Around 850,000 people worldwide die every year as a result of contaminated water. Access to clean, germ-free water, as we are accustomed to, is by no means a given everywhere. Finding solutions to sustainably improve the water situation in order to purify wastewater in a simple, cost-effective and natural way was the aim of students from the civil engineering programme at OTH Regensburg. Under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Ottl and true to the motto ‘Every drop counts’, they developed a wastewater treatment plant that was to be realised in a country with a tropical climate such as Uganda.
From the first sketch to the finished bachelor's thesis
Four students travelled to Uganda in East Africa for five weeks to implement the constructed wetland they had planned for a school in Masaka. Two of them, Vanessa Janoschek and Julia-Maria Hofer, also wrote a joint Bachelor's thesis on their project, entitled ‘Planning and construction of a low-cost, near-natural wastewater treatment plant in a country with a tropical climate using Uganda as an example’.
The two presented the project and their results at a public event at OTH Regensburg on 27 November 2024. The illustrated presentation focussed on the individual steps, construction phases and results, as well as the challenges of the project.
Off to Uganda: How do I build a constructed wetland?
After several months of familiarisation and preparation, initial sketches and more detailed planning, the team travelled to Uganda at the beginning of August 2024 to build the jointly developed constructed wetland in the form of a terrace. Julia-Maria Hofer and Vanessa Janoschek were joined by fellow students Martin Kroiß and Denis Bieniasz, who actively supported them, as well as Prof Andreas Ottl, who supervised the project. The destination was the International School of Music, Languages and Polytechnic Studies (IMLS) in Masaka, where students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering have been involved in individual projects to improve water supply and treatment since 2021. In the summer of 2024, three basins were built in the form of terraces, with Ugandan workers having already done crucial preparatory work. Basins were built, pipes were laid, everything was backfilled with gravel and then planted with native, fast-growing papyrus plants. Back in Regensburg, the team receives regular updates and photos on the progress of the project from those responsible on site.
A sure-fire success: purification using microorganisms
Why did the team decide in favour of a constructed wetland? Because this model is simple and energy-efficient and requires hardly any manpower. ‘These plants are a sure-fire success,’ says Vanessa Janoschek. This is because the main players in water purification are microorganisms, which do most of the ‘work’. When asked about her experiences, Julia-Maria Hofer replied: ‘The cultural and communicative differences as well as the different understanding of time were particularly exciting, interesting and sometimes challenging.’
‘Every drop counts": an initiative for clean water
The Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Prof Andreas Ottl, launched this initiative under the motto ‘Every drop counts’ in summer 2021. This year's construction of the constructed wetland is already the fourth project that students have carried out in cooperation with the IMLS school in Masaka. In 2023, a team built cisterns that will provide the IMLS with 50,000 litres of service water in future. And in the coming years? ‘We'll see how the project continues. I'm retiring in 2025 and it will be up to my successor to decide which priorities to set. In any case, the first stage of expansion has been a success,’ says Prof Ottl.
Partners and funding
It is certain that the Regensburg Association for the Promotion of Music and Culture (Regensburger Förderverein für Musik und Kultur e.V.), which is an important co-operation partner of the project alongside the IMLS school and will continue to accompany and financially support the further construction of the school, will continue to be active in Masaka. Sufficient donations were raised to finance the materials required for the construction of the constructed wetland. The PROMOS funding programme of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) provided support for travel expenses.
You can find more impressions on the project's Instagram channel:
