdshadmencooking.Figure 6 indicates the majority of respond‐ents answered “no” when asked to report ifthere were any health issues that they believe

were a direct result of long‐term smoke expo‐sure.However, 22%of respondents that stated“no”tothisquestionwentontodescribehealthissuestheyareexperiencinginaquestionaskingabout issues theyarehavingwith their currentcooking practice. In an effort to better under‐stand these reported health issues, we beganfocusingonthecookingmethodsdirectly.When cooking, the most common fuelusediswoodwithallhouseholdsusingitas

theirprimaryfuelsourceduetoitsaccessibility.Theupkeepofthewoodstockwithinthehomeswasreportedtobeaprominentuseoftheirtime(seeFigure7).Thereasonforthiswiderangeofdata was not explained. Due to the amount oftime these households spend collecting ire‐

wood, village residentshaveexpressed interestin a chulha that burns wood more ef iciently.Currently,mealsaretakinglongperiodsoftime

to preparedue to theinef icien‐cy of thestove (seeFigure 8).Alongwiththe longhoursspentcooking,

womenare

Figure5:FieldworkInterviews

Figure6:Responsesfromquestionaskingabouthealthissuesduetosmoke

Figure7:Reportedhoursspentgatheringirewoodperweek

Figure8:Totaltimespentcookingperday

beingpotentiallyexposedtothesenoxiousgasesfor additional hours as they are boiling water,heating their homes, and maintaining theircooking area. Most of their additional hoursspent in the kitchen are dedicated to mainte‐nanceastheexcessivesmokeproductioncausesblackeningtothecookingareaandutensils(seeFigure9).

Beyondtheactualuseofthecurrentstove,weassessedtheawarenesswithinthecommunitiesof the need for an ICS or ventilation system.Twenty‐six homes presented criticisms of theircurrentmethods.Manyresidentsnotedthattheproduction of smoke was at an elevated levelandsomestatedthat theiruseofcurrent tradi‐tional methods was causing health problems.Yet, the majority of the homes surveyed wereunawareofproperventilationtechniques.Thesehomes were using only small windows, whichwere blocked by various items and located far

from their stoves, open doors for air low, orsimply tiny cracks in their roof as their mainformofventilation.Howeverunawareofmeth‐ods to alleviate the issue, all homes conveyedwhat improvements theywantedmade to theircurrent cooking method, which included achulha that would produce less smoke whilecookingandconsumelesswood.

Objective 2: Design and build improved cook stove and ventilation prototypes. Our team formulated our chulha design byadapting it to be more ef icient based on heattransfer theory. The irst prototype had threecooking chambers, one central elbowpipe, andan open front for irewood (see Figure 10). Itwasbuiltoverthecourseofsevenhours,includ‐

ingthecollectionofmaterials.Thispro‐totype was createdinasimulatedroomwith no properwindows and onedoor. The secondprototype had onecooking chamber,onepipesituatedinthetopbackcornerand another on theside of the stove,and one closeableopen front for

irewood. It also took about seven hours tobuild, and around three hours were spent col‐lecting materials. This second prototype wasconstructedinashedwithametal‐ridgedroof.

Oursecondprototypeincludedseveralmodi‐ications from the traditional cook stove and afewimperativeadjustmentsfromthe irstproto‐type.Thetraditionalstovetophasanopenareafor irewoodaswellasanopenstovetop.Thereisnopipeorchimney,thusthesmokedisperseseverywhere and is not channeled in a certaindirection. Modi ications from the traditionalcookstoveincludeabox‐shapedcookstove,twopipes(topandside),abaseplate,aclosedstov‐etop,andacloseablefrontopening.Thefewad‐justmentsmadefromthe irstprototypearetheadditionofa secondpipeand theplacementofthetoppipe(seeFigure11).

Figure9:BlackenedCookingAreaandUten-silsinRunjhaVillage(Sharma,2016)

Figure10:InitialPrototype(Baker,2016)

Figure11.ComparisonoftraditionalstoveinNehriVillagetosecondproto-type.Arrowsnotethechangesmade,whichincludeabox-shapedstove,acloseablefrontopening,atopandsidepipe,aclosedstovetop,andabaseplate.

(Zhang,2016)

Objective 3: Gather test data and feedback to develop recommendations for the com-munities. During the irst prototype testing, thin steelsheets covered twoof the three chambers, andonechamberwascoveredwithasmallpot illedwithwater.Fire initiallycameoutof theelbowpipe,butafterafewminutes,smokebegan low‐ingoutinstead.Thewaterinthepottookabouttenminutestoboil.Thesecondprototypewastestedtwicewithawok illed with water. The lip of the cookingchamber immediately blackened once smokestartedproducing.Smoketraveledoutofthetopbackpipeaswellasthefrontopening.Nosmoketravelled out of the side pipe. The side pipestayedatnormaltemperature.Oncethe irehadgoneout,smokedissipatedoutofallopenareas.During the second round of testing, our teamblockedair lowto thesidepipe.When thesidepipewascovered,weobservedthatmoresmokecameoutofthefrontopeningthanwhenitwasleftopen(seeFigure12). Wetestedclosingall

openingsexceptforthetopbackpipewhentheirehadgoneout.Asaresult,weobservedthicksmoke quickly escaping from the top pipe (seeFigure13).Followingour initial testing,weworkedwith atotalofeightlocalvillagewomenwhotestedourprototypeandprovidedobservationalfeedback.Their initial thoughtswere focusedontheirex‐citementofthetraditionalconstructionmethod.They felt the heat ef iciency was better thantheir traditional stove as additional irewoodwasnotneeded.Theycommentedonallthenewstructuralchangesasbeingaddedbene‐its for them. While there were manynew aspects these women liked, theywerecriticaloftheaestheticsofthestovewith emphasis on the front openingneedingtobewider. With less wood being consumed andsmokebeingdirectedup(seeFigure14),

thewomenexpressedtheywouldusethisstoveovertheircurrentcookstove.Inparticular,theystated that thepipeswerethekeymodi icationthey wanted. Less smoke would create lessblackeningof thewalls. Final remarks includedadviceontraditionalconstruction.Alongwithqualitativefeedback,werecordedgas level readings for our prototype and com‐pared them against readings taken in a villagehomelocatedinNehriVillage(seeTable2).

Figure12.Smokeleavingfromfrontopeningduringtesting;sidepipecovered.

(Zhang,2016)

Figure13.Smokeescapingfromtopbackpipeduringtesting(Zhang,2016)

Figure14:Smokeleavingtoppipe(Zhang,2016)

Table2:ComparativeGasLevelReadings

Gas level readings taken inNehriwere dif i‐cultassmokequicklyscatteredassoonasitwasproduced.Womenareexposedtoaconstantav‐erageof173ppmforthedurationofcookingaswellasthecleanupprocesswhenusingatradi‐tionalstove.However,womentestingourproto‐typewereexposedtoanaverageof61ppmdur‐ingthecookingandcleaningprocess.Littletonosmokewas channeled out of the side pipe andfront opening during cooking (see Figure 15).

Thereadingstakenfromtheabovebackpipearenot a factor in this average comparison as thesmoke would travel directly out of the housethroughtheroof. Discussion Thedata raised interestingpoints about thepath forward, aswell as some questions aboutappropriatetechnologydesignandengineering.Indian villagewomen in the Himachal Pradeshregion are reluctant to change their traditional

cookingandheatingpractices.Regardlessofallthe new modern advancements being intro‐duced, thesewomen have still stuckwith theirtraditional methods for decades. It begs thequestion, why would another new ICS designmotivate them to switch out their traditionalstove?Itwas important tobeginourprojectbyun‐derstanding our stakeholders’ perspective ontraditionalmethods. Fromour indings,we seetwo key topics emerge that village women arepassionate about and will, thus, determine thefeasibility of our design being adopted withintheirhomes: (1) fuel sourceand (2) stove con‐struction.Wood is their primary source of fuelasitiseasilyaccessibleandavailabletothematnocost.Anyothertypeoffuel isexpensiveandwould require travelling long distances to ob‐tain.Furthermore,traditionalstoveconstructionisasacredpracticethatthesewomenhavestucktoforgenerationsandhaveexpressedtheirun‐willingness to give up. To be compatible withtheirexpectations,wecreatedanICSdesignthatwouldcontinuethosetwopractices.Wesimulta‐neouslymade several structural changes to in‐crease ef iciency and reduce smoke productionduringcooking.Changeisincremental,andsoitis important to recognize the hesitancy thesewomen have when new ICS designs are pro‐posed. Our team has found an appreciation fortheavailabilityanduseoflocalmaterialsaswellas staying cost sensitive. While the stove is anew design, it is still identi iable as a “chulha”.Based on our testing feedback, the women en‐joyed the continual use of traditionalmud and

dung,andonlyhadcriticismswithsmallcosmet‐icaspects.Although traditional practices can continuebeing respected, the most important questionmustbeanswered tocompletelydetermine thesuccessofourICSbeing implemented:whatin‐centivedothesewomenhavetoadoptourICS?Thisprojectwasgroundedonthenotionthataredesignedcookstoveisnecessaryforwomen’shealth.Whilethescienceintheliteraturereviewsupportsthis,ourstakeholdershavenot identi‐ieditasacriticalissue.Our indingsaroundre‐ported health effects were underreported andvague. Speci ically, therewas a low percentageof households that expressed having health is‐suesrelatedtolong‐termexposure.However,inanother question focused on problems withtheir current cooking practice,many of the re‐sponses indicated their top issue was health‐related.Basedonthis,webelievewemayhaveeither encountered an issue with the languagebarrier or our participants did not recognizecertain symptoms as actual health issues. Ourteam has only collected self‐reported medicaldata,andthus,answerstothisquestionmaynotbeaccurate.These results raise thequestionofwhetherornot an improvedhealthbene it canbeseenasanincentivetothem.However,itap‐pearsfromthelackofreactiontopromptsabouthealth that this isnota goodenough reason tochangetheircurrentcookingmethod.Moving forward to ind a key incentive, wecompared toxic gas level readings between thetraditionalstoveandourICS.Theresultsshowasigni icantchangewithabouta50%difference

Figure15.StoveduringCooking(Zhang,2016)

fromthetraditionalstovereadings.Thoughthegas level exposure has decreased substantially,this data has no bearing on local adoption.Wepredictthiskindofawarenesswilldevelopmoregraduallyovertimeasinterestinglyenough,weinterviewedadoctorduringourbaselineassess‐mentwhoexpressed concernsabout theharm‐ful health effects associated with long‐termsmoke exposure. He built a rudimentary chim‐ney to try to alleviate this issue, and some ofthese chimneys have been implemented inhomesaroundthearea.Although his word‐of‐mouth approach tospread awareness about the harmful effects iscommendable,itmaytakeyearsforthesewom‐en to actually value this information. For now,the two incentives that seem to resonate withthewomenarebetterfuelef iciencyandalesseramount of smoke produced during cooking.Womenwerepersistentwiththeirrequestforacook stove that could burn less irewood andproduce less smoke. The results from our ICSshowthepotentialtomeetthesetwoattributes.Ouroverall ieldtestresultswereoverwhelm‐ing positive. All of the women who tested ourprototype shared their enthusiasm to use ourICSandevenvoicedtheywouldbewillingtopayfor this ICS to be implemented in their homes.Theywereextremelyimpressedwithourdesignas itwasable to incorporateasolution to theirtwotopissueswhilestillmaintainingtraditionalfunctionandform.

Project Outcomes Prototype Recommendations Due to time restraints,we recommend test‐ingourprototypeinavillagehomeforaperiodof several weeks. This will provide a proof ofconcept prototype that will gauge if it can beadoptedovertime.Theprototypewouldneedtobebuilttoexactlocalspeci icationswithachim‐ney ittedtotheroof.Other recommendations include adding aneighth‐portion of cement to the cow dung anddirt mixture to prevent cracks from formingduring the drying period. Cement will also re‐duce the maintenance frequency as it will notcrackordegradeasquicklyasthedirtandcowdungmixturewill.Furthermore,werecommendaddingadampertothesidepipetomoreeasilyopenandclosethesidepipewhenneeded.Theside pipe must remain horizontal without abendoran“L”shapeinordertoproperly func‐tion as a chimney damper. A bend would dis‐tract the pulling of air in and thus damage thebackpipe’sperformance.When constructing the chimney, we recom‐mend using a lat metal sheet as themeans ofattachmenttotheroof.Inthecaseofthetypicalhousehold slate roo ing, one slatewouldbe re‐placedwiththismetalsheet.Tosecurethepipe,a hole should be cut in the sheet that is to theexactdimensionsof thepipe. It is important torun the pipe through the hole and weld it inplace so that it its tightly in the metal sheet.Drill holes through the pipe above the metalsheettoallowforsmoketoescapeandcoverthetopofthepipebyweldinganadditionalpieceof

metal sheet to it andaddingametal “cap” (seeFigure 16). This top cover prevents rain fromentering the chimney and protects the stovefromweather.Thepipeshouldbeinstalledinanarea that is away from lammable items as the

chimneybecomeextremelyhotduringcooking.When cooking, our teamsuggests opening the sidepipe to promote air low inand thus reduce theamount of smoke leavingfrom the front opening.Af‐tercooking,werecommendclosing the front openingwith a mud‐coated thinsteelsheetandcoveringthesidepipe.Bydoingthis,thesmoke will be directed upthrough the top pipe andoutofthehouse.Our design calls foryearly maintenance in or‐

der to prevent potential house ires. The chim‐neypipeshouldberemovedfromboththesideand back top once a year. It is recommendedthat both pipes be properly swept out with asteelbrushtoclearoutanybuilt‐upsoot.After,the pipes can be put back into the stove struc‐tureandmudcanbereapplied.

Figure16.:Chimney“Cap”(Codding,2016)

Construction Pamphlet InorderforfutureresidentsoftheMandire‐gion to be able to build their own cook stovewith the design of our ICS prototype, we havecreated an instructional pamphlet. This pam‐phletcontainsalistofthenecessarymaterials, step‐by‐stepinstructionswithamplevisualaids,maintenance information, and a gas exposurehealthfact.Thepamphlet,whichcanbefoundinthe Supplementary Materials on the WPI IQPsite, was written in both an English and Hindiversion.

Conclusion Ultimately, while our indings and recom‐mendations appear to take a step back fromnewly proposed cook stove innovations, welearned that modern stove advancements willnot be adoptedwithout incremental steps thatcan bridge the two extremes. Thus, our teamstressestheimportanceofcontinuingtradition‐alconstructionmethodsandfueluseforourICSdesign.Incorporatingthesetwokeyaspectsintofuture ICSdesigns is signi icant for the gradualprogression of improving traditional cookingpractices. These themeswere the primary pas‐sions of the village residents, as found by ourinitial interviews, and remained as two of themostpraised aspectsof our ICSprototypedur‐ing stakeholder testing.While the goals of thisICSistoreducesmokeproductionandincreaseheat ef iciency for the immediate bene its oflessmaintenance,fuel,andcooktimes,thesearein actuality the perfectways to decrease expo‐sure to theproduced toxicgases,and therefore

improveoverallhealthoftheexposedfamiliesintheHimachalPradeshregion.

Acknowledgements Our teamwould like to thank the followingindividuals for theirsigni icantcontributionstotheproject: Dr.IngridShockeyfortheuseofherperson‐

alwokintestingourprototype Dr.RajeshGhosh for his engineering exper‐

tiseindevelopingourprototypedesign Dr. StephenMcCauley, Dr. Rik Rani Koner,

andDr.RamnaThakur, for theircontinuousguidanceandsupportfortheproject

Bhagchand(IITStaff)forhistutorialintradi‐tionalconstructionmaterialsandmethods

Pawan&Family for their interestandhelp‐fulnessinourbaselineassessments

IIT‐Mandi Female Security Guards for theirtimetotestandgivevaluablefeedback

IIT‐Mandi Mechanical Department for con‐tinuouslypreparingourmaterialsasneeded

Thefullreportandsupplementalmaterialsforthisproject(rawdata,relevantcasestudies,theinstructionpamphlet,andadditionalresources)canbefoundusingkeywordsfromourprojecttitleathttp://www.wpi.edu/E-project-db/E-project-search/searchandfurtherinformationcanbefoundattheIIT’sISTPpage:http://www.iitmandi.ac.in/istp/projects.html

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Bensch,G.,&Peters,J.(2012).Arecipeforsuccess?RandomizedfreedistributionofimprovedcookstovesinSenegal.RandomizedFreeDistributionofImprovedCookstovesinSenegal(March1,2012).

CensusofIndia2001.(n.d.).VillageMapsofIndia.Re‐trievedMarch21,2016,fromhttp://villagemap.in/

Clark,M.L.,Peel,J.L.,Balakrishnan,K.,Breysse,P.N.,Chillrud,S.N.,Naeher,L.P.,...Balbus,J.M.(2013).Healthandhouseholdairpollutionfromsolidfueluse:theneedforimprovedexposureassessment.Environmentalhealthperspectives,121,1120-1128.

EnvironmentalProtectionAgency.(2015,September15).ParticulateMatter|Air&Radiation|USEPA.RetrievedFebruary06,2016,fromhttp://www3.epa.gov/pm/

Epstein,M.B.,Bates,M.N.,Arora,N.K.,Balakrishnan,K.,Jack,D.W.,&Smith,K.R.(2013).Householdfuels,lowbirthweight,andneonataldeathinIn‐dia:Theseparateimpactsofbiomass,kerosene,andcoal.Internationaljournalofhygieneandenvi-ronmentalhealth,216(5),523-532.

Jetter,J.,Zhao,Y.,Smith,K.R.,Khan,B.,Yelverton,T.,DeCarlo,P.,&Hays,M.D.(2012).Pollutantemis‐sionsandenergyef iciencyundercontrolledcon‐ditionsforhouseholdbiomasscookstovesand

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Muralidharan,V.,Sussan,T.E.,Limaye,S.,Koehler,K.,Williams,D.,Rule,A.M.,...&Biswal,S.(2015).FieldtestingofalternativecookstoveperformanceinaruralsettingofWesternIndia.Internationaljournalofenvironmentalresearchandpublichealth,12(2),1773-1787.

NICHimachalPradesh.(2015,February11).Geogra‐phy.RetrievedFebruary05,2016,fromGeogra‐phy.(2015,February11).RetrievedFebruary05,2016,fromhttp://himachal.gov.in/index1.php?lang=1

Parikh,J.(2011).Hardshipsandhealthimpactsonwomenduetotraditionalcookingfuels:AcasestudyofHimachalPradesh,India.EnergyPolicy,39(12),7587‐7594.

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Project 3 Title


Improving Healthcare Coordination in the Mandi District

Abstract

Rural healthcareworkers in theMandi District face unique chal‐lengesinprovidingqualitycareduetomountainousterrainandlackofsupplies.Thisprojectevaluatedtheexistingsystemofcommuni‐cationbetweenhealthcentersandidenti iedareas inwhichthesys‐temcouldbeimprovedtomitigatetheeffectsofthesechallenges.Werecommendedanewsystemformedicalstockrequestsanddeliverieswhich could decrease delays by up to ifteen days and ultimatelyimprovethequalityofcareforpatients.


Team Members:

GopalAggarwal,IIT

EdwardDring,WPI

NamanGupta,IIT

VictoriaJohnson,WPI

JacobMaalouf,WPI

Advisors:

Dr.VarunDutt,IIT


Dr.PadmanabanRajan,IIT


Enhancing Communication in the Mandi District Health System Ruralcommunitiesaroundtheworldchar‐acteristically struggle to administer healthcarethatmatchesthestandardssetinurbanizedare‐as due to a lack of resources, in terms of bothpersonnel and procedural capabilities. Thesechallengestendtobeexplainedbylimitedfund‐ing,geographicinaccessibility,andthecomplexi‐tyofdiseasepatterns(seeFigure1).TheMandiDistrict in Himachal Pradesh of Northern Indiaexperiences all of the challenges of ruralhealthcare,exacerbatedbythemountainouster‐rain and uneven connectivity in the state.

Thegoalofourprojectwastosupportthede‐velopment of new communication systems forfacilitatingcoordinationbetweenhealthcentersintheKatualablock.Inthisway,patientrecordsandmedical supply inventories could be bettermaintained andbetter transferredbetweendif‐ferent tiers of the public healthcare system intheMandiDistrict.Thiswouldcutdownonwaittimesandtheneedtorepeatprocedures,aswellasoptimizingtheavailabilityofmedicalstock. Toachieveourgoal,wecompleted threeobjec‐tives.First,weexaminedstakeholderneedsandtechnical capacity, including critical gaps in theexistingnetwork.Thishelpedusunderstandthebaselinecommunicationsystemthateachcenter

had. Second,we identi ied and ranked possiblecommunicationsolutionsintermsofcost,feasibility, and effectiveness. Lastly, we devel‐opedandtestedaproofofconceptsoftwareso‐lution tobe implemented in thehealthcaresys‐tem, and generated recommendations for fur‐ther improvement of communication inhealthcare.

Challenges in Rural Healthcare There are multiple documented discrepan‐ciesbetweenurbanandruralareaswithregardstohealthcareadministration.In2015,ateamofstudentsfromtheIndianInstituteofTechnologyin Mandi and Worcester Polytechnic Instituteassessed theprimaryobstacles tohealthcare intheMandiDistrict(Gaubaetal.,2015).Theteamassessedmultiplehealthcarefacilities, includingtheZonalHospitalMandiandanextensivenet‐workcontainingmultiplesub‐centerswithinthemedical block of Kataula,whichwas ultimatelymapped. By developing and implementing a RuralHealthcare Assessment Model, the Gauba et al.projectteamidenti iedthreecriticalbottlenecksto healthcare administration in the region. Theirstbottleneckwas inhibitedphysicalaccesstofacilitiesduetochallengingmountainousterraincoupled with poor road quality, an example ofwhich canbe seen inFigure2.The secondbot‐tleneckwasrelatedtolimitedsuppliesandmed‐ication due to sporadic delivery schedules andpoor access, leading to high delivery costs. Thethirdbottleneckwaslimitedaccesstowell‐

Figure1.HealthcarebottlenecksinMandiDistrict(adaptedfromGauba,etal.,2015).

trainedspecialists,especiallyatthesmaller,un‐derstaffedsub‐centers.Thesebottleneckscouldbe overcome through increased coordination,suchas improvedcommunication,organization,andhealthcareportabilitysolutions.

