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Provision of sustainable sanitation in emergency situations: role of ecosan

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conference contribution
posted on 2018-02-12, 15:08 authored by Elisabeth von Muench, Annette Ochs, Gary Amy, Helen Mwase, Jean F. Fesselet
This paper describes the potential of ecological sanitation (ecosan), and in particular of urine-diversion dehydrating (UDD) toilets, to provide sustainable excreta disposal in emergency situations in low-income countries. Three case studies of emergency sanitation were analysed: El Salvador (hurricane), Afghanistan (civil war) and Pakistan (earthquake). The analysis of these case studies has shown that the systems implemented in the long-term phase of the emergency were sometimes more sustainable than what was in place before the emergency occurred. For UDD toilets to be viable during emergency situations, specific criteria have to be in place. The essential criteria include awareness and expertise among aid agencies, ease of transportation and quick installation of standardised UDD units, stage and duration of emergency and the role of government in sanitation provision. For emergency situations in low-income countries, we propose the use of UDD toilets (e.g. with pre-fabricated urine-diversion squatting pans) as a suitable excreta management option, particularly in those instances where pit latrines are not sustainable in the longer term.

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Research Unit

  • Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC)

Published in

WEDC Conference

Citation

VON MUENCH, E. ... et al, 2006. Provision of sustainable sanitation in emergency situations: role of ecosan. IN: Fisher, J. (ed). Sustainable development of water resources, water supply and environmental sanitation: Proceedings of the 32nd WEDC International Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 13-17 November 2006, pp. 506-509.

Publisher

© WEDC, Loughborough University

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2006

Notes

This is a conference paper.

Other identifier

WEDC_ID:11132

Language

  • en

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    WEDC 32nd International Conference

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