E-waste recycling for monitoring the microclimate in sub-Saharan Africa

The paper presents some microclimate monitoring actions, in sub-Saharan African countries, where activities is taken to mitigate the water crisis, through the installation of weather monitoring stations built with components recycled from e-waste. The whole research was leaded by the Department of Architecture of Roma Tre University in partnership with Gente d’Africa, a non-profit organization, and involves the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence, and the École supérieure d’ingénierie, d’architecture et d’urbanisme of Bamako. The Italian and Malian universities and the international cooperant involved Romagna Acque Società delle Fonti SpA, an italian manager of drinking water sources in Romagna. The operational contribution of AES Architettura Emergenza Sviluppo, another non-profit association operating in depressed areas of the world, have allowed the reconstruction and performance improvement of two small dams (barrages also known as sand dams) around Kita, the capital of the Kayes region. The contribution focuses not only on the water problem, but also on the environmental issue, linked to incorrect behavior in the e-waste management. Therefore, in order to achieve the target of monitoring and acquisition of microclimatic data, aimed at verifying the mitigation of overheating due to the presence of artificial water basins, weather stations are designed using, when possible, recycled e-waste.