Figure2.Picture showing theremote locationoftheBalmandsub-center(Gauba,etal.,2015).

Partiallyduetobottlenecksthatrestrictruralhealthcare, serious discrepancies exist in thequality of healthcare between rural and urbanareas.Forexample,inthecaseofroadaccidents,

thehigherdeathrate in ruralareassuchasHi‐machalisafunctionof“lackof irstaid,delaysintransfer of patients, longer time interval be‐tween injuryand reachingade initivehospital,absenceoftriage,[anda]lackoffacilitiesinhos‐pitals” (Gururaj, 2008). Similarly, 85% of pre‐ventabledeathsduetodiseasessuchasdiarrheaandpneumoniaoccur inruralareas,suggestingthat “themajority of care for these children, ifany, was provided locally and likely by thoselacking comprehensive health training” (Morriset al., 2011). These indings highlight the needfor more ef icient communication systemswhichcouldbettermanageinventoriesofantibi‐otics and other supplies, or could facilitate thetransfer of patients between hospitals. There are a variety of key stakeholders in‐vested in the implementation of an improvedhealth coordination systemwithin the Kamandand Mandi region. The most invested arehealthcareproviders, includingof icials suchasthe Chief of Medicine, doctors, and clinic staff.Healthcare staff face challengesmaintaining in‐ventoriesofsupplies,storingpatients’histories,and transferring patient information betweenhealthcare tiers. Patients are also importantstakeholders, as coordination can have directimpactsontheirqualityofcare.Thereareoftenlongwaits at health centers because staffmustcollectthesameinformationateachvisitduetolack of communication, which leads to wastedtime and possible endangerment of patienthealth. A2008casestudyinruralSouthAfricafoundthat rural clinics often struggle to maintain,

transfer,andusepatientinformation(Garribet.al., 2008). The researchers analyzed quality ofthedataenteredintoanewlyimplementedDis‐trictHealth InformationSystemin tendifferenthealthcarefacilities.Theresultsindicatedahighperceived work burden of data collection andentering.Therewasfrequentlymissingdataandlittle explanations for abnormal data values,alongwithlimiteduseofthedata.Ifasystemisnot intuitive, itsuserswillnotusetheprogramfeaturestheydonotknoworcaretouse.Theseindings helped us design a system that is notonly user friendly, but useful to differenthealthcareadministrationlevelsinruralareasofHimachalPradesh. A2011casestudyinHimachalPradeshcom‐pared and contrasted twodifferentmethods ofdevelopingaHealthInformationSystem,orHIS(Oygard&Valland,2011).Opensourcesoftware(OSS)developmentinvolvesmultiplecompaniesandindividualscollaboratingtobuildconstantlyevolving free software, allowing developers tomodify the code of existing, freely available in‐frastructure to aid implementation within spe‐ci icsettings.Itsmainlimitationisthat,insomecases, a HIS may have to be designed fromscratch toadapt toanespeciallyuniquesetting(Oygard & Valland, 2011). The second methodoutlined is known as Agile Software Develop‐ment, which places high emphasis upon light‐weight development methods, lexibility andrapid response to changing environments. Per‐sonalcommunicationandconstantcontactwithstakeholdersisalsoamajorpartofAgilephilos‐ophy.Thesecharacteristicsarehighlydesirable

with regards toHIS development, as the needsofmedicalfacilitieschangeconstantly(Oygard&Valland, 2011). The comparative informationoutlined in this case study helped guide ourchoiceofsoftwaredevelopmentmethodologyinthelaterstagesofourproject.

Methodology: Understand-ing Existing Infrastructure Inordertosupportthedevelopmentofanewsoftware for facilitating communication be‐tween healthcare providers, we achieved thethreeobjectivesshowninTable1.Westartedour interviewswith informalvis‐itstotheclinicontheIITcampusandtheZonalHospital Mandi to gather basic contact infor‐

mation for the health centers, as well asgeneral information about the health sys‐temandneedforimprovedcommunication.Post‐interview translation of voice record‐ingsintoEnglishtranscriptswas irstused,but then simultaneous translation wasadoptedtoincludeallteammembersintheinterview. We then conducted interviewswith doctors and staff at health centersfromfourtiers(sub‐centers,primaryhealthcenters, community health centers, andzonal hospitals) to assess their technicalcapacities, perceptions of communicationproblems, and thoughts on possible solu‐tions.OurprimaryfocuswasontheKataulamedical block (shown in Figure 3) whichincludes the Zonal Hospital Mandi, theKataulaCommunityHealthCenter,andsev‐

en sub‐centers located in thevillagesofTandu,Taryambli,Riyagri,Kamand,Tihri,Namlay, andBalmand. We also conducted interviews at thePadharCommunityHealthCenterandthePhaliPrimary Health Center to assess how repre‐sentative communication within the Kataulablock is of other medical blocks in the MandiDistrict. Together, these eleven chosen healthcentersgaveusagoodrepresentationofthedif‐ferentinteractionsbetweenthefourtiers.

Objectives Methods

Determinestakeholderneedsandtechnicalcapacity,includingcriticalgapsintheexistingnetwork

Siteassessment

Semi‐standardizedinterviews

Identifyandrankcommunicationsolutionsintermsofcost,feasibilityandeffectiveness

Feasibilityanalysis

Solutionselection

Developandtestaproofofconceptforacommunica‐tionsolutioninthehealthcaresystem

Softwaredevelopment

Feedbackcollection

Table1.Objectivesandassociatedstrategies.

Figure3.MapshowinghealthcareinfrastructureoftheKatualablockintheMandiDistrict.

Apictureofourteamconductinginterviewscanbe seen in Figure 4. The results of the interviews were used todetermine sub‐center technical capacity, allow‐ingus toconducta feasibilityanalysisofpossi‐blecommunicationssystemsbasedonwhattheexistinginfrastructurecouldsupport.Aspectsoftheexistingsystemswerealsoanalyzedinordertodeterminetheareawiththegreatestneedforimprovement.Usingthisinformation,anappro‐priatecommunicationsystemwasselected.Sys‐temrequirementsanddesign,aswellasallnec‐essarymaterials,werecompiledinasingledoc‐umenttofacilitatethedevelopmentprocess.Af‐terdevelopmentofaprototype,thesystemwasintroducedtotheDistrictProgramOf icerattheZonal HospitalMandi to obtain feedback about

the system and suggestions for improvements.Final recommendations were compiled for thedevelopment of future government programs

relatedtohealthcarecommunication. Results Completing interviews at the eleven healthcenter locations helped our team determinewhat needs and capacities the stakeholdershave.We also learned about the low of infor‐mation and supplies between the fourhealthcaretiers. Healthcare Infrastructure in the Mandi District Sub‐centers are the smallestunit of the healthcare hierarchyandthe irstpointofcontactwiththe system for most of the com‐munity,followedbylargerprima‐ryandcommunityhealthcenters,all of which are overseen by themain zonal hospital. Each of theseven sub‐centers within theKataula medical block serves apopulation ranging from 800 toover 3,000 residents. They areeach staffed by a male and a fe‐malehealthworker.IntheMandiDistrict as a whole, there are 311 sub‐centers,servedby61primaryhealthcenters,13commu‐nityhealthcenters,and6hospitals. Patient Care in Sub-Centers Healthcentersfallundertwomaincategories,preventativeandcurative.Throughinterviewinghealthworkers in theMandi District, our teamdiscovered that basic sub‐centers only providepreventativecare,withlimited irstaidcapabili‐

ties.As statedby theDistrict ProgramsOf icer,Mrs. Anuradha Sharma, “The sub‐centers arebasically focused on preventative… they lookafter programs like immunization, family plan‐ning, tuberculosis andmalaria eradication, andothervectorbornediseases.”Forcurativecare,patientsmustgotothehigher levelhealthcen‐ters like the Kataula Community Health Center(CHC) and the Zonal Hospital Mandi (ZH),showninFigure5.

Out of the seven sub‐centers where inter‐viewswereconducted,noneofthehealthwork‐ers at any location said that referral slipswereused.Onaverage,onlyonepatientpermonthisreferred toahigherhealthcenter.This referralprocessiseitherdonethroughcallingthehigherlevelcenter towarnthatapatient iscomingornot communicated at all. Most patients under‐standthatthesub‐centersareunabletoprovide

Figure4.ConductinginterviewsinNeri.

Figure5.TheZonalHospitalMandi.

curativecareandtraveltoalargerhealthcenterwithout irststoppingatthelowestlevel. Medical Stock Information Sub‐centersmaintain stocksof simplemedi‐cines and supplies to attend to preventativeneeds and minor ailments. These supplies in‐clude mild painkillers, vitamins, cold medica‐tions, TB immunizations, and irst aid suppliessuchaswoundcleanersanddressing.The sub‐centers are supplied with medical stock fromhigherrankedmedicalcenters, lowingfromtheZH to the CHC before continuing to the sub‐centers as shown in Figure 6 below.Six out of the seven sub‐centers interviewed

reportedthattheyreceivestockfromtheKatau‐laCHC,theexceptionbeingTandu,wherestockisreceiveddirectlyfromtheZHduetoitscloseproximity(seeFigure6).Theprocessofrestock‐ingbeginsinamonthlymeetinginwhichwork‐ers from all seven sub‐centers travel to theirhigher‐tier center and request necessary stockasrecordedinahandwrittenstockregister.Thisrequirement of a scheduled in‐person meetingsometimes causes delays of up to 15 days be‐tweenanapparentneedinasub‐centerandthenoti ication of a higher‐tier center. Allsub‐centersalsoreportedfrequentdelaysin restocking between 5 and 14 days after this

monthly meeting. However, none of the sub‐centersreportedthatstockshortageshappenedbecauseofdelaysfromtheCHC;onesub‐centerworked indicated the issue was with back‐endsupply,sayingthat“...[theCHCs]haveastorageproblem,sotheytrytogetthestockoutassoonastheycan…[but]itcouldhappenthatthereisadelay from the ZH to the CHC.” This was con‐irmed by a health worker staf ing a differentsub‐center, who reported that “...many timessupply does not come. But if the ZH has stock,then we are supplied immediately.” InterviewsattheCHCKataularevealedthattheyhaveave‐hiclewhichisusedtopickupsuppliesfromtheZH. Another sub‐center worker indicated thatdelays could be reduced if stock was supplieddirectlyfromtheZHratherthanhavingtheCHCas a middleman, because occasionally she can‐not attend the monthly restocking meeting toavoidthesub‐centerbeingunstaffed. Financial & Technical Capacity Each sub‐center has a bank account and issupplied with an annual maintenance grant ofRs10,000everytwoyears.Thisgrantcanbeuti‐lized for general sub‐center maintenance suchas purchasing chairs or equipment. Medicalstock is paid for by the Zonal Hospital inmostcases. If there is an urgent need and stock hasyet to be resupplied, the sub‐centers also re‐ceive an untied fund to buy medical suppliesfrom government authorized stores. The technical capacities of the sub‐centerswererecordedandareshowninFigure7.Eachsub‐centerhealthworkerissuppliedbythegov‐ernmentwithabasicNokiaC1‐01cellphone,

Figure6.Coordinationchartrepresentingthe lowofmedicalstockintheKataulablock.

capableoftalkandtext.Eachmonth,eachhealthworkerissuppliedwithaRs50rechargeforthismobiledevice.Oneof thehealthworkers,how‐ever, said that he uses his own money to re‐chargethisphonebecauseitisatediousprocessto obtain the rechargemoney andRs 50 is notenoughtomakeitthrougheachmonth.Allsev‐en of the sub‐centers have cellular service forvoicecallingandtext,butthemostremotesub‐centers sometimes have dif iculty connectingwell.Becausethesub‐centersdonothaverelia‐bleaccesstotheinternet,theyarenotsuppliedwithsmartphones,tablets,orcomputers.Evenifinternetaccessandcomputerswerepresent,thesub‐centers often have power outages of 1‐5hoursperweek;theseoutagesbeingworsedur‐ingthesummermonthsandvery frequentdur‐ingstorms.

Discussion The results of the interviews conducted re‐vealedtrendsinhealthworkerperceptionsandconnectivityissuesofthecurrentsystem.

Health Worker Perceptions Sub‐center health workers indicated that asystem to forward patient records to highertiered health centers would not be necessarybecause patients usually know they should godirectlytotheKataulaCHCorMandiZonalHos‐pital if they have an ailment that is seriousenough to require testing. Although most sub‐center staff showed no appreciable need for apatientrecord‐keepingsystem,theydidindicatemoreofan issuewithregardstomedicalstock.Currently, a lack of electronic communicationcancausedelaysinnoti icationofstockexhaus‐tion,preventingsub‐centersfromprovidingad‐equate care. Six of the seven sub‐centers inter‐viewed believed that improvements to the re‐stocking system would be a positive change.From this trend,we focused our project on in‐creasing communication and coordination sur‐roundingmedicalstockbetweentiers. Connectivity and Technology Duetomajorconnectivity issuesand lackingtechnology, the range of solutions that can beimplementedareseverelylimited.Ifbettertech‐nicalinfrastructurewasavailabletosub‐centers,thefeasibilityofself‐entryofdataonlinewouldbe higher. However, due to poor cellular dataconnectivity, an online data system might stillfail. From utilizing our own phones as ameas‐urement,onlytwoofthesevensub‐centershadacellularnetworkstrongenoughtosupport3Gorhigherdatabrowsing.Theoveralltrendseenin the sub‐centers is that implementingsmartphones,tablets,orcomputersisnotfeasi‐ble, although government involvement in thecomingyearsmay increase their capacity todo

so.

Project Outcomes Our indings indicated that insuf iciencies inthecommunicationsystembetweenhealthcen‐ters create a burden for health workers, ulti‐mately detracting from the quality of patientcare. To address these issues, we developed anumber of recommendations for the govern‐ment and theDistrict ProgramOf icer thatwillstreamline the process of restocking medicalsupplies. These recommendations are basedaround theadoptionof a systemwedevelopedtoreducedelays innotifyingtheZonalHospitalof stock needs, coupled with future improve‐mentstothesystem. Visual Stock Indicator System To decrease the delay in restockingmedicalsupplies to sub‐centers, we propose the adop‐tion of a Visual Stock Indicator System (VSIS).Such a system would allow workers at sub‐centers to convey their need for medical sup‐plies via a textmessage sent to a server at theZonalHospitalMandi,whichoperateseffectivelyon the existing telecommunications networkwiththeworkers'government‐providedphones.Thesemessageswould be received by the sys‐tem and translated into LED indications on amap locatedat theZonalHospitalandCHCs. Inthe initial prototype, green is a normal indica‐tion.Red indicates anunanswered stock short‐age and request, and yellow indicates that theorderisavailableattheCHC.Whenthestatusof

Figure7.Numberofsub-centerswithvariouskindsoftechnicalcapacity.

asub‐centerischangedtoyellow,anautomatedSMSwillbesenttoupdatethesub‐centerwork‐er. Speci ic details about the stock requestwould be visible on a website based interface,whichwouldbeopenonthepharmacist'scom‐puter.WorkersattheZonalHospitalwouldthenbe able to purchase medical supplies if neces‐sary and notify the sub‐centers directly whentheir stock is available for pick‐up. A workingprototype of the VSIS system can be seen inFigure8.The implementation of a VSIS would conferseveral bene its to the medical stock resupplysystem. Primarily, it would eliminate delayscaused by the current process of notifying thatstock is running out, as sub‐centers would beabletoimmediatelycommunicatetheirneedin‐steadofwaitingforamonthlymeetingtodoso.It would also allow sub‐centers to contact theZonal Hospital directly, removing the delaycaused by communication from the CHC to theZonalHospital. These two improvements couldprevent delays of 15 days between the realiza‐tionoftheneedformoresuppliesandthenoti i‐cationoftheZonalHospital,andcouldeliminatetheneedforasub‐centerworkertospendadaytravellingtoreportstockneeds.Thebene itsofthissystemwouldcomeatnoadditionalcosttosub‐centers, as they already have government‐provided cell phones. The cost of initial imple‐mentation at the Zonal Hospital and KataulaCHCwouldberoughlyRs3843each(about$57‐ see Table 2). Costs to maintain the systemonce installed would be minimal. The physicalcomponentthatwouldbemostlikelytofailare

theLED indicators andwires,whichwouldnotbeexpensivetoreplaceiftheyfailed.Weevaluatedthepossibilityofmoresimplis‐tic and direct means of communicating stockneeds, such as direct texting or phone calls topersonnel at the ZH. The light‐board wouldserveasamorepersistentremindertoZHper‐sonnel, as the LED would remain illuminateduntilactionistaken,whereassimpletextingisaone‐time noti ication and easy to forget. Thesystemalsopresents the information inamorestandardized and organized fashion. Given thedoublingof3GusageinIndiafrom2014to2015(Nokia, 2015), it is likely that 3G cellular datawill soon become available at sub‐centers notpresently covered.Thiswouldallow for expan‐sion of the light‐board system to a digitizedsmartphone or tablet system. Our SMS‐basedsystemwouldthereforeserveasaninitialphaseinimprovingstockcommunication,allowingthehealthcentersandworkerstodeveloporganiza‐tional practices based on direct messaging. Amobileappformatwouldultimatelyserveasa

Figure8.PhotographofVSISprototypeshowingstockoutagesatTihri,Triyambli,andKamandsub-centers,withrelevantwebsiteoutput.

PartDescription EstimatedCost(Rs) 2AC/DCPowerAdapters

340

30Wires 90 8MulticoloredLEDBulbs

48

MapandBox 65 GSMModule 800 RaspberryPi 2500 EstimatedTotal 3843

Table2.EstimatedtotalcostofimplementationforaVSIS.

more user‐friendly, long‐term solution, capableof providing a greater degree of two‐way com‐municationoncethereissuf icientcellularinfra‐structuretosupport it.Onceconsistent3Gcov‐erageisavailable,itwouldbeasimpletransitionto have a 3G based mobile app send stock re‐queststothealreadyimplementedhardware. Additional Policy Recommendations InadditiontotheimplementationofVSIS,werecommend adaptations to the current systemof stock low in theKataulablock.Upon imple‐mentationofVSIS, stock requests shouldgodi‐rectlytotheZHratherthantotheCHC.ThiswillensurethatrequestsarriveattheZHasearlyaspossible,allowingthemtoorderbackstockinatimelymannerifitisnotavailableandreducingcommon delays associatedwith the ZH lackingsupplies.

Once the ZH orders back‐stock (as required)andsetsasidetheorder,theCHCshouldsendavehicle topickup thestock,whichwill thenbeappropriately distributed. If a sub‐center ur‐gently needs supplies, the CHC should deliverstock directly to the sub‐center; otherwise, theorders can be set aside to be picked up by thesub‐centerhealthworkerattheirmonthlymeet‐ings. It ispossible thatastock‐out light illumi‐nated for a long period of time will lose rele‐vance to the pharmacist in charge. In order toalleviatetheriskofoverlookedrequests, futurefeaturesofthesystemcouldincludeanautomat‐ed series of text reminders to the pharmacistaftertwoweeks.

Conclusion Our interviews with health care workers intheMandiDistrictrevealedseveralareasofpos‐sible improvement in the communication sys‐temsbetweenhealth centers that are currentlyin place. These shortcomings include the needformanualtransmissionofstatisticaldatafromsub‐centerstohighertiersofhealthcareandde‐laysintherestockingofmedicalsupplies.Basedonthetechnicalcapacityofthesesub‐centersasdetermined by our interviews, we found thatimprovements in the stock resupply systemwould be themost feasible solution, and theseimprovements were also perceived to be themost useful by health workers. Therefore, wedesignedaVisualStockIndicatorSystemforuseintheMandiDistrict. TheVSISwill allow sub‐center healthwork‐ers to immediately notify the Zonal Hospital

when they are in need ofmedical supplies, re‐ducing delays in restocking and monthly clo‐sures of health centers for travel.We also pro‐posed streamlining the process of illing stockordersbyeliminating theCHCasamiddleman,andbyprovidingapharmacistattheZHspeci i‐cally dedicated to responding to requests com‐ing through the VSIS. Together, these recom‐mendations will facilitate the communicationbetween different health centers in the MandiDistrict,improvingtheavailabilityandqualityofhealthcareforitsresidents.AcknowledgementsWewould like to thank the followingpeopleandorganizationsfortheircontributionstoourproject: TheWorcesterPolytechnic Instituteandthe

Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi forproviding us the opportunity andmeans tocompletethisproject.

All of the students, faculty and staff at theIndian Institute of Technology, Mandi fortheiroutstandinghospitalityandhelpfulnessduringourstay.

Our advisors: Dr. Varun Dutt, Dr. StephenMcCauley, Dr. Padmanaban Rajan, and Dr.Ingrid Shockey for their guidance througheverystageofourproject.

Allofthehealthworkersateachsub‐centerandhospitalwevisitedfortheircooperationandkindnessduringinterviews.

Figure9.ReceivingfeedbackontheVSISattheKammandsub-center.

References

Garrib, A, Herbst, K, Dlamini, L, McKenzie, A, Stoops, N, Govender, T, &Rohde,J.(2008).AnevaluationoftheDistrictHealthInformationSysteminruralSouthAfrica.SAMJ:SouthAfricanMedicalJournal,98(7),549‐552. Gauba,P.,Kelly,P.W.,Maurya,D.,Porter,N.R.,&Santos, J.E. (2015).As-sessingPublicHealthcareInfrastructureintheKamandRegion.UnpublishedInteractiveQualifyingProject.WorcesterPolytechnicInstitute. Gururaj,G.(2008).Roadtraf icdeaths,injuriesanddisabilitiesinIndia:cur‐rentscenario.NationalMedicalJournalofIndia,21(1),14. Morris,S.K.etal.(2011).Diarrhea,Pneumonia,andInfectiousDiseaseMor‐tality inChildrenAged5 to14Years in India.PLoSONE,6(5),e20119.Re‐trievedfromhttp://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020119 Nokia,.(2015).IndiaMobileBroadbandIndex2015.Gurgaon:Nokia. Oygard,O.P.&Valland,S.(2011).Opensource,distributedISdevelopment:a studyof thedevelopmentand implementationofaHIS in India.Norwe-gianUniversityofScienceandTechnology.

