Engineering and Development: Good Intentions and Real Solutions – Water and Sanitation

1. Engineering and Development: Good Intentions and Real Solutions – Water and Sanitation Thomas Soerens tsoerens@uark.edu 479-575-2494

2. Outline • Background: what’s the problem? • Case Studies: • Maldives • Amazon • China • Lessons and Issues

3. Background: What’s the problem? • The need for clean water • 1.1 Billion people on earth lack improved water source (pipe, well, or protected spring). • 2.7 billion lack sanitation • 3.4 million people, mostly children, die each year from waterborne diseases. • Twenty 747s full of children per day • Millions of people, mostly women, must walk for miles and hours to get water.

5. Access to sanitation is one of the strongest determinants of child survival: the transition from unimproved to improved sanitation reduces child mortality by a third

6. Myths, Ironies, Barriers • Myth: They develop immunity • No they don’t, they die. • Myth: They’re happy • They don’t want their kids to die. • Irony: High rainfall areas lack clean water • But quantity = quality to a certain degree • Irony: Poor people pay more for water than rich people

7. 85% of the richest 20% of the population have access to water. Only 25% of the poorest 20% do. • In many places,the poorest people get less water, and they also pay some of the world’s highest prices. note: $1 per 20 oz bottled water = $1700 per cubic metre = ~ 2000 times cost of tap water

8. Barriers • Barrier: Lack of hygiene knowledge • Barrier: Hard to break tradition • Barrier: Entrenched attitudes • institutional and personal cynicism • entitlement, apathy, and dependence • suspicion • headhunters • over respect • this is beyond us

9. Possible Solutions - Water • Wells • Improved, sealed • Handpumps • Storage • Unintended consequences • Africa: deforestation, etc. • Bangladesh: Arsenic poisoning • Rainwater Catchment • Large or small scale, public or household • traditional, but currently underutilized

10. Possible Solutions - Water • Spring capture • Hydraulic ram (uses energy of stream) • Storage and distribution systems • Well, spring, surface water • May include treatment, e.g., filter • Urban • e.g, Bogotá • every developed place has piped water

11. Possible Solutions - Water • Household water treatment • Household filters (DavNor) • Chemical additives (Pur) • Education • Knowledge of hygiene • Maintenance of systems

12. Possible Solutions - Sanitation • Latrines, pit toilets • appropriate? • Septic systems • infiltration?

13. Possible Solutions - Sanitation • Sewer systems • small-bore sewers • can do at any scale • treatment! • O&M • discharge • enough water? • Health and Hygiene education

14. Costs

15. Case Study: Maldives • Private project in 1988-89 • Where’s Maldives?

16. Maldives

17. Our Island

18. Our Island

19. Maldives Project • RAEMAS - Research And Education in Mariculture and Agriculture Systems • Water and Sanitation • People want septic systems • but would contaminate well water • Strategy • build rainwater tanks • use drain fields instead of pits

33. Keeping it real • do you have this on your island? • Huriha dhon mihun bo sakarai • what did your mother teach you?

34. Results • Septic tank conclusions • given: people were going to build septic systems • we came up with a way that reduces the effects on well water quality • can educate, influence, but cannot totally change people

35. Appropriate Technology • Don’t just export your own technology • culturally, economically, and technically appropriate • Sustainability • “sustainability” is broader but includes much of what we used to call “appropriate tech” • Five factors (McConville, 2006) • Socio-cultural Respect • Community participation • Political cohesion • Economic sustainability • Environmental sustainability • McConville, J.R. 2006, “Applying Life Cycle Thinking to International Water and Sanitation Development Projects: An assessment tool for project managers in sustainable development work”, Michigan Tech, Environmental Engineering MS Report.

36. Culturally Appropriate?

37. Appropriate Technology • Counterpoint • “Appropriate technology … means good things for rich people and sh*t for the poor” • Father Lafontant, “Mountains Beyond Mountains” p.90 • Maldive mistakes • elevated pit toilets • community toilets

38. Case Study: Amazon • Indigenous (Ticuna and Yagua) villages near Leticia, Colombia, including Brazil and Peru • At the request of missionaries • December ’04 and continuing

39. Leticia, Colombia

40. Amazon Project - Background • At request of Christian missionary who works with indigenous pastors • Children were dying of waterborne diseases. • Unclean water during rainy season • Use river during dry season

41. Amazon Project – Constraints and Assists • Solution needs to make it to village by canoe • Note: Leticia is 500 miles from nearest highway • Many villages already have water tanks • Most villages do not have sand available • Each village is a little different • Accessibility, Resources, Buildings, Country • Have relationship in villages through pastors • some have church buildings

42. On the Amazon on the way to villages

43. With kids at a village

44. A pastor’s wife in front of her church

45. Pastor’s wife grinding yucca in her home What’s in there?

46. Hello boa

47. Many villages have rainwater collection tanks. This village also had a well that yielded good water, although it went dry during the dry season

48. Villagers used this pond for bathing and some drinking and cooking

49. This other village had a well, but it was busted and unused because it yielded bad tasting water (sulfur taste is the main problem).

50. This village was on the Amazon itself and was quite developed, including electricity, yet had pitiful water and sanitation facilities. Here’s a “bathroom”.