Case Study: UN Kakuma Refugee Camp achieves clean, fresh water access with Seequent geophysical exploration

UN Kakuma Refugee Camp - Customer Case Study

UN Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya faced a severe water challenge: the camp’s dozen wells were not enough for its 163,000 residents, and the available groundwater was often too high in fluoride, creating health risks. Seequent helped address this by supporting a groundwater exploration effort using geophysical methods and mapping tools, including electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), seismic refraction, MASW, drone imagery, and Geosoft’s Oasis montaj software.

Seequent’s solution helped identify thick sand and gravel aquifers with fresh, low-fluoride water in the overburden near dry river channels and faulted zones. The UN drilled three new wells based on the findings, delivering sustainable yields of 29–45 cubic metres per hour and enough clean water to serve 57,000 refugees at 20 litres per person per day. The work also identified additional promising aquifers for future drilling.

UN Kakuma Refugee Camp

Paul Bauman

Geophysicist