The full report and supplemental materials for this project can be found at

http://www.wpi.edu/E-project-db/E-project-search/search,

using keywords from the project title.

Additional information will also appear on the IIT’s ISTP page which can be found at http://www.iitmandi.ac.in/istp/projects.html

Investigating Solar Street Lights in Mandi and Kamand

Abstract

SolarstreetlightsareinstalledthroughoutHimachalPradesh,Indiatopromotesmall‐scalesolar,butmanyarebroken.Wedisassembledlightsandconductedinterviewswithresidentsandexpertstounder‐standtherelevantfactors, indingthatthestreetlightprogramsuffersfrominadequatemaintenanceandthatsolarisoftennotthebestlight‐ingchoice.Finally,wepilotedatrainingprogramforresidentstoper‐formlightdiagnosisanddevelopedanappropriatetechnologyrubricforselectingeveninglightingsolutionsforMandi’sslums.


Team Members:

NicolasAdami‐Sampson,WPI

NormaBachman,WPI

DeepikaChaudhry,IIT

KisnaMahajan,IIT

BenjaminMcMorran,WPI

Advisors:

Dr.KunalGhosh,IIT

Dr.AditiHalder,IIT



The cloudy state of small-scale solar in Himachal Pra-desh Solar powered street lights have been in‐stalledthroughoutHimachalPradeshbytheHi‐machal Pradesh Energy Development Agency(HIMURJA).Installationsrangefromsmall‐scalevillagesettingstourbanizedcenterssuchasthetownofMandi.Theselightsareusefulsincetheyoperateevenifthelocalgridisdown,canbein‐stalledinremoteareas,andpromoteenergyre‐siliencewithin a community. However, as seeninFigure1,manysolarlightshavebeenindisre‐pair for years. Thismay contribute to loweredcommunity appreciation of solar technology.Understanding how they are maintained, whythese lights fail, and how residents perceivetheirusefulnessiskeyforassessingthebene itscommunitiesreceivefromsolarstreetlightsandpossibly for the future adoption of small‐scalesolarintheregion.The state of Himachal Pradesh wants to in‐creasetheuseofsolarpower,butadoptionhasbeen slow.While there are a few communitiesthat donot have adequate electricity, 99.7%ofvillages in Himachal Pradesh are connected tothe power grid (Central Electricity Authority,2015B).Over75%ofthispowerisderivedfromhydroelectric sources (Central Electricity Au‐thority, 2015A). While the abundance and re‐newablenatureofhydroelectricpowermake itanattractiveoption,infrastructuredevelopmenthas resulted in community displacement, envi‐ronmental damage, frequent blasting, and geo‐

graphically consolidated power generation(TimesofIndia,2013;Thukur,2015).

Recognizing these vulnerabilities, HimachalPradesh has developed a solar power policy todiversify its energy supply. Solar panelsdonothavethegeographicrestrictionsassociatedwithhydroelectric power generation, and can beused anywhere with ample sunlight. Even at asmallscale,solarsystemscanbolsterenergyre‐siliencewithincommunitiesandreducedepend‐enceonanyonesource.Small‐scalesystemslikestreet lights provide potential for building ca‐pacity within the community for maintenanceand repair, reducing reliance on external andoften unreliable government services. Commu‐nities and government both play a role in thedevelopment of small‐scale solar systems. Ourresearch focused on understanding the socialand technical factorsnecessary to improveandsupportthesesystems.

Solar systems in India: his-tory and progress Solarelectricsystemscangeneratepowerei‐ther indirectly with concentrated solar power(CSP) systems, which use the sun to generateheatanddriveaturbine,ordirectlywithphoto‐voltaic (PV) systems, which use the physicalpropertiesofsemiconductorstodirectlycreateavoltage(seeFigures2and3)(Singh,2013).Thelackofmovingparts, ruggeddesign, longeffec‐tive life, and modular nature of PV give thesesystems lowmaintenance costs and high relia‐bility, making solar ideal for off‐grid applica‐tions. Solar has also found uses on the electricgrid. Grid‐connected systems are becomingmorefeasibleastheproductioncostofPVpan‐elsdrops,butsolarpowerisstilltypicallymoreexpensive than electricity from conventionalsources.Theenergyconversionef iciencyofso‐larcellsistypicallyaround14‐19%,whilelargehydropowerinstallationslikethoseinHimachalPradeshcanbeasef icientas90%(Razykovetal.,2011;U.S.

Figure1.Abrokensolarstreetlightwithamissingbattery

Figure2.Parabolicmirrorsfocusthesunata50MWCSPinstallationinRajasthan,India(Pearson,2013)

Department of Interior, 2005). Nonetheless,there is rapidgrowthof30 to40%annually intheglobalPVindustry(Razykovetal.,2011).For India as a whole, the bene its of solarpoweroutweighthedrawbacks.In2010,thena‐tional government announced the JawaharlalNehruNationalSolarMission,aplantogrowIn‐dia’s solar power output from nearlynon‐existent to 20 gigawatts by 2022through a combination of on and off‐gridsystems.Themission identi iesso‐larasasecure,scalable,andrenewablealternative for India’s growing energyneeds (MinistryofNewandRenewableEnergy,2010).While solar is agood itforIndiaasawhole,thesituationislessclear in the state of Himachal Pradeshdue to plentiful cheap hydroelectricpower (see Figure 4). However, in its2014 solar power policy, the state rec‐ognizedtheenvironmentalconcernsas‐

sociatedwithhydroelectricpower,and that so‐lar is important “to reduce the vulnerability ofthe system” (GovernmentofHimachalPradesh,2014,p.3).Thisvulnerabilityextendstoindivid‐ual communities, which should be protectedfromrelianceonasinglesystem.HIMURJAsupportsthisdiversi icationbypro‐moting and popularizing new and renewablesourcesofenergyinthestate.OnecomponentoftheHIMURJAplanisthedistributionofsolarPVstreet light systems. As of 2014, there were44,338solarstreetlightsinthestate,alongwith22,586solarinteriorlightsand32,649solarlan‐terns(Singh,2014).Streetlightsarewidelydis‐tributed throughout the state, including in vil‐lages, along roadways, and in concentrated in‐stallationsaturbancenters.Thestreetlightsys‐temscanintroducecommunitiestosolarpower,and are a good it for regions that are“electri ied”buthaveunreliableorunstablegridconnections(Jainetal.,2015).

Whilesolarstreet lightsarewidely installed,theyarenotwellmaintained.Thismaybedueinparttoalackofplanningorperceptionofbene‐its among local residents. Recent reports indi‐cate that residents seem to lack knowledgeabout the full bene its of solar power, but areresponsivewhen informed (MercomCommuni‐cationsIndia,2014).Accordingtoonestudy,thegovernmenthasalsonotbeeninformativeaboutthe solar subsidies available to individuals(Kumar,2014).AnotherreportfromIndiafoundthatmore than70%of residential respondentsshowedsome favour towardssolarpanelswithnegligibleopposition,butalsothatrespondentsheldmanymisconceptionsaboutthetechnology(MercomCommunicationsIndia,2014).Withtheseissuesinmind,communityin‐volvementandacceptanceiskeyforsuccessfulimplementationofrenewabletechnologies.AcasestudywithresidentsofacommunityinGer‐manyindicatedthatparticipantsweremoreac‐

ceptingofnewtechnologyiftheywereac‐tivelyinvolvedintheentireimplementa‐tionprocessincollaborationwithlocalau‐thorities(Zoellner,Schweizer‐Ries,&Wemheuer,2008).Alackofcommunica‐tioncanresultinreducedqualityoflifeforresidentsby“undesiredchangesofthelandscape,bynoise,orbytransportis‐sues”(Zoellneretal.,2008,p.1).WhilethisreviewevaluatedGermanrespondents,manyoftheconcernsthatresidentsfaceareindependentofculturalandsocio‐economicconditions.Withoutpropercom‐municationbetweenstakeholders,Mandi

Figure3.A4MWPVinstallationinTamilNadu,India(WikimediaCommons)

Figure4.InstalledcapacityofpowerutilitiesinHima-chalPradesh(CentralElectricityAuthority,2015A)

norms, infrastructure, and reliability. In addi‐tion, stakeholders themselvesareoftencapableoflearninghowtoinstallandmaintainsolarsys‐tems,butsimplylackthetrainingtodoso.Bare‐foot College, a training institute in India, hasshown “that both illiterate and semi‐literatemen and women can fabricate, install, use, re‐pair and maintain sophisticated solar unitsthrough basic knowledge share and hands‐onpractical training” (Barefoot College, 2015).Teaching rural residents to perform mainte‐nance on their own better positions their re‐spective communities for reliable, sustainablesmall‐scalesolar.

Methodology: technical analysis and interviews Our goal for this project was to use solarstreet lights as a model for understanding thesocialand technical factors that impedecontin‐ued adoptionof small‐scale solar technology inHimachalPradesh.Webrokethisgoaldownintothree objectives with accompanying strategiesshowninFigure5.Isolated solar street light systems are cur‐rently installed in many locations throughoutthe region, including on the Indian Institute ofTechnology(IIT)Mandicampus,atseveraltem‐plesinManditown,andinsurroundingvillages.We performed a rapid assessment of the relia‐bility of several installations by counting andlabeling the non‐functional lights at night. Wedisassembled several non‐functional campuslightsandmeasuredtheirtechnicalcharacteris‐tics.Thesesystemsconsistof threemajorcom‐

ponents:asolarPVpanel,abattery,anda lightixture with enclosed charging circuitry. Wemeasured the open circuit voltage of the panelandbattery,aswellasthechargingvoltagefromthelight ixture.Wealsocheckedforcontinuityin wires connecting circuit elements. Thesemeasurements were used to diagnose whichcomponent inthe lightwasfaulty.Voltagesandcontinuity were measured using multimetersavailableoncampus.Weusedsemi‐structuredinterviewswithres‐identialsubjectstolearnaboutthelocalpercep‐tion and awareness of solar street lights (seeFigure6).Interviewswereconductedinthevil‐lages of Nehri, Katindi, Nisu, Dhuki, Dudar,Sandoa,Kataula,thetempleatPrasharLake,andthe slums inMandi Townwith travel arrangedthrough the IIT. Samples of convenience wereused in all locations along with snowball sam‐plingwhere applicable. IIT students conductedtheinterviewsandtranslatedtheresponses.In‐terview questions captured basic demographicinformation, awarenessandperceptionof solar

streetlightsystemsincludingtheirhistoryatthesite, and level of understanding of photovoltaictechnologyitself.Withpermission,smartphoneswereusedtorecordaudioforreference.Allrec‐ordsweresecurelystoredandnumericidenti i‐erswereusedinsteadofnames.We also conducted a semi‐structured inter‐viewwithanexpertatHIMURJAinMandiTownabout the state of solar deployment in the re‐gion, its challenges, and suggestions for im‐provement.Thisinterviewwasdesignedtopro‐videmorebackgroundandcontexttotheprob‐lems described by residents in earlier inter‐views.Finally,weused theknowledgegained fromlightdisassemblyandinterviewstodeveloped‐ucational materials suitable for training localresidents how to diagnose and repair brokensolarstreetlightsontheirown.Wetestedtheseeducationalmaterialsinthe ieldbyreturningtosomeofthevillagesandworkingwithlocalresi‐dentstofollowtheinstructionsand

Figure5.Outlineofgoal,objectives,andstrategies

diagnosetheirsolar light.Thesetestswerevid‐eorecordedforlateranalysis.

Results and Discussion Through interviews, technical analysis, andpilot testing of educationalmaterialswedevel‐oped a broad understanding of the social andtechnical factors affecting solar street lightadoptionintheMandiandKamandregion.Herewe present the results of each objective fol‐lowedbydiscussionoftheseresults. Objective 1: Understanding technical caus-es of light failure We disassembled the three failing lights onthe IITMandi (Kamand) campus tounderstandthe technical reasons why they failed. We ob‐served three distinct issues with the systems.The irst system had a failing battery and wasnotable toholda charge.Simplechecksacross

the terminals of the batterywith amultimeterveri ied that it couldnotproduce a voltageun‐derload.Afterreplacingthisbatterywithabat‐teryfromaworkinglight,weobservedthatthelight was functioning properly after a day ofcharginginthesun.Thesecondsystemhadasimplerissue.Initialvoltage checks on the panel and the batterywere good,meaning the problem likely existedin light ixture circuit itself. After opening theixture, we observed that the connection be‐tweenthelightbulbanditssocketwasnotclean.Dirt likely entered the ixture through poorlysealedelectricaltapeafterthe ixturewasprevi‐ously opened. The light worked properly aftercleaningtheconnectionandrealigningthebulb.Wewere unable to diagnose the exact issuecausingthethirdsystemtofail.Batteryvoltagewasgood,andwhilethepanelvoltagewasrela‐tively low, thiswas acceptable given the light’soccluded position and cloudy weather duringtesting.Theelectricianwhoassistedussuspect‐ed the light ixture circuitwas faulty, but therewas no visible damage. With more time wecouldhavefullydiagnosedtheproblem,butlim‐ited time and resources prevented a completeinvestigation. The electrician also noted that ifthecircuitwastheproblem,hewasunsurehowto indareplacement,whichcouldmakeitdif i‐culttorepair.Objective 2: Local perceptions, technical awareness, and capacity Mostinterviewswereultimatelyconductedinsmall groups, resulting in collective results ra‐ther than individual perceptions. In sum, we

conducted 39 site interviews with 61 partici‐pants. 27of the interview setswere conductedin 8 local villages andhistorical sites that havesolar street lights installed, 8 interview setswere conducted in and around the BhimakaliTemple in Mandi Town, and 4 interview setswere conducted in the slums of Mandi TownnearVictoriaBridge.SeeFigure7forasummaryofresults.Allvillagesiteswerewellelectri ied.Mostre‐ported24‐hourelectricitywithonly14outof39interview sessions reporting some power loss.10ofthe14sessionsreportedmildsemi‐regularpowercutslastingforlessthantwohoursaday,with the remaining 4 sessions at Prashar Lakereportingregularpowerexceptforoutageslast‐ing several days during severe weather. Giventhisreliability,itwasnotsurprisingtolearnthatmost respondents did not depend on solarstreetlightsforregularlightingneeds.Onlyonesite,theMandiTownslumarea,hadnoelectrici‐tyatall.When asked about solar power, 39 of 50 in‐terviewees understood the concept and had ageneral understanding of how it worked. Menweremore likely (89%) thanwomen (54%) tounderstand the basic idea of solar power, butotherwisetherewerenocleardistinctionsbasedonageorlevelofeducation.Slumresidentshada solid understanding of solar power despitemostof them lackingany formaleducation.Fa‐miliaritywithsolarpowerappearstohavemuchmoreincommonwithpreviousexposuretoso‐lar‐basedsystemsthaneducationalbackground.

Figure6.Asiteassessmentinthevil-lageofDudar

When asked about bene its of solar power, 45out of 50 respondents supported solar powerbased on its low maintenance, low cost, per‐ceivedreliability,andeasyinstallation.Costwasanimportantfactorformanyresidents.Becauseit is off‐grid, solar lighting is effectively freewhen compared with home lighting poweredthrough the grid. 5 respondents believed thatthere were no real bene its of solar power,demonstrating a potential disconnect betweentheactualbene itsofsolarandthecommunitiesusingit.Thoughinmostcommunitiesthelightswere not strictly needed, stakeholders stillfound the lights bene icial andwanted them towork.Slumresidentsinparticulardescribedthelight as highly bene icial for their school‐agedchildrentostudyatnight.All intervieweessup‐

portedtheideaofmoresolarstreetlights,nota‐blytoimprovesafetyandproductivity,butagaincostwasamajorconcern.Severalresidentssup‐portedthe ideaonly if thenewlightswerefreeofchargeorheavilysubsidized.Despitethispositiveperception,thelightsarenotwellmaintained.Ofthe62solarstreetlightswe encountered,42were reported asnonfunc‐tionalbyrespondents.14ofthe25lightsattheBhimakali Temple were broken, 12 of the 21lightsinvillagesandslumswerebroken,andallofthe16lightsatPrasharLakewerebrokenandmissingbatteries(seeFigure8).Mostofthevil‐lage lights were installed 4‐6 years ago by HI‐MURJA,butthereweresomenotableexceptions.Nehri village purchased its one light as a com‐munity 10 years ago, and the slum community

purchased its light only one year ago. Both ofthesecommunitypurchaseswereinresponsetoa lack of electri ication at the time. The lightsbecame less of a necessity as villages becameelectri ied. The lights that fail are typically re‐ported to have stopped working within 1‐2years after installation.Worse, respondents re‐ported thatmost of the lights have never beenof iciallymaintained.Only the light in the slumcommunityhadregularmaintenanceperformedby the municipal government. The lights atPrasharLakewere failing for a yearbefore thedeputy commissioner took action by removingthebatteriesforrepair,butthebatteriesarestillmissingaftersixmonths.While of icial support is lacking, there is po‐tential to build capacity for solar street lightmaintenance within the communities them‐selves.Ofthe36individualsweaskedaboutin‐terest in learning to diagnose or repair thesesystems,thevastmajority(33)expressedawill‐ingness to learn. Exceptions camemainly fromMandi Town residents who felt they were toobusy and would rather have the local govern‐mentperformmaintenance.However, theneedfor solar street lights is less pressing in theseurban areas. We observed one situation inDudarvillageinwhicharesidenthadconnectedthe lighting ixture of a solar street light to hishome’s electricity after the light stoppedwork‐ing,andmaintainedithimself for5years.Simi‐larly, the residents of Nehri village bought andassembled a light themselves. These actionsdemonstratethelatentcapacitythatexistswith‐inthesecommunities.

Figure7.Summaryofmajor indingsfromresidentialinterviews

WealsointerviewedanexpertatHIMURJAinMandiTowntounderstandtheissuessurround‐ingsolarstreet lights froman institutionalper‐spective.HIMURJAitselfdoesnotdirectlyinstallormaintain lights, or create policy, but insteadactsinacoordinatingcapacitytoimplementre‐newable power initiatives from higher‐levelgovernment agencies among local companies.Localgovernmentof icialsprovide listsofeligi‐ble communities to HIMURJA, which then col‐lects bids from installation companies. Newlights cost Rs 15,360 for a light emitting diode(LED)typelightorRs18,365foracompactfluo‐rescent light (CFL) type light, but under previ‐ously existing subsidies communities pay only

10% or less of the total cost. After installationresidents receive basic manual instructionsaboutpropercareandproceduresforreportingbrokenlights.The lights are under warranty for 5 years.During this time, residents can either contactHIMURJAdirectlybyphoneorcontacttheirlocalgovernment to report a broken light. HIMURJAwill send a technician out for repair and coverall costs. Battery failure is reportedly themostcommon reason for repairs, but when otherpartsfailtheyoftenmustbeorderedfromChan‐digarh, a city nearly 7 hours away by vehicle.TheprocessforcontactingHIMURJAisoutlinedbelowinFigure9.After the warranty period has expired, HI‐MURJA is no longer responsible for the lights’maintenanceandtheyoftenremaininastateofdisrepair because villages cannot afford to ixthem. HIMURJA believes the maintenance pro‐cessworkswell,andsupportstheideaofbuild‐ing maintenance capacity within communitiesthemselves,especiallyafter thewarrantyof thelighthasexpired.Buildingthiscapacityreduces

theburdenonHIMURJAandmakestheinstalla‐tionsmoreself‐sustaining.Objective 3: Development of strategies to improve adoption of solar Weanalyzeddatacollectedfromour irsttwoobjectives and identi ied strategies to improvetheviabilityofsolarstreetlightsinthecommu‐nities theyserve.ThestrategieswerevettedbyexpertsattheIIT‐Mandiandfurtherre ined.Wealso createdprototypes for educationalmateri‐als featuringdiagnostic and repair instructions.Wepilotedtheinstructionstoverifytheireffec‐tiveness, and to ensure that theyare easilyun‐derstandable and bene icial to local stakehold‐ers.Finally,weconductedadditionalinterviewsin theMandiTownslums todevelopanappro‐priate technology rubric for further develop‐ment of evening lighting solutions in the com‐munity.Discussion Thereareseveralpotentialreasonswhysolarstreet lights have not been maintained in theMandi and Kamand region. Although residentsenjoyed the bene its of solar lighting, they did

Figure8.BrokenlightatPrasharLake

Figure9.OverviewoftheprocessofreportingabrokenlighttoHIMURJA

notalways followthroughbyreporting failuresto appropriate authorities. Without adequatemaintenance, lights can fail relatively quickly.Regular upkeep is critical in supporting thelighting infrastructure. When residents didmakeaneffort to try togetbrokensystemsre‐paired,thelightswerefrequentlyoutofwarran‐ty,butresidentsdidnotknowthatthisprevent‐edfreerepairs.Afterthewarrantyexpires,ben‐e iciaries are required topay for repairs out ofpocket which means that lights are much lesslikelytobe ixed.Evenwhencommunitiestrytotakeanactiverole in maintaining their solar lights, the re‐sponse is usuallyweak.Residents ofDudar vil‐lage and a shopkeeper near Bhimakali Templecomplained to their local government, but re‐ceivedlittleornoassistance.AtPrasharLake,all16 lightswere failing.Outreachbynearbyresi‐dents to responsible agencies resulted in thebatteries being taken for repairs. However, sixmonths later, thebatteriesarestillmissingandresidents have received no information aboutwhen repairswill be completed. These failuresare likely due to a lack of communication be‐tween bene iciaries, HIMURJA, and companies.Finding where these communication break‐downsoccurrequiresfurtherstudy.Residents were sometimes unsure of whereto report broken lights even though HIMURJAclaimeddistributionofcontactinformation.TheHIMURJA representative also said that compa‐nies educated residents about the systems andproper maintenance techniques after installa‐tion. However, few residents knew about this

contactinformationormaintenanceprocedures.Giventhatthisinformationisdistributedduringinstallation,itislikelythatknowledgeofthesys‐temsdoesnotpersistover timedue to too fewindividuals receiving or sharing the training.Both residents and HIMURJA support localmaintenance, and clear potential exists in thisareaforbuildingcapacity.Finally,many residents enjoyed solar streetlightingdue to its lowcostwhensubsidized,aswell as its other bene its, including safety andextended evening activities. These features arenotrestrictedtosolarstreetlights,butsolarisagood itinthecurrentregulatoryframeworkbe‐causeofheavysubsidies.Ruralresidentstendtocaremoreaboutthecostofthesystemthanoth‐erfeaturessuchasgridindependenceandenvi‐ronmental friendliness. From a technical per‐spective,traditionalstreetlightingmaybeabet‐ter itfortheseresidentsbecauseitislesslikelytobeplaguedbythemaintenanceissuesofsolarstreet lights and be more reliable in the longrun.Solarstreetlightingisanatural itinareaslikePrasharLakewherepowerlossiscommon,but inmost locations the choice isnotas clear.Communities would bene it from alternativeeveninglightingsolutionsthataremorecareful‐lytailoredtotheirindividualneeds.

