Urban Sanitation

This article analyses the water, sanitation and hygiene situation in slum households and compares it with the non-slum urban households using data from the 2011 Census. It argues for a shift from the mere water supply coverage to an emphasis on quality water distribution. Intermittent water supply coupled with poor sanitation contributes to higher health risks. Promoting point-of-use water treatment and basic hygiene practices on safe handling and storage of water are important preventive health interventions. This article advocates for a shift from availability of infrastructure to delivery of service-level outcomes.

From 1994 to 2008, South Africa’s national government disseminated numerous policies, laws, regulations and strategies to support its objective of providing basic sanitation access to the urban poor by 2014. The state has yet to attain this objective—ostensibly due to poor municipal execution of national policy. This thesis challenges this assessment, as it overlooks how non-municipal actors have shaped implementation and ignores possible weaknesses in policy. After assessing the delivery of sanitation services in Cape Town informal settlements, I found that disputes among municipal implementers, policy beneficiaries and social advocates about broadly framed policy, as well as policy gaps in servicing informal settlements, contributed to the City’s failure to achieve national objectives. The local actors’ differences and policy gaps necessitated the re-formulation of sanitation policy and programmes in Cape Town according to conflicting rationalities that accommodated the ‘lived’ and ‘practical’ realities of servicing informal settlements. In light of these circumstances, this thesis argues that there is a disproportionate focus on turning national policy into practise—for this viewpoint misses how policy oftentimes is re-formulated according to local actors’ perspectives and experiences. Understanding the complex interplay between policy rationales and implementation realities can contribute to more constructive means of effectively providing sanitation services for South African informal settlements.

Urban sewage is one of the biggest polluters of water resources. For treatment, the usual conventional technologies (CT) are based on civil and hydraulic engineering; more recently, green technologies (GT) based on biology and ecology began to be developed. The aim of this study was to assess the economic aspects of these technologies using cost-benefit analysis. The economic benefits are derived from the sale of forest products and the environmental benefits of water decontamination, valued by the avoided cost method. The results of the study establish that GT have better commercial and economic performance than CT, and that the inclusion of environmental benefit significantly improves the results.

The people of Pahandut Seberang Village have long lived on the Kahayan Riverside area. The characteristics of the settlements in Pahandut Seberang Village are floating houses and pillar houses, most of which are located above the water. The river is used for water transportation, fishing, fulfilling daily needs such as bathing, washing, and as a source of drinking water. The Kahayan River problem is also a place for disposal of waste from human activities such as household waste. Human waste is dumped directly into water bodies because the toilets of the pillar houses on the riverside do not have septic tank facilities. To solve the priority problems of Partners, a solution to assist the manufacture and installation of Repeated Processing Septic tank (RPS) Technology for pillar houses in Pahandut Seberang Village is needed. The goal is to provide sanitation problem solving for settlement in Pahandut Seberang Village through training on the construction and installation of RPS. The methods used qualitatively include: (a) Finding concrete problems and priorities: the existence of a toilet on pillar house without a septic tank; (b) Offering ideas, making RPS to settlement who are located on pillar houses on the riverside; (c) Making activity plans and work procedures, and d) Inviting Partner participation by providing training (creating and installing RPS). A special target has been achieved by giving a pilot RPS to settlement of Pahandut Seberang Village, by facilitating a house on stilts with the RPS. Outputs in the form of RPS goods and products and their specifications.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the process of the organization of centralized water supply systems in small Russian towns at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The causes and the process of pipeline building in three small cities, each of which became significant transport hubs by 1914 and had populations of less than 50,000 people, are described in the research. The research interest in these towns is led by understanding how the transport position of small cities promoted the improvement of water supplies in them. It was essential due to the growth of the urban populations and increasing cases of cholera epidemics in transport-hub cities.

Sanitation management in Mojokerto city has been designed in technocratic ways in the forms of programs and activities which have to be supported by adequate community participation in order to optimize proper sanitation services. Priority sanitation service has been the key to the success of sanitation service improvement. This research was conducted to determine the reas/villages to receive priority sanitation services based on the sanitation risk level which was analyzed using both descriptive qualitative and quantitative methods. Research data including primary and secondary data were collected through questionnaires, interviews and observations. The priority sanitation services for high-risk areas were determined using Hanlon method, a method that measured the priority based on priority scales and problem solving. The priority was determined by weighing the impact and exposure in the forms of percentages that describe the influence of a research variable to the outcome. The prioritized villages are directly proportional with the results of the sanitation risk analysis in the management of domestic wastewater and household waste. Seen from the city planning perspective using spatial interaction approach, adjacent areas greatly affect each others. In addition, spatial comparison approach also regarded the comparison of spatial areas in determining the priority scale of services for domestic wastewater and household waste management. Highly-prioritized areas needed special treatment in the forms of programs and short-term plans while the programs designed for the less-prioritized areas and non-prioritized areas could be realized in medium or long-term.

The paper includes an analysis of cases about the interdicta de cloacis investigated by Roman jurists in I-III centuries AD, related to the right to conduct private sewers into public ones and to clean them, if obstructed, also in spite of neighbours’ opposition. The case system discussed by Roman jurists may also help solve a question at the top of interest among the scholars: did Romans think about an «environmental protection»? Can it be identified in a more modest and empirical, yet essential, protection of the hygienic, sanitary conditions in the Roman cities? Finally, some considerations of Severan jurists may help verify an interesting intersection among legal reasoning and medical theories on the onset of the epidemics, with particular reference to the miasma - theory of hippocratic origin, reassessed by Galen.

India’s flagship sanitation program, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), highlights both the importance of latrine use, and also of “safe and proper disposal”. Since most of urban India is not connected to sewers, in practice, this means mechanical (i.e. truck-and-hose) sludge removal as opposed to the now-illegal manual method of emptying toilet pits. In this photo-essay, we trace the flow of waste from pit to dump in urban India, making visible the labor that produces the sanitary city.

On the second half of the 19th century, Lisbon started to change at an accelerated pace, regarding population growth, urban area increase and industrialization. Although the intensity of these changes cannot be directly compared with the ones occurring more or less at the same time in other European capitals (due to its lesser dimension), they were most useful as a springboard for deeper changes that came only in the 20th century. One of the aspects on those changes was the appearance of a larger number of small industries in several areas of the city. Due to their location and characteristics, they were not always compatible either with the basic structures for handling urban sewage or with public health needs. One of the document series belonging to the archival fond of the Ministério do Reino contains several records related to industrial licensing inside the city and show several aspects of pollution inside the urban space. By identifying and analyzing these records, it is possible to understand the ways by which industry, urban sewage disposal and public health intersected each other.

Concerning the urban technologies necessary for the life and functioning of a city, the ones related to urban sanitation in Lisbon during the 19th century are in need of deeper studies. Although their importance has been recognized for quite some time now, most discussions have turned empty results. Urban sanitation was always an important subject during public health crisis. However, given the network of dependencies it maintained with other urban technologies – such as the ones concerning water supply – problem solving was always a slow process. When talking about urban sanitation in Lisbon, it is inevitable to talk about urban evolution, city growth, and the way other urban technologies were implemented, how Lisbon was influenced by other cities and also how this problem presents itself when seen in a worldwide context.