Our Vision for Long-term Impact

Our project is built upon partnerships amongst our global and multidisciplinary group -including key local Myanmar water stakeholders- to find water for an estimated 15,000 people in Mon state villages. These key partnerships will enable the impact of the project to persist long after the end date.

Our end goal?

The establishment of a cost-effective, geophysical water supply program in advanced 3-dimensional DC-resistivity imaging technology at the Myanmar state government level and beyond. Training is a crucial part of our program because the greatest potential impact of our efforts will be realized in the future — by the local people whom we empower.

Advancing our vision for sustainability, we anticipate the following outcomes for our project partners:

• (A) Government engineers, newly appreciative of the improved efficacy of geophysical methods in finding optimal well sites over conventional methods, will teach their colleagues and future generations of engineers at township offices throughout the state
• (B) Local researchers will learn about, and become further interested in using geophysical methods to add an important characterization tool to their research methods to solve applied problems and strengthen their geoscience departments;
• (C) Students will become motivated to pursue careers in the geosciences in order to improve livelihoods in their communities
• (D) Students can attend an annual field camp, hosted by Mon DRD, sustaining and further enhancing the impact of this project.

After the project, we will leave the IRIS geophysical instrument with the Mon Department of Rural Development, the primary entity responsible for siting drinking water wells throughout Mon. By training government engineers, making them proficient at using the equipment, collecting data, and understanding the relationships between the geophysical data, geology, and hydrology, we will maximize the impact of our project for the people of Myanmar for many years to come. In the future, we hope to expand our impact by scaling to other states impacted by severe drought throughout Myanmar.