Project Outcomes Ourresearchledustoabroaderunderstand‐ingof the issuessurroundingsolarstreet lightsinHimachalPradeshandarealizationthatsolu‐tions to the true problem of evening lightingmay lie outside solar technologies. We devel‐opedthreekeyprojectoutcomes:

A critical review of the existing solar streetlightprogramandsuggestionsforhowitseffec‐tivenesscouldbeimprovedApilotprogramfor training localstakeholdershow todiagnoseandpotentially repairexistinglightsthatareoutofwarrantyA case study of the evening lighting needs oftheMandiTownslumcommunity,includingthedevelopment of an appropriate technology ru‐bricandproposaloftechnologicalsolutionsSolar street lights in Himachal Pradesh: a critical review HIMURJA’ssolarstreetlightprogramhassuc‐cessfullydistributedover40,000lightsthrough‐out Himachal Pradesh, increasing the visibilityof small‐scale solar technologies inmany com‐munities. These lights bring highly desirablebene its, includingsafetyandextendedeveningactivities. As discussed, solar street lights arealsoagood itinareaswithunreliablegridcon‐nections, like Prashar Lake. Unfortunately, inpractice these bene its often last only a fewyearsbefore the lights fall intoa stateofdisre‐pair.In theory, the lights should be well main‐tainedduringthe iveyearwarrantyperiodafterinstallation through HIMURJA’s partnershipwithlocalcompanies.Duringthistime,residentsareabletoreportbrokenlightseitherdirectlytoHIMURJA or to local government and receiverepairs freeofcharge. Inpractice,however, theprogram appears to be mired in bureaucracyandpooraccountability.Reportingfrommainte‐nancecompaniesbacktoHIMURJAispoor,localgovernmentcanfailtotakeaction,andresidents

are often unaware of how to report a brokenlight.Additionally,the ive‐yearwarrantyperiodisfartooshortformostcommunities.Ifproper‐ly maintained, a solar street light could bringbene itstolocalcommunitiesinde initely,muchliketraditionalstreetlighting.Costoflightingisamajorfactorinmostcom‐munities. With large subsidies available, solarstreetlightsinitiallyappearattractive.Butgiventheirhistoryofpoormaintenance,communitiescaneasilyendup losing thebene its they seek.Nearly every community we studied was wellelectri iedbythepowergrid,withminorpowercuts lasting no more than two hours per day.This indingisconsistentwithstatelevelreport‐ingonvillageelectri ication.Giventhereliabilityoftheelectricgridinmostareas,traditionalgrid‐connected street lighting is a technologicallysuperior choice. Because they are connected tothegrid, traditionalstreet lightsdonotneedtogenerate or store energy and therefore havefewer components that could fail, resulting inincreased long‐term reliability. Traditionallights carry associated monthly bills from thestateelectricboard,butaremuchmorelikelytobring long‐term bene its to the communitiestheyserve.Whilesolarstreetlightshavethepo‐tential to build energy resilience in rural com‐munitieswhenwellmaintained,thepoorimple‐mentationofthesolarstreetlightprogramactu‐ally results in reduced energy resilience andqualityoflife.Solar lighting is a technologically superiorchoice in a few areas, like Prashar Lakewherepower is lost forweeks during the snowy sea‐

son.Thereshouldbeanincreasedfocusonlong‐term maintenance and accountability at thesesites, but building this capacity is a complexproblem that is unlikely to be solved soon. IfmoresolarstreetlightsareinstalledinHimachalPradesh, the site selection process should bemodi ied to favor communities that would seethemostbene itfromsolartechnologybyincor‐poratingfactorslikecommunityacceptance,thereliabilityoftheexistinggridconnection,ifany,andalreadyinstalledeveninglightingsolutions.Ultimately,thefailureofsolarstreetlightstobring lasting bene its to communities in Hima‐chalPradeshcanbeviewedasamisalignmentofnationalenergyobjectivesandtheneedsontheground in the region. The national governmentwantstobuildIndia’ssolarcapacityinordertoreduce dependence on fossil fuel sources andbringelectricitytoun‐electri iedvillages.Hima‐chal Pradesh, however, already has abundant,cheap,andrenewableenergyfromlargehydroe‐lectricpowerinstallations,andawell‐developedelectricgridwithnear100%penetration inru‐ral villages. Himachal Pradeshwould be betterserved by developing incentive programs thatpromote regionally appropriate technologiesthat better serve community evening lightingneeds,butwerecognizethatsuchchangeisdif‐icultwithinthenationalframework.

Improving community maintenance capaci-ty through local education Despite the shortcomings of the solar streetlightprogram,manyofthefailinglightsthatarecurrently installed could potentially be diag‐nosed and repaired by residents. While better

of icial light maintenance is the ideal solution,community maintenance education can createimmediate and lasting impact by restoring thebene its of existing lights. HIMURJA identi iedbattery failure as the most common cause oflight failure. Fortunately, this case is simple todiagnose and new batteries can be easilysourcedfromlocalcarpartssuppliers.However,ourownresearchrevealedthatsomeunitssuf‐fer from faultycircuitsandothermoredif iculttodiagnosefailures.We developed an educational diagnosticguidethatcanbeaf ixedtotheinsideofthebat‐tery compartment (see Figure 10). This guidewas designed to be easy to follow with onlybasic literacy and a minimal set of tools. Themostcomplextoolrequiredisamultimeter,butinour ieldworkwefoundthatthistooliscom‐monlyavailable in localhardwarestores.Usingtheguide,userscandiagnosefailureinthesolarpanel,light ixture,battery,orwiring.Failuresofthe battery or wiring can be resolvedwithin acommunitywithoutspecialordersforexpensiveparts.Af ixingtheguidetotheinsideofthebat‐tery compartmentprotects it from theweatherand keeps the information at the point of use,avoidingcommunityknowledgelossovertime.Wepilottestedthisguidewith5usersinthevillagesofDudarandNisuaswellasoncampusto assess its usability and effectiveness. Resi‐dentswereprovidedwith theguideandneces‐sarytoolsandinstructedtoattempttodiagnosethe solar street light.Wewere available to an‐swerquestionsandassist.

4ofthe5testuserswereabletosuccessfullydiagnose the light. The light in Nisu sufferedfrom a broken light ixture and the light inDudar had a broken panel (see Figure 11). Ingeneral,usersfoundtheinstructionseasytofol‐lowandunderstandasmeasuredbya ivepointLikert scale. Measuring the voltage from thepanel and battery was straightforward, butmeasuring the voltages inside the light ixtureprovedmore challenging for some users. They

initially struggled to identify the proper termi‐nalstoconnectthemultimeterto,butthenum‐beringofconnectionpointsandclose‐upphotosofmultimeter connections usually resolved theambiguity.Thisproblem is compoundedby thefact that awidevarietyof solar street lightde‐signs exist in the ield, and our small team didnothavetheresourcestodesignaneducationalguide for every design. This forces users diag‐nosingadifferentmodeltohaveahigherlevelof

technical literacy. Ideally a separate set of in‐structionswouldbedevelopedforeachmodel.Despite their successes, users were not al‐wayscon identintheirabilitytodiagnosealightinthefuture.Oneusersaidthathewouldneedto follow the instructionsat least3more timesin order to feel con ident. Building con idencewith apurelypaper‐basededucational solutionis dif icult, and a manual walkthrough of lightdiagnosis would clearly be better. Coupling in‐structions af ixed to the inside of the batterycompartmentwith themanual training alreadypresentduringinstallationcouldbringboththe

Figure10.Educationaldiagnosisguide(Englishversion)

Figure11.InstructionusabilitytestinginNisu

con idence bene its ofmanual training and thepersistentknowledgebene itsofpermanent in‐structionstolocalcommunities.Noneofthetestusersalreadyownedamulti‐meter, and most were concerned about theirability to obtain one. However, this may havemore to do with a lack of familiarity with thetool than a true lack of availability. We foundmultimeters for sale during our ieldwork, andresidents would likely be able to obtain one ifneeded.Userswerecon ident in theirability toobtainothertoolsandrepairmaterialslikewireandcarbatteries.All users agreed that the instructions shouldbeincludedwithsolarstreetlightsandthatdo‐ing so would improve the maintenance of thelights.However, users also highlighted someofthe larger issues surrounding the solar streetlightprogram.Oneuserexplained thatbecausethecommunitydoesn’treallyneedthelights,hewouldonlytrytorepairalightifheknewtherewere government funds available for repaircosts, but these funds are unlikely to ever beavailable.Giventheseconcerns,theinstructionswill provemost useful for communities with astrong dependence on their solar street lightsduetointermittentornogridpower.Evening lighting needs in the Mandi Town slums Many of the failures of the existing solarstreet light program stem from a failure to un‐derstandtheneedsofthecommunitiesthelightsare being installed in. Residents appreciate thelow cost, safety, and productivity bene its thatsolar street lights bring, but these bene its are

notuniquetosolarstreetlights.Atop‐downap‐proach that dictates technological choices failsto consider the evening lighting needs of indi‐vidualcommunities.Tobetterunderstandtheseneeds and developmore appropriate technolo‐gies,weconductedacasestudyinslumsofMan‐di Town. This community is particularly inter‐esting to studybecause it isnot currentlyelec‐tri ied,hasexpresseddesireforincreasedeven‐ing lighting, and has strong constraints on thecostofapotentialsolution.We conducted semi‐structured interviewswith9residentsoftheMandiTownslumstoun‐derstandcurrentevening lightingpracticesandrequirements for new lighting technology in‐cluding cost, usage, technical literacy of users,maintenancerequirements,environmental suit‐ability, and usability. Using the interview re‐sponses and our background understanding of

theproblem,wedevelopedanappropriatetech‐nologyrubricsuitableforselectinganddevelop‐ing improved evening lighting solutions for theslumcommunity(seeFigure12).We found that residents currently spendaroundRs500perhouseholdpermonthoncan‐dlelighting,butarenotsatis ied.Theybuycan‐dlesatthelocalmarketdailyorweekly,use3‐5candles each night and get light for 3‐4 hours.Residentswereunhappywiththelightoutputofthecandlesandthecolorofthelight.Weatherisalsoamajorfactor,ascandlesintheopenslumdwellings can easily blow out in wind or rain.Providing light for children to study at night isthemostcommonuseoflighting,butthelightisalso used for other activities like cooking andgames. Residents felt comfortable with basicmaintenance of an improved lighting solution,butdidnotfeelcon identdiagnosingelectronics.

Figure12.AppropriatetechnologyrubricforMandislumlighting

Some residents were also interested in havingmobile phone charging as part of the lightingsolution.Based on our rubric, we developed a proto‐typesolutionforimprovedeveninglighting.Weselectedsolarlanternsasagood itforthecom‐munity due to their reliability, low recurringcosts, robustness in bad weather, higher lightoutput,andlightcolor.Solarlanternshavebeenused elsewhere in Indian slums for replacingkerosene lanterns (The Indian Express, 2015)andqualitystandardsconcerningreliabilityandlight output exist for the technology, avoidingsome of the pitfalls observed with solar streetlights (Lighting Global, 2016). They are also arelatively low cost technology, especially overtime.We found solar lanterns for sale in MandiTownforRs1,835each.Theselanternsprovide10 times the light output of 3 candles, providemobilecharging,andlastforupto15hourseachnight.Whilethecostisprohibitiveforindividualpurchase, several householdswould be able tobuyoneofthesesolarlanternsasagroup.Indi‐vidual purchase would also be feasible if pay‐mentplanoptionswereavailable.ThisbusinessmodelhasbeenusedinotherIndianslumlight‐ingprojects(TheIndianExpress,2015).Overall,thelanternscored21outof24onourrubric.We provided two of these lanterns to thecommunity for evaluation and testing. Commu‐nitymembersstronglypreferredthelanternstocandle lighting.Whenwe returned to the slumtwo days later to evaluate the residents’ opin‐ionsofthelanterns,wefoundthatthecommuni‐

tyhadstartedconstructinganewschoolbuild‐ing to hang the lights in (see Figure 13). Thiskindofbuildingwasnotpresentpreviously.La‐tent capacity existed, and providing eveninglightingwasthepushneededtounlockit.Whenwetoldtheresidentshowmuchthe lightscost,they expressed awillingness to purchasemorelightsasagroupatthatpricepointinthefuture.There is clear potential for continued growth,and it appears that a simple lack of knowledgeabout alternative lighting solutions and theiravailabilitywasholdingthecommunityback.Cheaper solar lanterns are also availablecommercially,runningaslowasRs500,butwewereunableto indtheseproductsforsalelocal‐ly.Theselightstypicallyhavereducedlightout‐put,sometimesnotmuchmorethanseveralcan‐dles.However, theycanstillbeusefulbyfocus‐ing the light better than candles, creating ade‐quate task lighting in a small area the size of afewsheetsofpaper.Maintenanceisalsolessofaconcernwithpricesthislow,asitwouldbefea‐sible for community members to simply buy a

newlan‐ternif

their current lantern fails. These lanterns maybe more applicable for individual homes. Pur‐chasing these cheaper lights would likely re‐quire the community to place an order as agroupwithalocalstore.While our prototype solution is not perfect,the design togetherwith our appropriate tech‐nologyrubricprovidesthe irststepforimprov‐ing evening lighting in the Mandi Town slumsandthroughouttheregion.

Conclusion Solarstreetlightsarevaluedbylocalcommu‐nities because of the safety and productivitybene its they provide, especially in areas withintermittentornoaccesstotheelectricgrid,butour study revealed a pattern of poor mainte‐nanceandfailinglightsduetopoorprogramim‐plementation and a failure to consider the ap‐propriatenessofthetechnology.Educatingresi‐dentsaboutsimpleproceduresthatcanbeusedto diagnose and potentially ix common causesof failure in existing lights enables these com‐munitiestorestorelostbene itsandbuildinter‐nal capacity for small‐scale solar technologies.Looking forward, new evening lighting initia‐tivesshouldcarefullyconsidertheneedsoflocalcommunitiesanddevelopsolutionsthatwillen‐ablethesecommunitiestobene itfromeveninglighting for more than just a few years. Withproper consideration of appropriate technolo‐gies, evening lighting can be a reliable way tocreateabrighterfutureforthemostvulnerablecommunitiesinHimachalPradesh.

Figure13.Schoolunderconstruction

Acknowledgements Wewouldliketothankthefollowingpeoplefortheirvaluablecontributionstoourproject: Dr.KunalGhosh Dr.AditiHalder Dr.StephenMcCauley Dr.IngridShockey VipulSharma SuneelSharma FarahAnjumThefullreportandsupplementalmaterialsforthisprojectcanbefoundathttp://www.wpi.edu/E-project-db/E-project-search/searchusingkey-wordsfromtheprojecttitle.AdditionalISTPscanbefoundathttp://www.iitmandi.ac.in/istp/projects.html

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Project 5 Title

Abstract


Evaluating Waste Management Systems: Kataula and IIT-Mandi

Abstract

MandiDistrict inHimachal Pradesh India is experiencing increasedwastegenerationduetoeconomicgrowthandtheexpansionoftheIn‐dianInstituteofTechnology‐Mandicampus.Thisproject’sgoalwastodeveloprecommendations to improvesolidwastemanagementat theIIT‐MandicampusandvillageofKataula.Dataonlocalpractices,wastecomposition,andresidentpreferenceswerecollectedusingwasteau‐dits and interviews. Findings indicated a need for better separationtechniquesoncampusandawastecollectionsysteminKataula.


Team Members:

CameronDiSpirito,WPI

MichaelMcConnell,WPI

YashuMandaan,IIT

EmiliosTachiaos,WPI

AmarYadav,IIT

Advisors:

Dr.PaulBhavender,IIT

Dr.AtulDhar,IIT



The Growing Challenge of Waste Disposal MandiDistrictintheIndianstateofHimachalPradesh sits at the crossroadsof threenationalhighways. It has become a popular trade andtouristcenterinthestate(DirectorateofCensusOperations inHimachal Pradesh, 2011). Conse‐quentlythecityhasbeengrowingrapidly.MandiDistrictisalsothenewhomeoftheIndianInsti‐tuteofTechnology(IIT‐Mandi)campus.Withthearea serving as a hub for tourism, commerce,andeducation,aneedhasemergedforimprovedwaste management practices in the Mandi dis‐trict. Improperwastemanagement can be haz‐ardous to the environment, human health andthe visual aesthetics in a region. Over the lastfew years, the state government has begun apush for more sustainable waste managementpractices,yetsuccesshasbeensporadic.AstudyconductedbyAscensoEnviroPrivateLimitedin2008 identi ied an inadequate regional wastemanagementsystemcharacterizedbyunregulat‐eddumpingoftrashfromcommunalwastebinsand a disorganized system of private disposalirms(AscensoEnviro,2008).AmorerecentIIT‐Mandistudyin2014foundmanyoftheseissueswerestillunresolved(Panwaretal.,2014).Fur‐thermore,thewastemanagementsystemsinthecampusandnearbyvillagesneedtobeimprovedto prepare for the population in lux that thegrowing IIT campus (see Figure 1) will bring.This will increase strain on the current wastesystem inwhich themajority of campuswasteendsupattheMandimunicipaldumpshowninFigure2.Therefore, thegoalof thisprojectwastodevelopimprovementsforthewastemanage‐

ment systems in the IIT‐Mandi campusand thevillages of Katindhi, Kataula, and Navlay. Tomeetourgoal,ateachlocation,we:

1. Documentedlocalsolidwastemetrics.2. Identi ied and assessed waste collection

programsandinfrastructure.3. Gauged perceptions and practices with

regardstowastemanagement.4. Developeda setof recommendations for

improvedwastemanagementsystems inthe IIT‐Mandi campus and the village ofKataula. Local Context and Logistics

Current waste initiatives in the state In response to the increase inwaste genera‐tion, along with prompting from the nationalgovernment, the authorities of Himachal Pra‐deshhavebeguntoimplementanumberofiniti‐ativeswhichaddressthewastemanagementis‐sues in the state. The irst nationalwasteman‐agementpolicywasdevelopedatthestartofthecenturyandisreferredtoastheMunicipalSolidWastes (Management and Handling) Rules,2000.Theseregulationsoutlinedtheoperationalexpectations for solid wastemanagement fromgenerationtodisposal.Unfortunately,accordingto the State Pollution Control Board,municipalgovernments did not utilize or construct newinfrastructure,asrequiredthis leadtotherulesbeing largely ineffective (Directorate of UrbanDevelopment,2015).Inanefforttomitigatesomeofthisun‐handledwaste,thestateofHimachalPradeshbannedtheuseoftraditionalplasticbagsin2009(DeccanHerald,2009).Thisfocusonplas‐ticwastereductionisimportantgiventhatthegrowthrateofplasticconsumptioninIndiain

Figure1:Mapofthe inalplanforIIT-Mandicampusconstruction

Figure2:AsectionoftheMandimunicipaldump.

2006wasahigh16%perannum(Muthaaetal.,2006).Thestategovernmentcontinuedtotacklethisissuebybanningallnon‐biodegradableplas‐ticcupsandplatesin2011(DailyNews&Analy‐sis, 2011). If these trends continue,waste com‐position in the regionwillbegin to leanheavilyinto the biodegradable sphere. However, at thecurrent moment signi icant amounts of biode‐gradableandnon‐biodegradablewastecontinuetoaccumulateintheregion.Stakeholders ThefollowingTable1listssomeofthemajorstakeholdersintheregion.

Logistics and infrastructure for waste man-agement Thelifecycleofwastecanbebrokendownin‐to four major stages: waste generation, collec‐tion, separation, and disposal. In the followingsections a number of systems for performingeachofthesetasksisdiscussed. Generation IntheMandidistrict’sruralregionsthemainsource ofwaste is agricultural,while in the ur‐

banareas themajorityofwaste isproducedbyresidents and transient populations (AscensoEnvioPrivateLimitted,2008).There have been no statewide waste auditsconducted forHimachalPradesh.However, it isknownthat,despitethestatewidebanonplasticbags,thereisstillasubstantialquantityofplas‐tic packagingwaste present (Directorate of Ur‐ban Development, 2015, Panwar et al., 2014).The unregulated mixing of plastic waste withorganic waste makes the waste un it for recy‐cling. A waste audit would, therefore, allowwaste management of icials to make decisions

targeted to the re‐gion’swaste compo‐sition.Collection When a formal‐izedwastesystemispresent, the collec‐tion of waste is theirst necessary step.Therearetwoformsof waste collection:primary collection

and secondary collection. Primary collection,whichiscommoninManditown,involvesanin‐dividualpayinganorganizationfortheremovalof waste from their property (Panwar et al.2014).Secondarycollectionisalargescalegov‐ernmentorganizedwastecollectionsystem.Un‐fortunately, such a system is expensive, andmightnotbefeasibleinthelocalvillagesofMan‐didistrict(Wilson,2012).Athirdoption,utilizedforexampleinNakuru,Kenya,involvesthecom‐bination of the two collection strategies men‐

tionedabove.Thistownsufferedfromwastedis‐posal issuessimilar to those faced in theMandidistrict,butmanagedtoincreasetheirwastecol‐lection from 20% to 64% over 16 years bychanging thegovernmental role fromoperationtooversightofprivatewastemanagement irms(Mwanzia,2013).SuchasystemmightbeworthinvestigatingforuseintheMandidistrict. Waste pickup inMandi and the surroundingvillagesisverysporadicanddoesnotoperateonasetschedule.Approximately38%ofMandires‐idents receive collection services at their placeofresidence,therestdisposeoftheirownwaste(Nexus,2015).Inthevillageswastecollectionisoften non‐existent or informal. Therefore, asWilson(2012)argues,toensuresuccessanyfor‐malwaste collection systemshouldwork to in‐corporatetheinformalsectorbyorganizinglocalragpickersundergovernmentoversightorhir‐ingthemdirectly.The collection of waste from public spacessuchascampusgroundsoracityparkprovidessomeuniquechallenges.Suchcollectionisusual‐ly coordinated using public waste bins. Theplacementofthesewastebinsisamajorconsid‐eration when designing the collection strategy.Trash bins and recycling bins are likely to bemosteffectivewhen installed inareas thatgen‐erate high volumes of waste. Ensuring wastebins are easily accessible and in high enoughnumbers also improves waste collection effec‐tiveness(O’Conner,2010).Theusageofpublicrecyclingbins,orasimilarsystem,tofacilitatesourceseparationofwastecansavewastemanagementfacilitiestheequiv‐alentofmillionsofdollars(Rinkesh,2009).

Table1:Listofmajorstakeholdersandtheirconnectiontowastemanagement.

When considering source based separation binlocation is an important consideration. Binsshould be located within 12m (40ft) of anywaste source to ensure proper usage(Environmental Protection Agency of Australia,2005). With suf icient infrastructure, a sourceseparationbasedsystem ispreferable, if the lo‐calpopulationacceptsand implementsthepro‐cess.Waste disposal strategies and challenges Once waste has been sorted it must be dis‐posedof ina safeandenvironmentally friendlymanner.Wherewastemanagement proceduresarenotinplace,themostcommonpracticeistodumpthewasteina localnon‐engineeredland‐illorriver.Burningwasteheapswhentheybe‐come too large is also a common practice(Hodzic et al., 2012). Both strategieswill causethe environment to become contaminated andfull of dangerous substances called leachates(Melnyketal.,2014).A better alternative waste disposal strategy,for non‐biodegradablewaste,would be the useof engineered land ills.Theseprevent leachatesfromenteringthesoilandcontaminatingtheen‐vironment. For biodegradable waste, anothermethodiscomposting,whichconvertsthewasteintonutrientrichsoil.Bothofthesemethodscanbeusedtogeneratebiogasforenergygeneration(Ali et al., 2014, Ndegwa et al., 2001). Further‐more,amethodcommonlyused is incineration,wherewaste is burned at high temperatures inorder to generate energy. However, the healthimplications of incineration are still debated(Candelaetal.,2015,Protanoetal.,2015).

Considerations As evidenced by the numerous topics dis‐cussed above, development of waste manage‐ment systemsrequiresanunderstandingofnu‐meroustopicsfromlogisticstohumanbehavior.The recommendations we developed for theMandi region needed to take all of these intoconsideration.Byconductingsuf icientresearchinto theneeds of all key stakeholder groups itwas possible to develop recommendations thatusedthemostappropriateprocessestoimprovewastemanagementintheregion.Methodology: Gauging Waste Metrics and System Effectiveness ThegoalofthisprojectwastodevelopmodelsforwastemanagementontheIIT‐MandicampusandthenearbyvillagesofKatindhi,Kataula,andNavlay.Amapof these locationscanbeseen inFigure3,below.

Tomeetourgoal,ateachlocation,we:1. Documentedlocalsolidwastemetrics.2. Identi ied and assessedwaste collec‐

tionprogramsandinfrastructure.3. Gauged perceptions and practices

withregardstowastemanagement.4. Developed a set of recommendations

forimprovedwastemanagementsys‐temsintheIIT‐MandicampusandthevillageofKataula.

Objective 1: Document municipal solid waste metrics Togainanunderstandingofthewastethatisgenerated at each location,we conducted a de‐tailed site assessment and interviews. We alsoconducted waste audits on the IIT‐Mandi cam‐pusand in thevillageofKataula.Thisdatawasusedtogaugethescopeoftheproblemwithre‐gards to composition and quantity ofwaste, aswellastheeffectivenessofthecurrentsystems.Themethods used are outlined in Table 2. Theinterviewguideforthisstepcanbefoundin

Figure3:MapoftheIITcampusandanalyzedvillages

Table2:Thethreemethodsusedtocollectwastemetrics

AppendixA and thewaste audit data sheet canbefoundinAppendixB. Objective 2: Evaluation of waste collection programs and transportation infrastructure In order to evaluate existing waste manage‐mentsystems,weidenti iedthestaffandorgani‐zations responsible for collection and transpor‐tationofwaste.Semi‐structuredinterviewswereconductedwithcollectorsandmanagingorgani‐zations directly associatedwith the transporta‐tionofwaste.SeeAppendixA for the interviewguidesusedthroughouttheproject. Objective 3: Gauging perception, practices and preferences ThewastedisposalpracticesofbothvillagersandIITstakeholdersandtheirpreferenceswithregards to potential changeswere evaluated inordertodetermine feasiblealternatives.Duringthe site assessments mentioned above, we ob‐servedanddocumentedthewastedisposalhab‐its of locals. A series of semi‐structured inter‐viewswere administered in an effort to revealthecurrentpracticesandattitudes,ofbothlocalsand professionals, with regards to waste man‐agement.AphotoofonesuchinterviewisshowninFigure4.Thisunderstandingwasneededbe‐fore thewastemanagement strategies couldbeevaluated. Furthermore, it allowed us to deter‐mine the subjects’ attitudes towards their ownwastedisposalhabits.This informationallowedfor the identi ication of the driving factors be‐hindthesepracticessuchaslocalnorms,prefer‐ence, or lack of options and resources. Finally,the purpose of conducting semi‐structured in‐terviewswastoobtaininformationfromindivid‐uals who might be reluctant to criticize the

wastemanagementpracticesof theircommuni‐ty.SeeAppendixAfortheinterviewguide.Objective 4: Development of recommenda-tions To develop a set of actionable recommenda‐tionstoimprovethewastemanagementsystemsateachlocation,thecollecteddatawasanalyzedandsynthesized.The teammodeled the lowofwaste during standard disposal at the campusandavillage.Thismodelwasusedtohelpcon‐duct a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,andThreats (SWOT) analysis.Thiswasused todevelop effective recommendations utilizingeachsystems’strengthstoaddressitsweakness‐es.AdiagramofthisoverallprocesscanbeseeninFigure5,ontheright.

Results Thischapteroutlinesanddiscussesouron‐siteresearch indingsbyobjective.Ourresearchfocusedonthreevillages,Kataula,Katindhi,andNavlay,andtheIITcampus.

Objective 1: Documentation of municipal solid waste metrics Thissectioncoversourobservationsandsiteassessmentsof thearea,aswellasmetrics,col‐lectedfromtheIITcampusandthreesurround‐ingvillages.The teamconducteda siteassessmentof theIIT‐Mandi campus.Wastequantity, litterpreva‐lence, dumpster and waste bin locations andtrashsortingeffectivenesswereallinvestigated.First,we found that themajorityof thecampushad small amountsof litter.Our team found10multi‐colored trash bins and 9 dumpsters. Themulti‐coloredbinsaremeanttoseparatewaste,however,theyoftencontainunseparatedwaste.The locations of bins and dumpsters weremappedasshowninAppendixC:

Figure5:Processfordevelopingrecommenda-tions

Figure4:TheteamafteraninterviewwiththeKataulaschoolprincipalandphysicsteacher

Figure22.During interviewswiththemanagerandem‐ployeesofthetwocampusmesshalls,wedeter‐mined that 300 kg of food is wasted betweenboth mess halls. A bar graph of the mess hallwastecanbeseeninFigure6.

ThroughanauditofthewastebinslocatedintheB6StudentHostel,weidenti iedrecyclablesas the primary formofwaste generated in stu‐dent housing. A bar graph of our data can beseeninFigure7.

Our team visited the local village of Kataula toevaluatethewastedisposalpracticesofitsresi‐

dents.Solidwastepollutionwasmoreapparentin Kataula than on the IIT Campus. Moderatetrashwas found in gutters lining the road. Themajorityofinorganicwasteappearedtobefoodpackaging and empty drink containers. Largeamounts of solid waste was dumped off a cliffalong the river.Our teamobserved someburnttrash piles as well. Finally, we were unable toindpublicwastebinsinKataula.Tounderstandthe local waste composition, household wastewassampledovera twodayperiod, theresultsareshowninFigure8.

After conducting a rapid site assessment, itbecameclearthatKatindhiwasmuchlesspollut‐edthanKataula.Weobservedsometrashonthesideoftheroad,however,trashdidnotlinetheentire street. Katindhi also lacked publicwastebins. Unique to Katindhi, we found numerouspiles of burnt trash; signi icantly more thanwhatwasobservedinKataula.WhileconductingasiteassessmentinNavlaytheteamnoticedalackofsolidwastepollution.Wewereableto locateafewsmallwasteburn‐

ingpiles,butcouldnot indalocaldumpingsite.In addition, there were composting piles in al‐mostevery ieldbutpublicwastebinswerenon‐existent.Objective 2: Waste collection programs and infrastructure This section describes the team’s analysis ofthecurrentwastemanagementsystemsand in‐frastructure on campus and in the surroundingvillages. It is important tonotethatnoneof thevillages have any sort of of icial collection ormanagementsystem.Incontrastthecampushasa formalized system that is capable of handlingthecurrentpopulation,butneedstobeexpand‐edtoaccommodatetheincomingincreasedstu‐dentcount. IIT campus The IIT campus has a coordinated system ofwaste disposal which utilizes waste bins anddumpstersaroundcampustocollectwastefromcampusresidentsandvisitors.Thiswasteisulti‐mately taken to Mandi’s municipal land ill.Through our interviews with Colonel Naik, thecampus superintendent, waste employees, andstudents, as well as our own observations, wedevelopedamodelthatshowsthewaste lowoncampus.Thisisdescribedbythe lowchartseeninFigure9.Ascanbeseeninthe lowchart,thereisgen‐erallyoneconditionthatdeterminesthe lowofwastepostdisposal: theuser’s location.The lo‐cationof theuseroncampusdetermineswhichtype of waste bin is available. There are threemain categories of waste bins on campus: in‐doorbins,multi‐coloredoutdoorbins,and

Figure8:WastegeneratedperpersonperdayinKataula

Figure6:Wastegeneratedfromeachmesshallondailybasis

Figure7:ResultsofB6Hostelwasteaudit

IIT‐Mandi B6 Hostel Waste Audit

mess hall bins for food waste. An example ofeachofthesecanbeseeninFigure10.

The multi‐ colored bins found on thecampus grounds are meant to facilitate source

separation of the waste. While color‐coded,manyofthebinlabelshavefallenoff;thismakesit dif icult forusers to separatewaste. Further‐more,acontractoremptiesallbinsintothecom‐munaldumpstersonadailybasisseeninFigure11. This removes the environmental bene itfromsourceseparation.

Unlike the multi‐colored bins, indoor wastebins are utilized to collect all forms of trash inthesamebin.Thesebinsarelocatedinthehos‐telsandacademicbuildingsoncampus.Theyaredeposited each day in one of the communaldumpsters by the same contractor mentionedabove. These dumpsters are ultimately pickedupbyasecondcontractorwhotakesthemtotheMandimunicipalland ill.The mess hall bins have a different destina‐tion from the previous two bin types. At everymess hall meal, food waste is deposited intothese bins. Once a day, this waste is depositedintoavermicompostingpit.ThiscompostingpitcanbeseeninFigure12,onright.Thecompost

createdherewillultimatelybeusedasfertilizerintheIIT‐Mandimedicalgarden. Villages Thewastemanagementpracticesusedineachvillage in the region are unique to that village;however, there are common themes that theteamhas identi ied.Thishasallowedus to cre‐ate a lowchart of the common movement ofwastewithinanaveragevillageinthearea.ThislowchartcanbeseeninFigure13. From interviews and observations, our teamdetermined three commonwaste disposal hab‐its: burning, unregulated dumping or tossing,andcomposting.Theprevalenceofeachofthesemethods can be seen in Figure 14. Kataulaseemedtobethemostpollutedvillage,and54%oflocalsreporteddumpingastheirprimary

Figure9:Flowchartofthewaste lowoncampusfromtheindividual.

Figure10:Multi-coloredwasteseparationbins(left)unseparatedindoorwastebin(middle),messhallfoodwastebin(right)

Figure11:Contractordepositinganindoorwastebinintoacommunaldumpster

Figure12:Thevermicompostingpitforfoodwasteoncampus.ItwasconstructedinDec2015.

method ofwaste disposal. Katindhiwas signi i‐cantly less polluted than Kataula. In Katindhi,63% of locals reported burning waste as theirprimary method of disposal. Many of the shopowners informed us that locals sell glass andcertain plastics to recycling vendors once amonth.Navlay,showedtheleastamountofsolidwastepollution;accordingtolocals,themajorityofwasteiseitherburnedorcomposted. Objective 3: Gauging perceptions and pref-erences

IIT Campus The team spent several days evaluating thewastedisposalhabitsofIITstudents.Wedeter‐mined that most students understand the pur‐poseofhavingmulticoloredwastebins.Howev‐er, as shown in Figure 15, only 27.8% of stu‐dentsconsistentlyseparatetheirwaste.Thestu‐dentswere askedwhy theyneglected to followthe separation system. The most common an‐swerwasthatinadequatelabelingmadeitdif i‐

cult to determine the appropriate bin to use.Thiscoincideswiththefactthat78%ofstudentsdonotknowwhichtypeofwastegoesinwhichcoloredbin.TheteamalsoevaluatedtheperceptionsofIITstudentswithregardstothecurrentwasteman‐agement system on campus. Seventy eight per‐centofstudentsrecognizedthatthecurrentsys‐temneedstobeimproved(seeFigure15),how‐ever, the responses varied with regards to therootoftheproblem.Somestudentsblamedtheircolleaguesfornotseparatingwasteupondispos‐al, while others blamed the institution for notimplementinganeffectivesystem.Villages Toidentifytheamountoflocalsupportwastemanagementchange,villagerswereaskedabout

Figure13:Flowchartofthewastemovementwithinanaver-agevillageoftheMandidistrict

Figure14:Piechartsofvillagerwastedisposalpractices

Figure15Piechartsofstudentinterviewrespons-es

their desire for improvements. Themajority ofvillagers interviewed displayed a disinterest oroppositiontoanychangebeingmadetothecur‐rent informal system. As shown in Figure 16,Kataula was the only village where locals con‐sistently seemed receptive to implementing abetterwastemanagementsystem.

Discussion IIT Campus Discussion Theteam’s indingsfortheIIT‐MandicampuswereusedtoconductaSWOTanalysis,showninFigure17.Thisanalysisisfocusedonthecapaci‐ty of the campuses existing system to handlewaste. As shown in this analysis, the campusdoes adecent jobofhandlingday‐to‐daywastewiththevermicompostingoffoodwastebeingaparticular strength. However, the success ofwaste separation on campus has beenminimalat best. The campus residents do not separatetheir waste in the appropriate bins, and even

whentheydo,thatwasteismixedinthecommu‐naldumpstersbeforebeingtakentoMandi.For‐tunately, students and faculty are receptive tochange,soanyincentivestoimprovethesystemshouldbeabletogarnerthenecessarysupport.Villages Discussion The team’s indings in the local villageswereusedtoconductaSWOTanalysisofthecommonsystems as seen in Figure 18. This analysis fo‐cuseson thevillages’ ability tohandlewaste inan environmentally sustainable manner. Asshown in the analysis, the villages primarilystrugglewith thehandlingofplasticsandpack‐

aging.Most organicwaste,whichmakesup themajorityofwasteinvillages,iscompostedregu‐larly.Unfortunately,theotherformsofwasteareeither burned or dumped in unregulated sites.Although this removes themfromsight inmostsituations, it fails toaddressenvironmentalandhealth concerns. The villagers are often eithernot aware or not concernedwith these effects.This means apathy or a lack of awareness is athreat to any futurewaste system. Fortunately,Kataulainparticularseemedreceptivetochangeandwouldbeagoodstartinglocationtotestanimprovedsystem.

Figure16:Piechartsofvillagersupportforchangestostatusquo Figure17:DiagramofSWOTanalysisforthewastemanagementsystemontheIIT-Mandicampus.

Project Outcomes In this section a number of suggestions arepresented to improve on some of the primaryweak points found within the waste manage‐ment systemsof the IIT‐Mandi campus and thevillageofKataula.Recommendations for the IIT-Mandi cam-pus TheteamanalyzedtheIIT‐Mandiwasteman‐agement system using a SWOT analysis andidenti ied waste separation as a major area ofweakness.Thein luxofstudentsfromtheopen‐ing of the North campus in August 2016 alsoposed amajor threat to the current system.Toaddresstheseandotherconcernswedeveloped

a

suggestion packet called the “IIT‐Mandi SolidWasteManagement Improvement Guide 2016”.This guide outlines a timeline for improvingwastemanagement on campus. The full packetcanbefoundinSupplementalMaterials.Partofthisplanrequiredthatthecampusup‐datetheirexistingseparationbinswithnewen‐gineered lids and permanent labels. These lidswouldlimitthetypesofwastethatcanbeeasilydiscarded in a bin. According to Duffy (2009)such a system can increase plastic bottle recy‐clingbyover30%.Theteamcreatedprototypesoftheseimprovements.ThesecanbeseeninFig‐ure 19. These prototypes were tested over athreedayperiod.Eachdaythecontentsofeach

binwasevaluatedforaccuracy.AsshowninFig‐ure 20, therewas an average of 11% improve‐ment in separation. Unfortunately, the foodwaste bin saw a 9% drop in correct contents.

However,thiscouldbeduetothelimitedsamplesize available from that bin which was nearly

emptyonallthreedays.Still,theoverallsuccessof the prototypes suggests the campus shouldpursuesuchimprovementsfurther.Tokeepthewasteseparatedincommunaldumpsters,wealsocreatedSolidWorksmodels

Figure19:Asetofseparationbinsthatwereittedwiththeteamslidandlabelprototypes.

Figure20:Thepercentageofcorrectwasteineachseparationbinaveragedoverthreedaysbeforeandafterprototypeinstallation.

Figure18:DiagramoftheSWOTanalysisforthewastesystemsfoundinthelocalvillages

of dumpster dividers. One such model can beseeninFigure21.Additional suggestions in the plan includedthe creation of informative posters and expan‐sionofthecurrentcampusEarthdayevent.Pro‐totypes of informative poster designs were in‐cluded in theplan and canbe found in Supple‐mentalMaterials.

Recommendations for Kataula After conducting a thorough analysis ofKataula’s current wastemanagement practices,ourteamidenti iedtwomajorproblems: alackofpublicawarenesswithregardstosolidwastepollution and inadequate waste managementinfrastructure.Inanefforttocombattheseprob‐lems, our team developed both an educationalguideandan infrastructure improvementpack‐et. Both of these can be seen in SupplementalMaterials.Toimprovelocalawareness,theteamdecidedtoutilizethein luenceoftheprimaryschool.Wecreated an education packet which containedsuggestions for environmental curriculums,waste management project ideas, proper prac‐

tices the school can follow, and suggestions forthe implementation of an earth day similar totheIIT’s.Theguidewaspresentedtotheschoolprincipal who expressed approval of the ideas.With these ideas implemented, an environmen‐tal consciousness will begin to spread into thecommunitythroughtheirchildren.To capitalize on increasing environmentalawareness, Kataula will need to create a moreformalizedwastemanagementsystem.Toassistinthiseffortwecreatedapacketofsuggestions.Onemajorsuggestionisthecollectionofrecycla‐bles by a third party. The local hospital whichplanstosoontriple itspatientcapacityhasem‐ployedarecyclingcontractortocollecttheirre‐cyclablewasteona regularbasis.This contrac‐tor will begin collection in two months. Thetown can utilize this system by having shopownerssave their recyclablesuntil thecontrac‐tor’sregularvisits.We interviewed 7 local shop owners aboutthisideaandfound71%willingtosaverecycla‐bles. Of these 20% said they would do it onlywithpaymentfromthecontractorsimilartothesystemusedinKatindhi.Manyoftheshopown‐erswould also prefer dust bins be provided tothemorcommunaldumpstersbeusedforstor‐ing recyclables. These hurdles are fortunatelynot insurmountable and the high percentage ofparticipationmeanssuchasystemcouldbe im‐plementedeffectively.

Conclusions Afteranalyzingwastemanagementat the IITcampusandthreevillages,ourteamwasabletocollectvariousformsofdata.Wecollectedwaste

metrics,assessedwastemanagementinfrastruc‐ture, gauged commonwaste disposal practices,and determined local perceptions regardingchange. Through our research, we determinedthat the IIT and the three villages need to im‐proveboth solidwastemanagement infrastruc‐ture and environmental awareness. Finally, wepresentedboththeIITcampusandthevillageofKataula with a set of actionable recommenda‐tionstoimprovethecurrentwastemanagementsystems.ThefullreportandsupplementalMaterialsforthisprojectcanbefoundat:

http://www.wpi.edu/E-project-db/E-project-search/search,usingkeywordsfromtheprojecttitle.

