Technology & Approach

TECHNOLOGY & APPROACH

Gravity Water focuses on a low-technology approach to safe drinking water access through combining rainwater harvesting, elevated storage, and gravity-fed filtration.

Rainwater Harvesting

Gravity Water systems focus on rainwater harvesting. Accessing non-traditional water sources is a critical component to building water security and climate resilience for communities, and rainwater harvesting can benefit over 80% of the population that lack access to safe water globally.

By providing schools with professional rainwater harvesting infrastructure, Gravity Water helps communities reduce dependency on groundwater and avoid using heavily contaminated water during the rainy season. Most Gravity Water projects can provide schools with enough rain to fulfill over 50% of their annual water demand each year.

Additionally, Gravity Water systems incorporate an innovative technology that allows schools to automatically switch between using rainwater and other freshwater sources through an automated process, ensuring maximum water savings and efficiency.

Filtration System

Gravity Water's filtration system allows schools in last-mile communities to access over 1,000 liters per day of improved drinking water, without dependency on advanced technology or consistent electricity.

Filtration Methodology: The Gravity Water tank system uses a three-tier filtration system. Pre-filtration traditionally takes place using two 5-micron activated carbon block filters, which removes any odor and taste associated with the water, ensuring good user experience comparable to drinking bottled water. These filters also remove macro pollutants, such as sediment and parasites, and most chemicals and metals. After the two-stage carbon block filtration, the water passes through a final stage 0.1-micron hollow-membrane water filter, which removes 99.99999% of any bacteria and meets U.S. EPA standards for private consumptive use.

Gravity Water currently tests for contaminants including lead, nitrite, arsenic, flouride, e. coli, and total coliform in each community to ensure the technology is utilizing the right filtration mediums and to ensure the effectiveness of its treatment.

Water-loss Reduction and Grid Optimization

Gravity Water helps schools optimize their current water infrastructure by providing innovative water management tools, including automated water pumping and movement controls, valve systems, and comprehensive water mapping. Gravity Water's intervention helps schools consolidate their water sources and identify the most efficient water flow throughout their campus, reducing water loss and energy-related waste by an estimated 15% per school.

By enhancing the school's pre-existing water infrastructure, Gravity Water is helping build climate resilience, reducing water loss and limiting unnecessary water pooling and stagnation on-site.

Collaborative Data Collection

Gravity Water uses remote surveying tools to monitor the functionality, outcomes, and user-experience of every system on a monthly basis. By retrofitting every system with strategic placement of water flow meters, Gravity Water precisely calculates the exact amount of rainwater and drinking water every system provides; this, along with the attendance and water purchasing data of every school, is critical information in understanding the social, environmental, and economic outcomes of the organization's intervention.

Gravity Water recently partnered with SOPACT to ensure transparent data collection, monitoring, and reporting, allowing key stakeholders continuous insight and engagement on the effectiveness of the organization's solution. By accessing a QR Code on every system, schools participate in a short monthly survey using their mobile device. Gravity Water incentivizes this participation by providing participating schools with free water filter replacements and a lifetime warranty for their system.