The project is Adapting to the Effects of Drought through increasing rainwater capacity to address climate change impacts on Immaculate Heart College, at Taborio on North Tarawa.
Immaculate Heart College (IHC), situated on the Northern tip of Nooto village on the lagoon side of North Tarawa at a place called Taborio with a land area of about four acres, is surrounded by sea water on all sides except its northern end that connects it to the rest of Nooto. IHC was opened in September 1955, initially as a boarding school for girls. But IHC is now fully upgraded offering secondary school lessons to the seventh form level for both boys and girls.
IHC Taborio landform is narrow, low-lying and surrounded on three sides by the lagoon. As a result, Taborio has this critical water supply problems, it does not have a natural underground freshwater resource but gets its freshwater resource, limited and unsafe, pumped 500 meters from a gallery on the main North Tarawa island. The Kiribati ? Water Resources Assessment Report of September 2003 confirms as, i) that the permanent freshwater lenses occur only on those parts of coral islands where the island is sufficiently wide (at least 300-1000 m wide); ii) due to the narrowness and limited land areas and extremely large soil hydraulic conductivities severely reduce surface runoff and surface storage, so that the very thin lenses of fresh underground water floating over seawater is never fully developed and freshwater recharge, from rain, is easily mixed up with seawater. Therefore, Taborio does not and may never have an underground freshwater resource and thus compromising the viability of the IHC community, where Taborio well water resource is unsuitable for drinking and even for watering garden plants.
In addition, the annual rainfall (1941 mm) for Taborio is limited. The average monthly rainfall is 168.5 mm and the average rainfall days per month is 6-8 days (Kiribati rainfall data, 2022). The current total rainwater storage capacity for Taborio is 284,000 litres which during draught, can only supply the international standard 10 liters per day to its 519 residents? quality drinking water for 54 days.
The current climate change factor has now brought a long drought period causing critical hardship on the Taborio communities who are now trying to survive by sharing through rationing of the limited rainwater available at tank reserves.

The project objectives include the installation of a 40-panel solar water farm to provide portable water security in quantity and quality so the 519 community members can each receive 2 litres of drinking water per day. The solar water farm is chosen by IHCDC in aid of its community mitigation and capacity adaptation efforts to address the critical drinking water shortage and improve the resilience of IHC community against climate change but also because its operational system is simple to operate, monitor and maintain by community members and there is minimal impact from its discharge water, as this waste water can be usefully used to flush the school toilets. The project will greatly increase the capacity of the IHC Taborio community to improve its members livelihoods and adaptation measures against drought and climate change in general.