OutcomesdeliveredafterMay1willappearontheIIT’sISTPpageat:

http://www.iitmandi.ac.in/istp/projects.html

Figure21:Dumpsterdividerdesignforthelargecommunaldumpsters

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An Opportunity for Rainwater Harvesting

Abstract

Rainwaterharvesting(RWH)wasexploredasapossiblemethodtoalleviateseasonalwaterscarcityinHimachalPradesh.ToinvestigatethefeasibilityofRWH,localresidentsweresurveyedabouttheircur‐rentwaterinfrastructureandtheirperceptionsofRWH.Basedonan‐alyzeddata,modelsofRWHsystemsweredesignedforpotentialim‐plementationontheIITcampus,Manditown,andnearbyvillages. Itwas determined that RWH systems would be bene icial, but costs,lackofinfrastructure,andmisconceptionsaboutRWHhaveimpededimplementation.


Team Members:

JoeAgresta,WPI

ZacharyEricson,WPI

SethNorton,WPI

AlexaStevens,WPI

RajatValecha,IIT

AnkurSardar,IIT

Advisors:

Dr.DericksShukla,IIT

Dr.DeepakSwami,IIT

Dr.RajneeshSharma,IIT



An Opportunity for Rainwa-ter Harvesting InthenorthernIndianstateofHimachalPra‐desh, water crises occur on an annual basis(Singh,Sharma,Hassan,&Ahsan,2010). Irriga‐tion systems have been developed over theyears, passed from family to family, and manytownshavecommunalwaterreservesthatsup‐ply their community. Pumping groundwater isoften used to supplement reserves, however,eventhesesolutionsarenotenoughtokeepupwith demand. In areas ofmountainous terrain,surfacewaterisoftenlosttorunoff,andground‐wateristoofarbeneaththesurfacetosuf icient‐lyusepumpsforwatermanagement.WaterscarcityinnorthernIndiaisexacerbat‐edbythedif icultyofstoringwaterbeyondtherainyseason.Themonsoonbringsaround80%of the region's annual rainfall in a three‐monthspan while the rest of the year sees sporadicprecipitation (Bloomberg, 2015). In addition tolocal rivers, natural subsurface aquifers store

waterfromtherainyseasonwhichresidentsuseforbasicpurposes.Thewater supplyof under‐ground aquifers, however, is not suf icient tomeettheneedsofresidents,livestock,andagri‐culture(HimachalPradeshDevelopmentReport,2005,pp.342‐343).Tomeet the challenges ofmaintaining relia‐ble, long‐term water availability in HimachalPradesh, this project assessed the economiccosts and feasibility of rainwater harvesting(RWH) systems. Rainwater collection can pro‐vide self‐supportingwater supplies and reducethechallengesofpumpinggroundwater.Inaddi‐tiontosupplyingpotablewater,thecollectionofrainwater couldhelp to reduce the soil erosionendemicinHimachalPradeshbytheimplemen‐tation of surface runoff solutions. There is al‐ready ample roof space to theoretically imple‐ment high‐yielding rainwater harvesting solu‐tions. Therefore, to address water accessibilityissues,weexecutedthefollowingobjectives: Conduct baseline assessment of existing

rainwater harvesting opportunities andimplementationconstraints

Evaluate properties of potential systemstodevelopadesign‐rubrictoincreasetheef iciencyofnewlyimplementedsystems

Construct proof of concept models andimplementabledesigns

The information we gathered from thesestepsallowedustoimplementatestsystemon the IIT Mandi Campus, create cohesivepricequotesforfurtherimplementation,de‐velop novel designs for areas that have no

RWH, and support policy recommendations forthefuture.Rooftop Catchment and Conveyance Themost commonly implemented rainwaterharvesting systems are roof capture systems(Novak et al., 2014). Angled roof systems areideal formany applications because they allowforahigherrunoffcoef icientandmoreef icientrainwatercollectionthan latroofs;acoef icientofaround0.8foraslopedroofand0.4fora latroof(Farrenyetal.,2011).Slopedroofsalsoal‐lowwatertobegravity‐fedintotheconveyancecomponent, which typically includes a gutterlowingintoadownspoutonthesideofahouse.Mostdownspoutsthenrunintoanundergroundstorage tank or alternatively into abovegroundtanks(seeFigure2below).ThemodelinFigure2 depicts a simple roof capture system whererunoff is transported and captured using exist‐ing structures with the addition of a storagetank.

Figure2:Roofcapturesystem(UNEP,1997) Figure1-Bhiuli,anareafacingwaterscarcityin

Mandi,HimachalPradesh

Filtration Rainwater that has been harvested off ofroofscanbecontaminatedbeforereachingstor‐age and sometimes requires initial iltration.Screeningusingmetal iltersorsandcanremovemostsedimentanddebristhatmighthaveaccu‐mulated on rooftops or in pipes. These ilterscannot removebacteria,deposits fromanimals,or other contaminants. Technologies such ascarbon ilters and UV light treatments can beusedtoensurethatanystoredwater ispotable(Novaketal.,2014).A simpleway todo this isplacingatransparentbottleofwaterinthesunso the sunlight kills the bacteria. Solar distilla‐tionandsolarUVtreatments,althougheffective,aretimeconsuming.Thefastestandmosteffec‐tivemethodofkillingbacteria is simplyboilingthewater(Seneresetal.,2013,pg.44).Bothofthese techniques can be a part of a rainwaterharvestingsystem,althoughadditional iltrationislargelythedecisionoftheuser.Storage Storingrainwatercapturedintherooftopsys‐temsisoneofthegreatestchallengesofrainwa‐terharvesting.First,thesizeofthetankmustbedeterminedbytheneedsoftheuserandthepo‐tential amount of water that can be captured.Tanksizecanbe limitedbyavailablespaceandstructural constraints forcingmany tanks tobeconstructed underground. Underground tankshave the disadvantages of challenging mainte‐nanceand susceptibility to contamination fromsewage.Thetankmustalsobesealedshutwiththeexceptionofopeningsforthewaterinletandtheover lowregulator.Thewater lowregulator

releaseswaterifthetankisover illedtoensurethepressure ismaintained.The tank shouldbeconstructedwith a non‐porousmaterial that isable towithstand thewater pressurewithin it.Additionally,sunlightcannotenterthetank,asitcould promote the growth of algae and otherbacteria that would contaminate the water(Kinkade‐Levario,2007). Surface Runoff Asecondmethodofrainwaterharvesting in‐volvesdirecting the lowofsurfacerunoff fromrainfall through passive rainwater collection(Kinkade‐Levario, 2007).Thegoal in these sys‐temsistorechargegroundwaterandtoattempttominimizesoilerosionand lash loodscausedwhenthetoplayerofsoilisdryforlongperiodsof time. These systemsusenonporous surfacessuchasclay,concrete,pavement,orothermate‐rialstodirectwater.Thewaterthat lowsoffthe

impermeable surfaces is then channeled into agutterorwellof increasingpermeability.Thesedistributionnetworksallowforgradualpermea‐tion of runoff to reduce erosion and rechargeaquifers.Permeableroadwaymaterialshaveal‐so been discovered to prevent severe loodingandrechargegroundwaterinstead.Thesemate‐rialsarenotwidelyutilizedyet,sotheextentoftheirbene itsisunknown.(Jenkins,2011). Policy The government of Himachal Pradesh cur‐rentlyrequiresthatallnewurbanconstruction,includinggovernmentbuildingsandschools,in‐corporate rainwater harvesting systems(Ministry of Water Resources, 2013). Require‐mentsset forthby theHimachalPradeshTownand Country Planning Department (2011) dic‐tatethatthesesystemsmustinclude20litersofwaterstorageforeverysquaremeterofroofar‐ea. For existing water delivery infrastructure,the Himachal Pradesh Irrigation and PublicHealthDepartment(IPH)andurbanlocalbodies(ULBs)arerecognizedastheprimarycaretakersof drinking water systems (Himachal PradeshStateWaterPolicy,2013).Duetobudgetlimita‐tions ofmunicipal governments,Mandi, and allother towns with the exception of Shimla, aremanaged solely by the IPH and not by ULBs(HimachalPradeshDevelopmentReport,2005).Asof2015,itwasalsoreportedthat2,354outof3,571plannedrainwaterstoragetanksinMandiDistricthavebeenconstructedundertheMahat‐maGandhiNationalRuralEmploymentGuaran‐tee Act (Tribune, 2015). RWH is garnering re‐gional support through policy implementation,

Figure3:RooftopWaterStorageTanksinMandiTown(Photo:J.Agresta)

increasing the prevalence of these systems inHimachalPradeshandthesurroundingareas.Methodology: Assessment and Design Thegoalof thisprojectwastoassesstheca‐pacityand implicationsof rainwaterharvestingin the Mandi area and to implement effectiveharvesting solutions on the IITMandi Campus.Inordertoaccomplishthisgoal,weestablishedseveralobjectives: Conduct a baseline assessment of existing

rainwater harvesting opportunities and im‐plementationconstraints

Evaluate properties of potential systems todevelopadesign‐rubric to increase the ef i‐ciencyofnewlyimplementedsystems

Construct proof of concept models and im‐plementabledesigns

Each of our objectives required multiple re‐searchstrategiestocomplete(Figure4).Our primary focuswhen irst arriving in theregionwastobetterunderstandtheconstraintsand realities of the project site. Google Earthwasusedtomappotentialbuildingsinthestudyarea; polygons were created for each buildingand the total rooftop area was calculated. Ourteam visited Mandi and conducted semistruc‐tured interviews with the residents of themapped houses. We spoke to 73 of the 230homeownersof lat‐roofedbuildingsinthearea,andcataloguedthembytheidenti icationrefer‐encegiventotheirhomes.TheinterviewswereconductedbyoneWPIstudentandoneIITstu‐

dent to integratemultiple perspectives and as‐sistwithcommunication. After gathering the stakeholder data, we in‐terviewed the local governing water authority,the Irrigation and Public Health Department(IPH),usingasemi‐structuredformat.Wewerelooking for supplementary meteorological dataforuse inour calculations, inaddition to infor‐mation about the public water infrastructure.Once we had the rainfall data along with therooftopareasandenduserinput,weconducteda SWOT analysis to examine the potential ofrainwater harvesting solutions. In addition to

the qualitative analysislisted above, we con‐ducted a cost analysisbased on local prices.From the informationthat was gathered andsynthesized, we createda comprehensive designrubric in order to con‐struct a system on theIITMandiCampus.Oncethe design rubric wasinalized, we conductedinterviews of key stake‐holders on campus(professors, students,staff) to ensure that allconcerns were ad‐dressed. CAD modelingwas then used to envi‐sion solutions to imple‐ment on the IIT campus

andinMandi. After completingdesigns,wegatheredmate‐rials from IIT and local suppliers to begin con‐structing a proof of conceptmodel.Working intheIIT’smachineshop,wefabricatedtheneces‐sarypartstothespeci icationsofourCADmod‐el.Themodelswerepresentedtothestakehold‐ers and decision makers on campus. With theconstructionofthemodelscompleted,wetestedthe functionality and polled the campus foropinions.Theresultofourworkoncampuswasa system that addressed the concerns held byresidentsaffectedbywaterscarcity.

Figure4:ProjectOverview

Results and Discussion Our ieldwork and interactions with stake‐holdersproducedthefollowingresults. Objective 1: Baseline assessment Our team visited the Bhiuli region of MandiTown and conducted interviews of 73 house‐holds in the area.Our goalwas to examine thenecessity for rainwater harvesting in the areaanddetermineitseffectivenessbasedonavarie‐tyofconstraints.Fromthehomeownerrespons‐es,wewereabletogatherthat63%oftheresi‐dentsintheareahavefacedsomesortofwaterscarcity,meaning they sometimes did not haveenoughwatertomeettheirdailydemand.55%ofresidentsfeltthatrainwaterharvestingcouldbe useful for their families and lifestyles. Ofthosethat facedwatershortages,wefound ive(8%) that used rainwater harvesting in theirhomes. In two of the ive houses, the ownerswere doctors, and had designed their own sys‐temsbasedonprofessionalknowledge.Onesys‐temwasarooftopsystemandanotherwasacol‐lection pond. Other systemsweremore impro‐vised systems such as collecting rainwater inbucketsordrums(SeeFigure5). Duringa fewinterviews,homeownersspecu‐lated thathouses far fromwatersupplies facedincreasedwatershortageswhilehousesclosetowatersourcesreceivedamorereliablesupplyofwater. Discussion with homeowners showedthat95%purchase theirwater from the Irriga‐tion and Public Health Department (IPH) andstore theprovidedwateronrooftop tanks.Theother5%relyonlocalsourcessuchasriverwa‐

ter, hand pumps,mountain springs, and villagemanagedwatersupplies. Water storage tanks were found universallyamonghouseholdsandtheaveragetotalcapac‐ity of residential water storage tankswas ap‐proximately 2,560 liters per household. Therewasanaverageof5.3membersperhouseholdgiving a per capita storage capacity of 482 li‐tersperresident.Figure2showsthatmostres‐idential water storage ranged from 500 to5,000litersperhouseholdwith50%ofhomeswith storage between 1,500 and 3,000 liters(seeFigure6). Interviews proved that the residents werenotalwaysreceivingtheamountofwaterthatthey requested from the IPH; one resident re‐portedonlygetting400 litersoutof the1,200

their household needed per day. Al‐mostalloftheresidentssaidthattheyhadoneormoremeteredIPHconnec‐tions and that theyonlypaid forwa‐ter delivered, not water requested.When asked about clarifying theamountresidentspaidforwater,of i‐cials at the IPH said they bill at therate of10.41Rs/1,000Lofwaterpermonthwitha latrateof26Rs/monthperconnectionforfamiliesbelowthepoverty line. The average water billfor all respondentswas236.2Rspermonth. Although the IPH treats thewater theyprovide,87%of residentsstillchoseto ilterdrinkingwaterbe‐fore consumption, and the inter‐viewedIPHof icialsalsorecommend‐edadditional iltration.Tworesidents

reported receiving dirty water when it waspumpedintotheirhomes;theof icialsattheIPH

Figure5:Homeownersurveyresponses

Figure6:Waterstoragecapacitybasedonsurveyresults

attributethistofailingwatersupplypipes. Our team questioned whether homeownerswould be willing to share a RWH systemwithneighbors, and 65% of homeowners indicatedtheywereopentousingasharedsystem.Manyof therespondents thatdidnotwish toshareasystem stated that they wanted to avoid dis‐puteswithothersandthattheywereconcernedabout how land would be allocated for waterstorage. Residents additionally expressed con‐cerns that there would be no way to regulateindividual water and that others would takemorethentheirshare. ItwasobservedthattheaverageageofhomesinBhiuli,basedonhome‐ownerresponse,was21yearsold.Theaverageconstruction date in Bhiuli predates the 2009government provision that requires RWH onanynewconstruction.Manyresidentsarelook‐ingforwardtoanewpipedwaterschemeputinplacebytheIPHthatistocomeineffectwithinthenextyear. We calculated the amount of rainwater thatcouldbeharvestedfromtherooftopsofselectedbuildingsontheIITcampus.Asapointofcom‐parison, the smallest rooftop on campus that wassurveyedhadanareaof227squaremetersandanaverageannualrainfallcatchmentpoten‐tialof307,498 liters.TheD2messhallhad thelargest roof area of 1459meters squared, pro‐ducing an average annual rainfall capacity of1,972,698liters.ThetotalannualRWHpotentialofthenineselectedbuildingsoncampustotaledapproximately 6,083,000 liters. Figure 7, illus‐tratespotentialbybuilding.

InBhiuli,wecalculatedtherainfallcollectionpotential of262homeswith the smallest capa‐bleof collecting5,683 litersand the largest ca‐pableofcollecting606,813litersofwaterannu‐ally. The average rainwater collection potentialper house in Bhiuli equaled approximately128,875 liters per year. As shown in Figure 8,below,themiddle50%ofrooftopswerecapable

ofproducingbetween68,903and161,512litersof harvested rainwater per year.All the housesof Bhiuli combinedwere calculated to have anannualRWHpotentialof33,765,000liters. Objective 2: Evaluate potential systems and create design rubric After gathering the information from inter‐viewswith localhomeownersandstakeholderson the IIT campus we created a design rubricfeaturingessential criteriaderived fromthere‐sponses(Figure9).Objective 3: Create designs and proof of concept Before making recommendations for an im‐plementation on the IIT campus, we surveyedfaculty,students,andstaff.Afterinterviewing10studentsand10facultyandstaff,wediscoveredthat 90% had experienced some sort of watershortage on the IIT campuswith 75% of themexperiencing water shortages multiple times ayear.Shortageswerereportedtohaveoccurredin 13 different buildings across campus, and79%oftherespondentsbelievedthattheprob‐lemwasdue to thedistributionsystem.Whenasked speci ically about RWH, it was deter‐mined that 90% understand the concept ofrainwater harvesting and do not believe thatRWH currently exists on the IIT campus. Oursurvey additionally posed questions on RWHtanklocations.Inthiscase,65%ofrespondentswouldpreferatanklocationthatwouldnotbenear a major walkway. To prompt re lectionthat could help us integrate tank design withcampusde icits,65%ofour respondents indi‐catedashortageofoutdoorseatingoncampus.

Figure7:IITCampusRWHpotentialofselectedbuildings

Figure8:DistributionofannualRWHpotentialofrooftopsinBhiuli

Finally,intermsofusability,35%thinkthathar‐vested rainwater is not suitable for any usewithout iltration,with60%suggestingthathar‐vestedrainwatercouldbeusedforanythingbutdrinkingwithout iltration. To design a model for an affordable villagerainwater system, we interviewed IIT guardsthat live in nearby villages to determine theneed for supplemental water systems in thesecommunities. Ten guards were surveyed, ena‐blingustocollectdatafromsevendifferentvil‐lages.Fromtheirresponseswefoundthat iveofthe villages facing regular water shortages. Ofthosethatdidnotfaceashortage,tworespond‐entssaidthatthewatertheydidhavewasdirty.

The villages mainly getwater from naturalsourcesandwells,butsixrespondents said thatthey store extra waterbecause their watersources are unreliable.Among the guards, RWHknowledge was wide‐spreadwith all respond‐ents reporting that theyunderstand the concept.Three respondents addi‐tionally indicated thatthey have seen systemsin place. The inal ques‐tions asked were aboutthe types of roofs thatvillage residentshaveontheir homes as well as

water storage capacity. Seven said they hadsloped roofs and six said they store water insomeway.Discussion Our surveying process provided results thatwere both expected and unexpected. Based ontheresponsestoquestionsaboutwaterscarcityandnumberofpeopleinahousehold,wedeter‐minedanaverageneedforwaterinthearea.Wethen calculated the potential that these homesand buildings have to collect rainfall by usingour maps. The average monthly collection po‐tential in Bhiuli was estimated at 10,700 litersperhouse.IfaresidentofBhiuliused70litersofwaterperday,RWHonanaveragesizerooftop

couldprovide enoughwater tomeet the entiremonthlydemandof5householdmembers.Withanaverageof5.3membersperhousehold,rain‐waterharvestingcouldcomeclosetosupplyingtheentiredemandofhouseholds.Withoutsolu‐tions for long‐term water storage, however,rainwater harvesting could serve as a supple‐mental water source rather than a sole watersource, but RWH would still help to mitigateshortages and take stressoff the currentwaterdistributionsystem. Evenwith amajority of residents in supportofrainwaterharvestingandfacingwatershort‐ages, there was still skepticism among home‐owners about the feasibility of rainwater har‐vesting inBhiuli.DoubtsaboutRWHoriginatedinperceptionsthatthereisnotenoughspaceforsuf icient rainwater collection, implementationcosts would be too high, and other users mayabusesharedsystemsbyusingtoomuchwater.With some households not affected by watershortages,interestinRWHasasolutionwasal‐souneven.Householdswithoutwatershortageswere less likely to support implementation ofRWH,evenifitwasatlittletonocosttothem.Inour initial interviews,oneresidentwhowasaf‐fectedbylackofwater,saidthatitwouldtakeatotalcrisisforeveryonetogetonboard. We have found implementation on the IITcampus to be a viable solution to the watershortage issues.After interviewing the facultyandstudentsoncampus,thosethatlivewiththeIIT water supply, we were provided with im‐portantinformationabouttheirexperiencewiththis system. The high number of respondents

