Technology assessment for sustainable sanitation services in lower-income communities

The goal of this thesis is to develop an objective method for selecting appropriate sanitation service options for low income communities. This goal will be achieved through the objectives of; (i) developing an exhaustive list of MSS technologies, (ii) classifying this list into MSS options, and (iii) ranking these options so they may be mapped into a profile of host communities.

Access to safe water supply and sanitation is a basic human need. Adequate municipal sanitation services (MSS) are essential foundations for any society and the direct correlation of these services with public health and economic growth have been well documented. Conversely, the lack of access to municipal sanitation services traps low-income communities in a cycle of poverty and low levels of human development. Therefore, a concerted effort must be made to improve these services in order to alleviate poverty and the morbidity and mortality associated with deficient municipal sanitation services.

In the past twenty years, many developmental agencies focused intense attention on the water and sanitation sector in an attempt to bridge the gaps in service in low income communities. Although considerable progress has been made, much remains to be done. The 1980s saw the advent of the United Nation's International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade and the 1990s led to new way of thinking, a more community-based approach to the provision of municipal services. However, there is still no systematic method for helping a community to select an appropriate MSS option to implement. Tisan Ahmad Abstract 4 This paper adds to Louis' method to help communities make informed decisions about which of the many MSS options to implement (Louis, 2002). There are two complementary components to this approach: the assessment of the MSS options and the assessment of the community. The assessment of the MSS options will be presented in this paper and the complementary assessment of community which receives these service options will be discussed briefly. Finally, the method as a whole is then examined and illustrated using a case study.

Note: Abstract extracted from PDF file via OCR.

Digitization of this thesis was made possible by a generous grant from the Jefferson Trust, 2015.

Thesis originally deposited on 2016-03-14 in version 1.28 of Libra. This thesis was migrated to Libra2 on 2017-03-23 16:35:28.