Water, Environment, & development

1. Water,Environment, & development Dr. Stanley Kabala Duquesne University Part 4 UNIT 8 Click here to begin.

2. INSTRUCTIONS • Navigation through the course will occur by clicking on the following action buttons located in the lower right corner of each screen: The HOME button will be placed in the center of each slide and will bring you to the Table of Contents for further navigation. The NEXT and BACK buttons will move you through the course content. The EXIT button will be placed at the end of each unit and will exit the unit and return you to the course menu.

3. INSTRUCTIONS • This course is meant to be self-paced, though there will be opportunities to interact with your local and global JPIC groups. • Course content and activities should be completed in the order that they are presented to maximize student success. • The Table of Contents will be your starting point for each Unit

4. ACTIVITY ICONS • Each type of course activity has a unique icon located in the upper right corner of the screen. • In this course you will: Online journal Local discussion Read online Create doc Reflect Global discussion Watch video Quiz/test

5. PART4:quality: does your water make you sick? Unit 8:research on quality

6. TABLE OF CONTENTS This unit is divided into several sections. Start with the Learning Objectives, OR click on the link below to navigate to the component where you left off. Revisit as needed. Section 1: Learning Objectives Section 2: Research on Quality Section 3: Readings Section 4: Activity

7. Section 1 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

8. LEARNING OBJECTIVES • At the conclusion of this unit, students will be able to: • explain the operation and purpose of, as well as the science behind, the three stages of conventional wastewater treatment: mechanical, biological, and chemical • explain how chlorine, ozone, and ultraviolet light are used in the treatment of wastewater • describe the operation of constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment, the scientific principles on which they rely, and under what conditions they are applicable • describe the operation of such technologies as the Living Machine ™, the scientific principles on which they rely, and under what conditions they are applicable

9. Section 2 RESEARCH ON QUALITY

10. RESEARCH ON QUALITY This unit takes up the topic of effective low-cost sanitation. Note that the key words here are effective and low-cost. Conventional wastewater and sewage treatment is certainly effective, but it is hardly low-cost. It requires an extensive infrastructure of mains and pumps to convey wastewater to the treatment facility as well as apparatus to treat wastewater in what is an energy- and chemically-intensive process. Your objective here is to be able to assess water quality concerns in your community and identify suitable, technically accessible, and affordable interventions to address them.

11. RESEARCH ON QUALITY • The objectives of wastewater treatment are to: • remove suspended particles that causes water to be turbid; • process organic matter that will demand oxygen during the process of decomposition, and; • destroy infectious pathogens—bacteria, viruses, and parasites. • Alternative treatment systems such as constructed wetlands are based on the same processes that occur in nature to purify wastewater. Since they do not rely on electrically driven mechanical systems, passive wetlands tend to be of relatively small scale, but do require relatively larger expanses of land per unit volume of wastewater to be treated. Land is used to filter out particles, and natural decomposition processes are relied on to decompose organic matter whose decomposition would require the oxygen in streams were the sewage discharged untreated into them. Such systems then go on to rely on natural processes to destroy infectious pathogens, like in nature.

12. RESEARCH ON QUALITY The innovative—but not so new— Living Machine™ technology developed by John Todd blends these natural processes, and operates on a relatively small scale in a confined space attached to the building whose wastewater is to be treated. The Living Machine differs from constructed wetland systems in that it subjects wastewater to ultraviolet light to destroy pathogens. The Living Machine is highly effective in small-scale applications—such as individual buildings—and needs little or no electricity to operate. However, its use of ultraviolet light in the final disinfection phase of treatment makes it more expensive and more technically difficult to use. Thus, the Living Machine technologies resemble constructed wetlands in their central reliance on nature’s processes to treat wastewater, but differ from them in that they do not require large expanses of land in order to operate.  

13. RESEARCH ON QUALITY These technologies resemble conventional wastewater treatment systems in their use of a fairly sophisticated method (ultraviolet light) to destroy pathogens, but differ from them greatly in their small scale and decentralized form and in their lower demand for electricity to operate. To learn more, see the Todd Ecological Design website at http://toddecological.com/.

14. Section 3 READINGS

15. UNIT READINGS Required Readings “Assessing Access to Water and Sanitation.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2012. <http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/assessing.html>.

16. Section 4 ACTIVITY

17. ACTIVITY View the short video Green Eco-Machine for a splendid introduction to this technology: Alexander, Kristin. Green Eco-Machine. Middle Way Media, 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2012. <http://vimeo.com/6345651 >