Figure9:Designrubricof3possibleimplementations

thatindicatedthepresenceofwatershortagesisindicativethattheIITwatersupply isnotsuf i‐cientyearroundtosustainon‐campusresidents.On the south campus we determined that mil‐lionsofliterscouldbeharvestedayear.Rainwa‐terharvestingcouldalsobeimplementedonthebuildings being constructed on the north cam‐pustomeetthedemandofthefutureincreasedpopulationof the IITMandi.Additionally, therewas overwhelmingly positive feedback aboutintegratingthewatertankasanoutdoorfeaturesuch as a seating area. Themulti‐use aspect ofthissystemissomethingthatcouldimproveso‐cialacceptabilityandencouragewidespreadim‐plementationbytheIIT.Thecostofthetankforthe proposed M8 Hostel implementation washigherthanexpectedat30,887rupees.Althoughexpensive, the storage tank will provide suf i‐cient storage so that water is not wasted asover low outside of themonsoon season.Mon‐soon rainfallwould not need to be stored, andcouldinsteadbeusedtorechargegroundwater,asmoststudentsandfacultyarenotoncampusduringthemonthsofheaviestrainfall. Afterspeakingwiththeguardsoncampustobetter understand the needs in small local vil‐lage, it is clear that the surrounding communi‐tiesalso facewaterproblems includingscarcityand unclean water. Village water shortagescouldbepartiallymitigatedwithRWH,especial‐ly since amajority of homes have sloped roofsandalreadycollectwater.Thelargestchallengeis implementinga costeffectivesolution that iseasy for homeowners to install on their own.Knowledge of RWH is high, so informing resi‐

dents about how they can construct low‐costimplementationsontheirhomeswithavailablematerialsiskey. RWH System Designs and Implementation Our team has prepared a ready‐to‐implement design for the IIT campus, a novelsolutionfortheBhiuliarea,anda lowcostde‐sign forvillage implementation.Weusedcom‐puter aided design (CAD) models to envisionand plan rainwater harvesting systems basedon our data analysis for the water‐challengedMandiregion.Eachdesign focusedonmeetingtheneedsofeachtargetcommunity. Campus design The goals of the systemdesigned for the IITcampus were both to collect rainwater cost‐effectively and to create a multipurpose spacethat would be socially acceptable on campus.The system developed for implementation onthe IITMandi campus relied on the gutter andpipe system that was part of every hostel(dormitory) design. Hostel M8 was chosen forimplementationbecause thebuildinghadexist‐ing aboveground gutter pipes that allowed foreasy construction of a conveyance system. TheelevationoftheM8Hostelalsomadeitpossibleto gravity feed collected water into storagetanksthatcouldbeusedbyotherhostelsnearby(seeFigure10).Pipes are attached to the ends of the drain‐pipesfromthegutters, feeding intoa irst lushtank.The irst lushsystemisusedtoeliminatetheinitialportionofwatercollectedsothatthe

majority of contaminants from the roof surfacedo not enter the storage tanks. Once the irstlush tank is full, any additional water lowsthrough the pipe into a multistage gravel andsand ilter. The iltered water that passes theirst lush iltersystemthen illsintothestoragetanks.Thebottomof the irst lush tankwouldbeamixtureofgravelandsandtoallowthewa‐tertoslowlyseepbackintotheground.Thisdis‐sipation would empty the tank automatically,onlyneedingmaintenanceeveryothermonthtopreventbuildupoforganicmaterial. For storage, the tank size was calculatedbased on the area of the roof and the averagecalculatedrainwaterpotentialoftheM8Hostel.Thetankispositioneddownhillfromthehostel,allowing it to be easily gravity‐fed (See Figure11).Over lowfromthetankcanalsobedirectedtothewellbesidetheD2mess.Thewellcanbegravity‐fed from the tank, and the extra water

Figure10:Immediatecampusimplementation

will either be drawn up by the well pump orhelprechargethegroundwater. Fromourinterviewswithstudents,wefoundthatmoreoutdoorgatheringandworkingspac‐esweredesired.Fromthisrequirement,wede‐cided a large, half‐buried concrete tank wouldbeacceptedby leaving the tophalfasaseatingarea.Comprehensiveplans, including costs andmultiple designs, have been developed and arereadyforimplementationinaccordancewithIITbuildingplans.Duetothetimerequiredtocon‐struct a concrete tank however, we installed a5000‐liter plastic tank as an initial prototypeand recommend the concrete tank as a future,long‐term solution. We also forwent the self‐emptying irst lushtankinfavorofaquick,easytoimplement irst lushpipethatmustbemanu‐allyemptiedaftereachrainevent.A RWH system for Mandi Town

The design devised for the town of Mandi,speci ically Bhiuli village, was geared towardsimprovingtheef iciencyofrooftopcollectionaswellasmakinganaffordablesystemthatallowsfor multiple use rooftop space. A single slopecanopydesignwasselectedasawaytoimprovecollection ef iciency, allow for alternate uses ofrooftops, and minimize construction materialcosts. To improve the runoff coef icient of the latrooftops, a sloped catchment area made fromcorriboardwasproposed.Corriboardwastestedand shown to transportover90%of thewaterplacedon itgiving it ahigher runoff coef icientthanaslopedmetalroof.Thecorriboardcanopywasalsodesignedwithanorigamitechniquetomake the system removable and easily re‐deployable. The supports for the single slope canopywould consist of two sets of higher poles, andtwosetsof lowerpoles(seeFigure12) ixedtotheroofwithcementscrews.Thecorriboard inthedesignisattachedwithsimplehooksoneachcorner tocreateaslopedcatchment.Rainwater

wouldrunoff thecatchment intoapre‐installedguttersystemonthelowerend.Harvestedrain‐water from the catchment is transported intorooftoptanksthatwouldgravitysupplywatertoresidents living below. The novelty of this sys‐tem is that it is completely customizable(corriboard size, appearance, tank size) basedon the home size and desiredwater collection.Theuseofexistingrooftopstoragetankswouldalso reduce space requirements and eliminatecostsofpurchasingdedicatedRWHtanks. We had considered other options includingadding a solid permanent canopy to the roof(metal or plastic), adding material to create asloped roof, and adding a permeable rooftopleading toa tank.Duringanalysis theotherop‐tions were ultimately rejected because theywere more expensive, more dif icult to imple‐ment,ormorespaceconsuming.Village design For villages in thedistrict ofMandi, amodelwascreatedthatfeaturedrecycledandinexpen‐sive materials. The main constraint in this de‐signwasthecostofmaterials.Inthisdesign,wecombined the two lowest cost ideas of a “rainchain”andof recycledplasticbottlesasa con‐veyance system. The design consists of thechainrunningthroughthebottlesthatarecon‐nectedendtoendbyremovingthebottomendofeachbottle(SeeFigure13).Waterthen lowsdown thepathof thechainand thebottlesactasasplashguardtoensurethebulkoftheliq‐uidremainscontained.Our indingsfoundthatmost roofs in the surrounding villages had aroofgutterbutnoconveyancepipetoastorage

Figure11:ACADmodeloftheinitialprototypesystem

Figure12:Manditownmodel

container such as a bucket.This design alleviates thatproblemusingreadilyavail‐able materials at low cost.Thismodelwasprototyped,but additional research andield testingwasnot includ‐ed in the scope of this pro‐ject.

Recommenda-tions Our irst recommenda‐tion stems from cost con‐cerns that we found whileconducting our interviewswith residentsofBhiuli.Webelieve that the IPH, or the

Himachal Pradesh government, should offer asubsidy to offset the initial cost of rainwaterharvesting systems. The subsidy will give theresidents an opportunity to acquire a supple‐mentarywatersupply,increasingtheamountofwateronhandwhiledecreasingdemandontheIPH publicwater distribution system. AlthoughtheIPHis increasingtheamountofwaterinitssystemwith additional sources, of icials recog‐nizethatthisisa20‐yearsolutionatmaximum.InstitutingRWHsystemswillprovideasecond‐arysourceofwaterthatdoesnotrelyonpipedwaterinfrastructureordrawwaterfromnearbyriversandgroundwater.OursecondrecommendationistoeducatethepeopleofMandiaboutrainwaterharvestingandits bene its. Most importantly, the education

shouldfocusontheideathatRWHcanbedonein densely populated areas, not just in largeopen expanses. Our interviews revealed thatmany residents weren't interested in the sys‐temsbecausetheydidn'tthinkthespaceexistedto implementthem.This lackofknowledgeisamitigating barrier in advancing the rainwaterharvestingmovement.Afutureprojectcouldbeimplementedtoincreasetheawarenessanded‐ucation of rainwater harvesting methods andtechniques,includinginstructiononhowpeoplecanmakeasimplesystemusingwhatinfrastruc‐turealreadyexists in theirhouse.Fromour in‐teractionswithlocalhomeowners,wesuggestasmallworkingmodelonademonstrationsiteinaddition to an informational campaign withgraphicstoovercomelanguagediscrepanciesormisunderstandings. Ourthirdrecommendationincludesshortandlong‐termplansfortheIITinregardstorainwa‐terharvesting.Theshort‐termplaninvolvestheinstallationofa simpleRWHsystemon theM8Hostelasdescribedabove.Foralong‐termsolu‐tion,we recommend creating a network of un‐dergroundpipes running frommultiple hostelsand campus buildings to large undergroundstorage tanks. Water should be collected fromhigherelevationbuildingstosupplylowerbuild‐ingswithminimalenergyrequired to liftwatertotherooftoptanksofeachhostel.Wealsorec‐ommend the use of concrete tanks for large‐scale implementation because of the cost ad‐vantagesoverplastictanksatlargevolume.OnedesignscollectswaterfromtheD2messanddi‐rects it to recharge a borewell that is directly

behindthebuilding.The lackofrecharge intheborewellhasbeenaproblemthispastyearandsurely will be in the future if something isn'tdone. The over low pipes from storage tanksshould also be connected to the borewells totakeadvantageofexcesswatercollectedduringthe monsoon season. Even with students offcampus during themonsoon season, extra col‐lected water should still be used to rechargegroundwater.Theoverallrainwaterpotentialofcampusislargeenoughtoproduceasigni icantpercentageofwaterusedoncampus,butonlyiflarge‐scale implementation is performed. Wehave provided the IIT with an implementationguide that details site locations, pricing, andtimelinesforconstruction.

Conclusion InMandi, India, unreliable pipedwater sup‐pliesandincreasedwaterdemandfrompopula‐tiongrowthhavedemonstratedaneedforrain‐water harvesting systems as a supplementarywater source. In addition tomeeting long‐termdemand and taking stress off of existingwatersupply infrastructure, the systems must meettheneedsof thedifferent implementation loca‐tions.These criteria include space conservativesolutions for lat roofs inMandi, low cost solu‐tions for a village setting, andmaximumwatercollectionfortheIITcampus. Much of our research supports the idea thatrainwaterharvestingwouldbeuseful inMandi,however, fewexamplesofrainwaterharvestingexist despite efforts by the IPH. Conversationswith residents gave the impression that only alarge‐scale, extended water crisis would spur

Figure13:Villagesolution

implementation.We have ful illed our goals bydemonstrating that rainwater harvesting is aviable mitigation technique for populations af‐fected by water scarcity and by offering solu‐tionsthatcanbeimplementedforeachlocation.Futureprojects could include researchingwaysto incentivize widespread implementation inHimachalPradeshandresidenteducationaboutthe feasibility of rainwater harvesting for stor‐ageandgroundwaterrecharge.

Acknowledgements Wewouldliketothankthefollowingpeoplefortheirvaluablecontributionstoourproject:

Dr.DericksShukla

Dr.DeepakSwami

Dr.RajneeshSharma

Dr.StephenMcCauley

Dr.IngridShockey

Thefullreportandsupplementalmaterialsforthisprojectcanbefoundathttp://www.wpi.edu/E-project-db/E-project-search/searchusingkey-wordsfromtheprojecttitle.AdditionalISTPscanbefoundathttp://www.iitmandi.ac.in/istp/projects.html.

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Developing Smart Origami Shelters for Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

ThisprojectappliedtheprinciplesoforigamitodevelopsmartsheltersthatcanbeadaptedforindividualsorgroupsinHimachalPradesh,India.Weengageddiverseusergroups,includingslumresi‐dents,migratoryconstructionworkers,andtrekkersinthedesignprocesstodevelopaversatilestructurethatisportable,deployable,andweatherresistant.The inalproductwas ield‐testedamongthosesameusergroupstoproducealistofadditionalfeaturesandchangestomakeinfutureversions.


Team Members:

SammiChernin,WPI

SiddharthaGadipalli,IIT

NitinKrishna,IIT

IsamuNakagawa,WPI

BenPulver,WPI

NenehSwitalla,WPI

Advisors:

Dr,ViswanathBalakrishnan,IIT

Dr.PradeepKumar,IIT



The case for better semi-permanent shelters in Hima-chal Pradesh In 2015, a teamof students undertook a de‐sign challenge to create a folding, lightweighttemporarysheltersuitedtowardstheneedsofavarietyofstakeholdersinandaroundHimachalPradesh.Theresultingcardboardandtarppro‐totype could fold lat for transport and expanddynamicallytohouseuptotwoindividuals.Theuse of cardboard however, while not unusual,was not ideal for long‐term usage. In order toadvance the idea, we engaged the users in thedesign process, explored better materials, andcreatedand ield‐testedanimprovedprototype.Afterfeedbackand ieldstudies,theteamde‐termined thatamajorityof the targetaudiencewaslookingforsemi‐permanentsheltersratherthan portable and lightweight structures (seeFigure1).Inordertoimproveupontheexistingstructuresusedbystakeholders,theteamsolic‐ited a range of requirements that the design

shouldmeet.The inalsheltershouldwithstandheavyrainfall,highwinds,andsnowaccumula‐tion. Additionally, it should have insulatingproperties, be ire resistant, and support forsome formof lighting.These extraqualities re‐

duce portability and increase cost, but also in‐creasecomfortduringextendeduse.Allofthesefeatureswerecombined intoastructure that iscompact when stored and can be rapidly de‐ployedwhenneeded.The goal of this project was to manufacturean origami shelter that meets stakeholder re‐quirements and features 'smart' technologies.Tomeetthatgoal,weidenti iedfourobjectives:1. Identify materials and manufactur‐

ingoptionsforproduction2. Engageinuser‐baseddesignincollaboration

withstakeholders3. Produce 3 inal products based on 1 initial

prototypethatmeetthedesigncriteria4. Distribute prototypes to users to perform

ield‐testingandgatherfeedback

Origami as a design foundation The Japanese art of origami has been inpractice since 105 CE (History of Origami,2015).Afterstudying the techniquesandappli‐cationsassociatedwithorigami,researchersanddesigners have incorporated these unique fea‐tures into large‐scale deployable structures. Asthe practice of folding techniques advanced, sohasthescopeofthefeasibleapplications;today,thesetechniquesarebeingusedtoimprovecut‐tingedgetechnologiesincludingNASAsatellites,robotics, airbags, heart stents, and retinal im‐plants (Main, 2014). Theuse of origami princi‐plesintheseadvanced ieldsindicatesitsversa‐tilityasaviableconstructiontechniqueforshel‐ters(Rihal,2013).

ThebasicfoldsoforigamimostoftenusedindisasterreliefshelterstodayincludetheMiura‐Ori pattern, Yoshimura/diamond pattern, andthe reverse fold (seeFigure2).Rihal chose thereverse fold and Yoshimura fold were due totheirqualitiesof“signi icantlateralstrengthand

stiffness in the longitudinal direction” (Rihal,2013, p. 1086). Another important property oforigami folds is deployability – the ability toquickly assemble on site and collapse fortransport. From this perspective, theMiura‐Orifoldisoneofthebesttypesoffoldsasitiseasilyable to compress into squares via orthogonalfolding (Miura, 1994). Miura, the originator ofthe Miura‐Ora pattern, explains in his 1994work that thisproperty iswhatmakes the foldsodeployable.ThisfactoriswhyNASAhasusedtheMiura‐Orafoldintransportingsatellitesandwhy we felt it was appropriate for a compactsemi‐permanentshelters(Miura,1994).Intermsofoffering lexibilityinmodularunitexpansion, the two simplest types of joints forconnectingorigamipieces are theoverlap jointand the seam joint. The overlap joint providesthemost strength and stiffness as thematerialitselfprovidesthenecessarysupport(see

Figure1:CurrentsheltersofhomelesspopulationinHimachalPradesh.

Figure2:Miurafold,Yoshimurafold,reversefold,andoverlapstylejoints(Gattas&You2016;Rihal,2013).

Figure 3) (Rihal, 2013). The seam joint simplyconnects two structures along a seam withoutoverlap by adding additional material such astapeorfabric.Theadvantageoftheseamjointisthat it minimizes material waste and is morelexiblethantheoverlapjoint.

Materials and assembly in shelter design To identify appropriate materials, we ana‐lyzed those most commonly used in existingsemi‐permanentsheltersaswellasothermate‐rials thatmeetdesignrequirementsbutarenottypicallyusedinexistingshelters.Materialprop‐erties were taken from variousmaterials data‐bases,includingCESEduPack2015(seeTable1ofAppendixA,SupplementalMaterials).There are, in general, three types of non‐origami or simple origami shelters: soft‐walled,clamshell, and rigid‐walled accordion style (seeFigure 4). Soft‐walled shelters tend to bemoreadaptable and can be more easily compacted,but lack the rigidity necessary to be self‐supporting(Thrall&Quaglia,2014).Thismakesrigid‐walled structures more suited towardspermanentorsemi‐permanenthousingandsoft‐walled structures more suited towards tempo‐raryshelters.Althoughorigamicancreatecom‐plex structures, doing sowith thickermaterialsbecomesdif icultbecauseastheorigamifoldingpattern increases in complexity the opportuni‐

tiesformisalignmentsincreases.Forthisreason,simple folding techniques, such as the reversefold, are best suited for this project. Two goodexamplesoforigamistylesheltersthatusesim‐ple folding techniques are the Biodegradable

TentandtheKarTent(seeFigure5).Theseshel‐tersaredesigned for limitedusebyoneor twoindividuals and are thereforenot suited for ex‐tended use by families or other large groups.The key bene its of an origami shelter are de‐ployabilityandrigidity,buttheseadvantagesdonotscalewellastherigidityofalargescaleori‐gami shelter increases its weight and reducesthepackingef iciency.Site-specific considerations

Inresponsetoorigami'scomplexity,sim‐pletentstructureswereinitiallyexploredtoun‐derstand their limitations in the design chal‐

lenge. Tents can be highly compact and light‐weight (seeFigure6), andhave theadvantagesofbeinghighlyportable, lightweight, and scala‐ble. Onalimitedbasis,foroneortwoindividu‐als, tentsare lighterandmorecompact thananequivalently sized origami shelter. Additionally,tents are soft‐walled structures, which makethemmore lexible and thus less prone to fail‐ure.However,wedetermined that they rely onexpensive and highly specializedmaterials thatareneitheravailablenoraffordableinHimachalPradesh(Haist&Neale,2015).InHimachalPradesh,therearespeci icusergroupsthatrequireportableorimprovedhous‐ing.Forexample,GaddiHerders,trekkers,andurbanhomelessrequirehighlyportablelight‐weightshelters(Andrews,Felix,Joshi,Mehta&Novinyo,2015).Slumresidentsrequiremorepermanenthousing,whichmeetsbuildingper‐mits,isheavier,andhasadditionalfeaturesforday‐to‐dayliving.Althoughallofthepotentialusersrequiredsomeformofimproved

Figure4:Clamshell,rigid-walledaccordion,andsoft-walledaccordionstyleshelters(Thrall&

Figure5:BiodegradableTent(left)andKarTent(right)(Harden,2015;KarTent,2015).

Figure3:OverlapjointshownonaYoshimurapat-

Figure6:Double-walledtent,A-frame,tarptent

shelter, none of their requirements were per‐fectlymatchedwiththebene itsprovidedbyanorigami shelter. As discussed above, on a smallscale, tents are lighter andmore compact thanorigamisheltersandthusarebettersuitedtotheneedsofherders,trekkers,andtheurbanhome‐less.Formorepermanentresidents,thereislessneedforrapiddeployabilityandthusanorigamishelter isagood,butnot ideal,solution for thisgroupofusers.Increasing functionality for extended use Inadditiontomeetingthebasicrequirementsof the stakeholders, incorporating additional'smart' technologies and adaptations that in‐creasethequalityoflifeofauserwasapriority.Some of these technologies have been imple‐mented in currently available shelters and thusitisimportanttoreviewthoseimplementations.Solartechnologyhaslongbeenaddedtotentsin order to accommodate everything from re‐charging cellphones to powering refrigeratorsandgenerators.Oneexample,theCinchTentus‐essolarpanelsattachedtotherooftopowerre‐charging for devices and LED stakes and lan‐terns for convenience at night (Weiss, 2015).

Other tents, suchas theKaleidoscopeTent (seeinFigure7)usesolarfabrictocreatesolarpan‐

els that bendwith the shape of the tent (SolarPoweredTents,2016). With the addition of solar panels comes anability to light the interior space at night. Re‐cently developed to ill this need without highexpensewasthecharityLiterofLight,whichus‐esplasticbottles illedwithbleachandwatertorefract both sunlight and the light of LEDs intothe shelter (see Figure 8). When attached to a

solar panel and sensor, this system can utilizesunlightduringthedayandthelightoftheLEDsat night. Simply installed in a hole cut into theceiling, a one‐liter bottle can light a 15 square‐meter room at night. These lights last upwardsof ive years before the water needs to be re‐placed,whiletheLEDshavealifespanof70,000hours(Williams,2015).Another feature that would be useful is theability to collect water for drinking and otheruses. This has been accomplished in two mainways for shelters: rooftop rainwater collectionandsolarstills.Basiccatchmentsystems,suchastarpsandplasticfunnels,havebeenemployedtocatch rainwater on tents; these systems allowthe majority of this water to be collected andstoredfordrinkingorotherpurposes.Onesuchmethod can be seen used in the Kammok RainTarp(seeFigure9).TheKammoktarpusesthe

naturalcurveofitsshapeasacatchmentforrainwater,whichitthenfunnelsintoaholdingcanis‐ter(Weiss,2013)Foruseduringthedryseason,asolarstillcanbeaddedtotheshelter.Solarstillsareamethodofwatercollectionoftenusedwhenthereisnotan abundance of rain. Based on the design ofstillstaughtintheoutdoorsurvivaltrainingusedbytheUSAirForce,thisstillwouldbebothsim‐pleandeffective(Jones,2016).A inaladditionforlong‐termuseofthisshel‐terisanintegratedstoragesystemwhichmakesuseofspacethatwouldotherwisebelostduetotheorigamifoldsusedintheshelter'sconstruc‐tion.Basedonsimilarprinciplestofreestandingorganizers built by Coleman, incorporating alexible structure that compacts and expandswiththeshelterwhileutilizingtherigidityoftheshelterasaframe(seeFigure10),wouldbeide‐al.

Figure7:TheCinchtent(left)andtheKaleido-scopetent(right)(Weiss,2015;SolarPowered

Figure8:LiterofLightwithsolarpanel(Zee,

Figure9:TheKammokraintarp(left)andwatercollectionsystem(right)(Weiss,2013)

Figure10:Colemanfreestandingorganizer(TheColemanCompany).

In creating an optimal solution for a semi‐permanent origami shelter, it is apparent thatsuch a design should use simple folding tech‐niques, feature a combination of materials tomeet all desired requirements, use one or bothof the simple joints to provide maximum sup‐port and lexibility, and incorporate multiple'smart' features. A shelter that incorporates allofthesefeatureswillnotonlymeetstakeholderrequirements but will also be able to be ef i‐cientlymanufactured.

