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Water and Sanitation

World Water Week: Healthy ecosystems essential to human health: from coronavirus to malnutrition Online session Wednesday 24 August 17:00-18:20

Our session will explore “Seeing the unseen: The value of water,” including climate change, ecosystems, sociocultural and economic factors along with how water scarcity, poor water quality and inadequate sanitation negatively impact food security, livelihood choices and educational opportunities for poor families across the world and, in fact, everyone.


Mangrove Action Project Collaborates to Restore and Preserve Mangrove Ecosystems

Two successful MAP projects ...are Nai Nang Village in Thailand, and the Bay of Jiquilisco in El Salvador. In both, after the initial Community-based Ecological Mangrove Restoration (CBEMR) training and restoration, the projects and conservation have been locally driven and shaped as a result of working together. 

 


Promoting the Development of Rural Water Supply and Sanitation -Case from Zhejiang Province, China

China has made progress in improving water supply and sanitation(WSS) coverage over recent decades. The WSS services include water treatment plants and pipelines, sewer networks and wastewater treatment plants, and household service connections. 

We take Zhejiang province as an example.


Zakaria Ouedraogo of Burkina Faso Produces Film “Nzoue Fiyen: Water Not Drinkable”

For his Internship with Horizon International, an NGO based at Yale University, Zakaria focused on WASH, seeking stories to film from trash polluting city waterways serving as drinking water for local communities to the struggles to find potable water in rural communities. It was this search which lead him to the Ivory Coast.

 


World Health Organization (WHO) and UN-Water Call for Increased Investment in Drinking-Water and Safe Sanitation Systems

During World Water Week (25-30 August 2019) in Stockholm, The World Health Organization (WHO) and UN-Water called for an urgent increase in investment in strong drinking-water and sanitation systems.  They cited a report by WHO published on behalf of UN-Water that “reveals that weak government systems and a lack of human resources and funds are jeopardizing the delivery of water and sanitation services in the world’s poorest countries – and undermining efforts to ensure health for all.” The report,” Weak systems and funding gaps jeopardize drinking-water and sanitation in the world’s poorest countries,” UN-Water Global Assessment and Analysis of Sanitation and Drinking-Water 2019 (known as the GLAAS report), surveyed 115 countries and territories, representing 4.5 billion people. It showed that, in an overwhelming majority of countries, the implementation of water, sanitation and hygiene policies and plans is constrained by inadequate human and financial resources.


Schistosomiasis Historical perspective: Revisiting the St. Lucia Project a multi-year comparison trial of schistosomiasis control strategies

In 1965, the government of St. Lucia and the Rockefeller Foundation undertook what became a sixteen-year project to determine the optimal strategy for controlling locally-endemic schistosomiasis mansoni. Many of the world’s leading researchers on schistosomiasis control participated in the project, including experts in epidemiology, snail ecology, water and sanitation, social mobilization, clinical trials, immunology, and health economics. In the process, they brought infection levels in the new island nation to an impressive and steady low. Now fifty years later, the island has maintained its control of the parasite and may be on the cusp of achieving national Schistosoma mansoni elimination status. 


"Water and Sanitation-Related Diseases and the Changing Environment: Challenges, Interventions, and Preventive Measures" Volume 2 Is Now Available

The Authoritative Guide to Water and Sanitation Related Diseases, with Many Revised, Updated and New Chapters, Accompanies the First Edition

Augmenting authoritative interdisciplinary coverage in the first edition, this new edition of Water and Sanitation-Related Diseases and the Changing Environment expands upon the significance of the changing environment to disease vectors, food systems and nutrition, and population, and the importance of ecosystem health to human health. Many chapters stand as they are in first edition to which readers are referred, and which are not included in this volume.


Assessing Risk of Cholera Outbreaks Using Precipitation Data by NASA Goddard

A new modeling approach using satellite data will likely to enhance our ability to develop cholera risk maps in several regions of the globe. The model (GCRM) is based on monthly air temperature, precipitation, availability of WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) infrastructure, population density and severity of natural disaster.


NASA Satellites Reveal Major Shifts in Global Freshwater Updated June 2020

In June 2020, NASA provides an updated report on fresh water availability: "Of all of the water on Earth, 97% is saltwater, leaving a mere 3% as freshwater, approximately 1% of which is readily available for our use. The world’s population is becoming more and more reliant on this precious resource for power, irrigation, industrial practices, and daily consumption."  The report is available at: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/toolkits/freshwater-availability

In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists have combined an array of NASA satellite observations of Earth with data on human activities to map locations where freshwater is changing around the globe and to determine why.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, finds that Earth’s wet land areas are getting wetter and dry areas are getting drier due to a variety of factors, including human water management, climate change and natural cycles.

A team led by Matt Rodell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, used 14 years of observations from the U.S./German-led Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spacecraft mission to track global trends in freshwater in 34 regions around the world.


Meet Freddy the Fly: A New Video Promotes Open Defecation Free Living

Meet Freddy, a fat little fly who loves toilet fondue! Find out what happens to him when the village where he lives is 'triggered' into cleaning up their act to become open defecation free (ODF).Meet Freddy the Fly: A New Video Promotes Open Defecation Free Living

 


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