Improving Floating Villages to Protect Communities

In developed countries, floating architecture is applauded for its sustainability and ability to weather the impacts of climate change. For poor communities, floating villages are often a last resort. A place to retreat from the high costs of living on land.

But floating villages in poor communities can come with one major disadvantage. They struggle with pollution from waste and disease epidemics. While floating villages have their benefits, the communities need help to improve the sanitation of their homes.

Benefits of Floating Villages

In developed nations, floating architecture is mainly in response to rising prices and lack of available land space. As cities run out of usable land space, developers move to the water.

Rising sea levels are also driving decisions to build on the water. Structures built along coastlines aren’t guaranteed to be safe from rising water levels. The solution is to move them to the water, where the structure can adjust with rising levels.

For all, living on the water can also make for a more comfortable living environment. In warm places, the temperature is usually lower on the water than on land. And being near water has been proven to make us happier and healthier.

For poor communities, floating villages are often a necessity. On land, landowners will either charge for rent or attempt to dismantle slum communities. By moving to the water, villagers are mobile and able to live rent-free. Many of these communities are also fishing villages, so being on the water makes sense for them.

Solutions to Make Floating Villages Safer and Healthier

In 2015, the UK-based Eleven Magazine ran a design competition. They wanted to help the Tonlé Sap Lake floating villages in Cambodia – a UNESCO site.

Like many of these types of floating villages, the Tonlé Sap communities were struggling with sanitation and disease. When the monsoon season started, the flooding would make the pollution from human waste a major problem.

The competition goal was to create “floating designs that provided the local community with medical care, a research hub for the lake, and an educational facility.” In the end, they got 243 submissions from 51 countries.

The winning team was “HYBRID{GE}”, consisting of team members: Natthapol Pongplanchai, Pratchaya Lertrucksadee, Porncharoen Oranramtmanee, Phanin Chantalert.

The winning design depicts an eco-village where “passive and active design has been applied, consisting of a water treatment system, anaerobic digester for biogas production, turbine generator for electricity and algae energy phase in the future.”

Each home is made of bamboo and all of the waste processing systems are simple. There is a communal anaerobic digester system for processing kitchen and human waste. This produces biogas, which can be used as fuel. Any remaining biogas is used as fertilizer for the community garden projects.

Unfortunately, there is no word on plans for implementing this design. In the meantime, other companies are doing their part to help these floating villages. Like the HandyPod, a floating man-made wetland filled with water hyacinths that break down human waste before it enters the lake.