Methodology: Creating shel-ters for users in Himachal Pradesh

Objective 1: Identify materials and manu-facturing options for production We interviewed IIT‐Mandi faculty experts inmaterial science in order to identify a suitablematerialsdatabase touse inorder to select the

materials that best it the design requirementsandwerelocallyavailable.Fromthere,materialswereaddedtoaweighteddesignmatrix,andthematerialswhichbest ittheprojectwerechosen.We also identi ied localmanufacturing options,with a focus on cottage industry and personalmanufacturing (see Appendix B, SupplementalMaterials).Objective 2: Engage in user-based design in collaboration with stakeholders We revisited and completed the assessmentsofsheltersfromstakeholdersinitiatedinastudyfrom 2015. We conducted additional design‐centered interviews and observations withgroupsofstakeholders;initiallytargetingpoten‐tialusersnearVictoriaBridgeand the IIT cam‐pus in Kamand. These interviews and observa‐tions were documented through handwrittenandphotographicrecords.Thismethodengagedtheusersimmediatelythroughearlydirectcon‐tact,whichwasshowntobemoreeffectivethansimplyusingthemasdesignveri ication.Objective 3: Produce 3 final products based on 1 initial prototype that meet design crite-ria As part of the design and production of thesheltertheteamusedSolidWorkstocreatease‐lection of potential designs; from that pool thebest design was chosen for full‐scale manufac‐turing.Tocompensateforhavingrawmaterialsthat were not necessarily as large as required,the teamusedamodular approachby connect‐ingseveralpiecestogetherwithseamandover‐lapjoints.Overall, theteamsoughttodevelopatotaloffourmodels:aninitialprototypefor ield

‐testing followed by three inal products withmodi icationsbasedonfeedbackfromtesting.Objective 4: Distribute prototypes to users to perform field testing and gather feed-back Field testingwasperformed in twoparts:bybringingtheprototypetousers,andbyperform‐ing laboratorytestingtoverifydesignspeci ica‐tions. We solicited a range of volunteers frombothMandiandKamand, aswell as from inter‐ested IIT and WPI students for ield‐testing offull‐scale prototypes. Feedback from the ield‐testing was collected via interviews conductedby team members (see Appendix D, Supple‐mentalMaterials).

Results The results of this project are presented be‐lowdividedbyobjective.Overall the results fo‐cusonidentifyingappropriatestakeholders,cre‐ationofphysicalandmathematicalsheltermod‐els in response to stakeholder needs, and vali‐dating thosemodels through ield and lab test‐ing.Objective 1: Materials and manufacturing Identifyinganappropriatematerialwasac‐complishedbycompletingthedesignmatrix(seeAppendixBinSupplementalMaterials)de‐scribedinthemethodology.Corriboard,whichisaformofcorrugatedplasticsheeting,wasidenti‐iedastheoptimalmaterial.Thekeypropertiesthatmadecorriboardtheoptimalmaterialwerethatitwaswaterproof,lightweight,andrigid.Partoftheinitialshelterassessmentsinvolveddetermininghowtheymanufacturedtheircur‐rentshelters.Themajorityofpotentialusers

Figure11:Methodologicalapproachtotheproject

built theirownshelterswithsimplehandtools.Toallowuserstomanufacture,install,andmain‐tain the origami shelters, we decided to buildourorigamishelterinthesimilarmanner.Objective 2: User-based design In total, the team conducted interviews andassessments with four stakeholder sets: slumresidents, urban homeless, street vendors, andone of the advisors for the IIT‐Mandi trekkingclub. We used standard interview format withmost stakeholders, and an unstructured inter‐viewforthetrekkingclubadvisor.Figure 12 summarizes the shelter needs of thepotentialstakeholdersandmapsthoseneedstothe bene its of an origami shelter. The streetvendors, for example, reported not needing ashelter as they rent apartments for2‐3months

in each town they travel to, and thuswere notincludedinthe igure.AsindicatedinFigure12,an origami shelter would most bene it thosewithaneedforasemi‐permanentorhighlyport‐ableshelter.Althoughnotalloftheusergroupsprovedtobewell‐suitedtoanorigamishelter,theyallpro‐videdvaluableinformationonwhatcouldbepo‐tentiallybene icialforasemi‐permanentshelter.Forexample,Figure13showsthenumberofoc‐

cupantsper shelter,indicatingthatupto6 people frequentlyresideinarelativelysmallshelter.Figure 14 indicatesthat the two mostpopular activitiesperformed in theshelter are cookingandsleeping. From

thisinformation,itwasdecidedthattheorigamishelter must be large enough to accommodatemultiplebeds,anareaforfoodpreparation,andbe ireresistant.

These indingsindicatedthatsemi‐permanentshelters were the most appropriate match for

origami structure applications. The target audi‐enceofasemi‐permanentshelterincludes,butisnot limited to, trekking companies, roadsidevendors, migratory construction workers, andspecialeventorganizers.Objective 3: Produce 3 final shelters

Wecreatedcomputeraideddesign(CAD)models to explore different designs (see Figure15).ThemodelinFigure15awaschosenasthe

best design for initial prototyping as it had thecapabilitytobeclosedonbothends,hadalargeamount of usable interior space, and includedonlysimplereversefoldsandseamjoints.Mov‐ingforward, theonlychangetothatdesignwastomakeoneofthesidesshortersothattheroof

Portable/semi‐permanent

Lightweight

Rigid

Portable

Figure12:Mappingofthebene itsofanorigamisheltertotheneedsofeachpotentialstakeholdergroup.

Figure13:Histogramofthenumberofoccupantspershelter

Figure15:Theisometricviewsoffouroftheinitialshelterdesigns.(a)isasimplerectangle(b)isasimplepentagon(c)isanA-framestyleshelter.(d)isanapole-basedalternativetoanorigamistructure

Figure14:Popularityofactivitiesconductedintheshelter

TheCADmodelwasusedtogenerateamath‐ematicalmodeloftheshelterdesignwhichtookthematerialpropertiesandbasicshelterdimen‐sions as inputs and calculated interior volume,dynamicheights,dynamic loorarea,weight,dy‐namic length, percent elongation, and loorwidthbasedonthejointangle(seeFigure16).

Thismodelwas used to optimize the shelterparameters so that the inal shelter was ade‐quately sized for anaverageperson to stand inwhilemaximizingusableinteriorspaceandmin‐imizing both cost and weight. The model as‐sumed that for every degree the joint angle in‐creased, the roof angle decreased by 1/14 of adegree, the short side angle with the roof in‐creasedby½ofadegree,andthelongsideanglewiththeroofincreasedby3/7ofadegree.Ulti‐mately,interiorvolumewaschosenastheprop‐erty to optimize and thus the parameterswere

adjusted to ind the maximum interior volumewhilemaintainingstandingheightonthelongerof the twosides (seeFigure17).Themaximumvolumewasachievedatanangleof135˚butthisdid not allow for standing height so the mini‐mumacceptablevolume,foundat45˚,wasusedtocreatethe irstprototype.

At the minimum acceptable interior volume,allmodel parameterswere calculated to deter‐mine the dimensions and necessary angles forfolding the corriboard sheets to create a full‐scale model (see Table 1). These parameterswere calculated for amodelwith 18 eight inchpanels, LH=7’, SH=5’5”, w=3’3”, thickness of1/8”,andadensityof4.68kg/ft3.Aninitialprototypewasconstructedoutofsixsheets of corriboard connectedwith both over‐lap and seam joints (see Figure 18). The seamjoints were sealed with tarp and the overlapjoints were connected with PVC cement andbolts.This prototype also included additional fea‐tures that users identi ied as bene icial such asan integrated loor, windows, ventilation, andtheabilitytocloseononeside.Whilethisproto‐

typewasthefullheightofthe inaldesign,itwas1/3ofthelengthofthe inaldesignascostwasan important consideration. This version wascreatedforabout3,000Rs.

The inal prototype was constructed of 14sheets of corriboard connectedwith both seamandoverlap joints (seeFigure19).Hingeswereaddedalong theshortsideandroof to increasecompactness. Additionally, it included ‘smart’features such as an integrated loor, rainwatercollection, solar lighting, internal storages, and

Figure16:Sketchofinteriorcross-sectionalareaofshelterformathematicalmodel.LHisthelongheight,SHistheshortheight,andWisthewidthasmeasuredonthe latpanelbeforefolding.θisthejointangle,theanglebetweentwopanelsandφisthedesiredroofangle.DLHandDSHarethedynamicheights.

LH

W

SH (φ +3/7*θ)

(θ/14 + φ)

DLH DLH

Floor Width

θ/2

Figure17:Interiorvolumegraphedasafunctionofjointangle.

JointAngle(deg) 45

RoofAngle(deg) 19

InteriorVolume(ft^3) 130

DynamicLongHeight(ft) 5.5

DynamicShortHeight(ft) 5

DynamicLength(ft) 4.6

DynamicFloorArea(ft^2) 47

Weight(kg) 14

Weight/Area(kg/ft^2) 0.29

Elongation(%) 2449

FloorWidth(ft) 9.5

ParametersatMinimumAcceptableVolume

Table1:Modelparameterscalculatedwhentheminimumacceptablevolumeisachieved

Figure18:Anisometricviewoftheinitialpro-totype(top),collapsedshelter(bottom)

inlength,6ftinheight,and5ftinwidth.Withalltheseadditionalfeatures,thisversionwascreat‐edatacostofabout10,000Rs.

Althoughtheinitialgoalofthisprojectwastocreate three inal shelters, upon completion ofthe initial prototype and the irst inal shelterthe team decided to reduce this number fromthree shelters to a single shelter. The primaryreasonsforthisdecisionwerebasedonthecostofproducingadditional sheltersand the time itwouldtaketomanufacturethem.Despiteallow‐ingforsimultaneous ield‐testing,creatingaddi‐tionalshelterswouldresultinadiminishedabil‐itytoperformextensive ield‐testinginthetimeallotted.Objective 4: Field-testing Experimental Design Validation

Laboratorytestingwasemployedtoveri‐fymaterialpropertiesandspeci icshelterdesign

requirements including ire resistance, fatigueresistance through both folding and creep, andwater resistance. During the lame test, card‐boardwastheonlymaterialtoignite;corriboardmelted slightly in similar conditions, but onlywhen exposed to direct lame. A foil and tapecoveringonlymarginally improvedcorriboard'sireresistance.Fatigueresistancewastestedforbothfoldingandcreeptoensurethesheltercouldwithstandrepeated deployment and extended use. Figure20 shows the resultsof the folding fatigue test;thecorriboarddidshowanysignsoffailureafter

1000folds.The1000foldthresholdwasusedtosimulateashelterlifeof5yearswithitdeployedin 2 month increments each year and a safetyfactor of approximately 20. The creep fatiguetestwasused todetermine corriboard’sbehav‐ior over timewhen loaded and to examine theeffects of folding on creep resistance. Theweighted mountain folded piece performednearlyaswellastheunweighted latpieceoveran8.5hrperiod;inallcasessomecreepwasob‐served(seeFigure21).Water resistance was tested in two parts:testing of the shelter prototype and laboratorytestingofthecorriboarditself.Duringtheproto‐typewatertesting,neithertheoverlapjointnorthewindowsleakedatall,theseamjointshowed

minimalleakage,andthesheltershedwateref i‐ciently (see Figure 22). The laboratory testingrevealed that when exposed to water for 24hours,thecorriboardremainedfullywaterproof.

Qualitative field-testing The irstshelterprototypewas ield‐testedbyten volunteers: three constructionworkers andsevenstudents.Threeofthestudentsparticipat‐edinovernight ieldtestsandtheotherfourpar‐ticipated in the time trials described above. Allvolunteerswereaskedthesamesetofinterviewquestions.Figure23showsallof the responsestotheinterviewquestionsasfractions.The temperature, compaction, and transpor‐tation questions show the most negative re‐sponses and the safety, space, and enclosurequestions are the only questionswith 100 per‐centagreement.

Figure19:Isometricviewof inalprototype(top),collapsedshelter(bottom) Figure20:Foldingfatigueresistanceresults

Figure21:Graphofcreepresponseforfoldedandunfoldedcorriboard

Figure22:Watertestingofshelterprototype.

Oncethe inalprototypewascompletedittoowas ield‐tested with prospective users. Theteammetwithanddemonstratedtheshelter totemporaryconstructionworkers,slumresidentsinMandi,androadsidevendors(seeFigure24).

The shelter was received with mixed positivefeedback by the construction workers; 70%thought the shelter was innovative and poten‐tiallyuseful,while30%thoughttheshelterneedimprovements in manufacturing to be useful.The primary areas of improvement involved

making the shelter more wind and water re‐sistance and improving the rigidity. All of thenearly 20 slum residents surveyed enthusiasti‐cally supported the shelter and felt its featurescompletely met their needs. Speci ically, theyappreciated the deployability as during mon‐soonseasontheyfrequentlyneedtomovetheirshelter in order to avoid water accumulation.Although theydomove theirshelters, residentssaw no need for the additional compaction, of‐fered by the hinges. The roadside vendorsthoughttheshelterwasinterestingbutnotwellsuitedfortheirneedsastheydonotchangeloca‐tionsandalreadyhaveacompactsetup.Howev‐er, one of the vendorsmentioned that some ofthefruitvendorsinKulludomovebetweenloca‐tionsandthusthesheltermaybeuseful in thatscenario.

Discussion The data revealed several considerationsabout the user set, the viability of an origamishelter forproduction,andthephysicalproper‐tiesof an ideal structure.Overall, from the sur‐veys,mathematicalmodellingoftheshelter,andphysicalprototypes,itwasclearthatanorigamishelterwas best suited for stakeholderswith aneed for semi‐permanent shelters. This usergroup included trekking companies, specialevent organizers, and temporary constructionworkers, among others. While the residents ofthe slums in Mandi are not ideally suited to‐wards a semi‐permanent, easily compactableshelter, with a few simple modi ications, itwouldmeet their needs and satisfy all of theirneeds.Travelingvendorsandtheirfamiliestend

to rent apartments in each city, and requiredhousingbeyondthecapacityofashelter.Urbanhomelessusersrequiredasinglepersonalstruc‐turethatcouldbesetuponthesideoftheroad;although origami shelters are portable and caneasilycompact,onasmall‐scaletheyareheavierandlesscompactthantentsandthusarenotthebestsolutionforthisusergroup.Fromtheinter‐viewwiththetrekkingclubadvisor,itwasclearthatforanindividualtrekker,atentwasthebestsolution; however, he pointed out that manyguide companies create semi‐permanent basecamps for their clients and this could be goodmarketfororigamishelters.Finally,althoughanorigami shelter was best suited for semi‐permanentuse it canalsohaveapplications forusersthatneedhighlyportableshelters.Intermsofthephysicalproduct,theinitialfull‐scaleprototypeprovidedvaluable feedbackonmanufacturing speci ications and usage. Whileorigami can produce simple and streamlinedstructures on a small‐scale, the manufacturinglimitations of full‐scale structures reduce someof the bene its origami provides. For example,raw materials, including corriboard, come inspeci icsizesthatarenotlargeenoughtocreateanentirestructurefromasinglesheet;thereforejoints are requiredwhich reduce the rigidity ofthe structure. Additionally, it is dif icult to foldthicker materials such as corriboard, whichmakesitchallengingtocreateaccuratefull‐scalestructures. To address some of these issues fu‐tureversionsshouldhaveaccurateconstructionprotocol, including jigs or ixtures for folding,less obtrusive attachments at the overlap joint,replaceallseamjointswithoverlapjoints,and

Figure23:Field-testingfeedbackresultsforstu-dentsandtemporaryconstructionworker

Figure24:Meetingwithslumresidentsduringield-testing

anycuttingordrillingshouldoccurpriortofold‐ing. Additionally, the inal prototype includedhingestoaidincompactionbuttheseprovedtosigni icantlydegradetherigidityofthestructureandthusshouldbeavoidedinfutureversions.The initial ield‐testing allowed the team tocreateaprioritizedlistofdesignchangesfortheinal shelter by identifying the properties of anidealshelter.Nearlyalloftherespondentsindi‐cated that the shelterwas not compact enoughandwasdif iculttotransport,leadingtoseveraldesign changes in the inal structure,which in‐cluded folding the entire shelter into a singlepiece. Respondents also expressed displeasurewith the initial loor setup of unattached tarpspread across the ground. To combat this, theteamincludeda loorthat irmlyattachedtothewalls toprovide fullwaterproo ing.The tempo‐rary construction workers strongly desired alockontheshelterandthusthe inaldesignhastheabilityto fullyencloseand lock.The full listof design changes desired for the inal shelterwasasfollows:1. Bettersealedandstrongerjoints2. More compact when collapsed and easily

transportable3. Integrated loor4. Fullenclosureandlockable5. Improvedwindows6. ImprovedverticalheightThe inaldesignincorporatedallofthesefea‐tures except for improved windows. Increasedcompactionwastheonlydesignchangenottobereceivedpositivelybyeitherusersorthedesign‐ers.The inal ield‐testingalsorevealeda listofnewdesignchangesforfutureversions:

1. Raised loor2. Internalframe3. Only use overlap joints and connect rigidly

withmetalstripsormultiplebolts4. AdditionalventilationThesechangeswouldreducethesheltersporta‐bilitybutgreatlyincreaseitsrigidityandweath‐erresistantandthereforemakeitmorevaluableforuserswithaneed for semi‐permanent shel‐ters.

Project Outcomes After6weeksof trialandfeedback, theteamcompleted a inal full‐scale origami shelter thatmet stakeholder design requirements and in‐cludedaselectionof'smart'features.Additionaldeliverablesincludedamanualdocumentingtheassembly,compaction,andtransportoftheshel‐teraswellasalistoffeatureswhichcanbeadd‐ed by stakeholders using built in mounts (seeAppendix C, Supplemental Materials for thismanual).Thebasemodelorigamishelterisabout6feettall,5feetwide,and20feetlong,butismodularso both the length andwidth can easily be ex‐tendedbyaddingmorepanels.Ithastheabilityto folddownonbothendsand lock to create asecure interior space. In addition to the waterresistance, ireresistance,andrigidityprovidedby thematerial itself, the shelter comeswith astandardselectionof 'smart' features including:solarpoweredlightinganddevicecharging,inte‐rior storage, ventilation, anda rainwater catch‐mentsystem.Perhapsthesinglemostimportantfeature of this origami shelter is its extremeadaptability; only minor modi ications to the

basemodelareneededtocustomizetheshelterfordifferentusers.Forstakeholderssuchastheslum residents,who require amorepermanentshelter,thewidthofthesheltercanbeextendedbyaddinganotherpanel,thehingejointsthataidin folding can be replaced by overlap joints toincreaserigidity,extendedventscanbeincorpo‐rated,anddetachableinsulationcanbeaddedtothe interior. For stakeholders such as trekkingcompanies, special events organizers, and ven‐dors,thesheltercanbeexpandedorcontractedby adding or removing panels and increasedstorage canbeadded. For stakeholders suchasfarmers,whomaywanttousetheorigamishel‐ter as a greenhouse instead of as a shelter, thecolorofthecorriboardcanbechangedtotrans‐parent orwhite to allowmaximum light trans‐mittance. Furthermore, increasedstorage solu‐tions and overhead hooks to hang pipes fromcanbeadded,andtherainwatercatchmentsys‐temcanbe routedback into the shelter topro‐videwaterfortheinteriorplants.Changesindi‐mensions and switchinghinge joints to overlapjoints can be done based on the need of thestakeholder.While theseareonlyasmallselec‐tionofadjustmentsthatcanbemade,theyhigh‐light the full extent of the range of adaptationscanbemade to the shelter tomeet the speci icneedsofvariousstakeholders.Althoughthisversionoftheorigamishelterishighlyadaptablewerecommendthatfutureiter‐ationsofthisprojectconsidernon‐origamistyleshelters as well. Non‐origami shelters can pro‐videa lighterandmorecompact structure thanorigamistructures that ismore targeted forus‐ersrequiringasmallandhighly

portable shelter. These style of sheltersmaybewell suited to theneedsofboth theur‐banhomelessandlocalherders.

Additionally, while this version of theshelterisaversatileimprovementoverthepre‐vious version and other existing shelters it re‐quires improvements to be marketable. Thesechangesareaddressedinindetailinthediscus‐sionbutoveralltheteamfeelsthattheimprove‐ments to the rigidityare themost importantasthisshelterisdesignedforlongertermuse.

Conclusion The inal shelterwasdesigned tobewa‐

terproof, ire resistant, lightweight, affordable,aswellasincludesome'smart'featuressuchassolarpower.Theshelterproducedmetthesere‐quirementsascon irmedbybothlaboratoryandield‐testing.Theuseofcorriboardisaninnova‐tivefeaturethatisnotfoundincurrentlyavaila‐ble origami shelters andprovides the structurewith the key bene its of being waterproof, ireresistant,and lightweight.Fortheareaandvol‐ume achieved, this shelter is lighter than boththe current shelters of temporary constructionworkers and the previous iteration of this pro‐ject.Additionally,thisshelterismodularandcanbe fullyenclosedand lockedwhichare featuresnot foundinmanyavailableshelters.Theinclu‐sionof'smart'featuressuchassolarpower,wa‐ter catchment, storage, and lighting make thisshelter an improvement over available semi‐permanent shelters in terms of extended useandqualityof life.Overall,wehave shown thatorigamicanbeusedtocreatehigh‐qualityshel‐tersforsemi‐permanentuseand,whilenotide‐

al, it can additionally be used for small‐sizedtemporarysheltersorforpermanentshelters.Thefullreportandsupplementalmaterialsforthisprojectcanbefoundathttp://www.wpi.edu/E-project-db/E-project-search/searchusingkey-wordsfromtheprojecttitle.AdditionalISTPscanbefoundathttp://www.iitmandi.ac.in/istp/projects.html.

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