Wastewater management in Latin America faces great challenges to reach a sustainable state. Although enough infrastructure has been built to treat around 40% of wastewater, only between 15–20% is effectively treated, and abandoned or defective infrastructure is a common sight. Data about current conditions at specific sites is quite fragmented, when existing. This leads to challenges in management, decision making and planning for sustainable options. We argue that a main obstacle is the lack of a regionally relevant sustainability assessment framework that allows for a holistic understanding of wastewater management as a nexus problem. We therefore developed a comprehensive framework to (1) understand current conditions (2) involve stakeholders and (3) point to pathways to improve wastewater management in the Americas. Building on literature review and stakeholder involvement, we constructed a multi-scalar extended dataset framework that is adaptable to different study sites using specific criteria. Sustainability was assessed through a “distance-to-target” approach. Social and economic variables were the lowest ranking in both cases, with technical variables generally performing better. Although some dimensions of sustainability are performing acceptably, others, such as social and economic, are general low to very low performing. This means, when looked at in an integrated manner, neither of the wastewater management systems analysed can be considered sustainable. Here we present the approach itself, the results of its application in two pilot sites in Latin America, and our recommendation to shift waste water management into sustainability.
Environmental problems are often wicked, shaped by conflicts, complexity, and uncertainty. Research is called here to design effective management approaches adapted to these specific features of environmental problems. However, management approaches hardly account for both result-orientation and the respective management needs in the face of wicked problems. By combining the results-based management literature with an analytic understanding of wickedness, we identify 12 indicators for an effective management along four management stages (inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes) and three dimensions of wicked problems (goal diversity, system complexity, and uncertainty). An interview-based demonstration of the concept in the Latin American context suggests a chain of effects regarding the stages, which differs slightly concerning dimensions of wicked problems. A lack of resources results here in limited activities, outputs, and outcomes to address problems, which is further substantiated by diverse challenges throughout the resultschain. While these patterns are pertinent for all dimensions of wicked problems, we also find varying challenges for addressing conflicts, complexity, and uncertainty.These results call for more rigorous analysis at the policy capacity level and along the dimensions of wickedness as a starting point for achieving effective policies to address wicked environmental problems at the outcome level.
Currently installed wastewater treatment systems in many developing countries are unsustainable, failing in either the social, economic or ecological dimension of sustainability. Nexus research looking at resources involved in wastewater treatment could support the transition towards more sustainable systems. Nexus thinking aims to overcome bio-physical systems thinking by including transdisciplinary research methods. Approaches for integrating results from different types of analysis and disciplinary backgrounds are scarce and have not been described extensively in nexus research. Transdisciplinary research suggests creating system, target and transformation knowledge as a common framework to describe meaningful transformations. Our goal is to show how a better understanding of the level of knowledge created by different types of analysis can pave the way towards integrating results for sustainability. In this article, three types of analysis, namely sustainability assessment, stakeholder perspective analysis and wickedness analysis, were applied in two pilot case wastewater treatment systems in Latin America. Through a three-step process, generated knowledge was assessed for each type of analysis individually while also highlighting synergies between them. The results demonstrate that structuring results by generated knowledge type can help combining outcomes in a meaningful manner. The findings show that technical flaws are present and fixable, and that issues relating to behaviours or values are more challenging to address but arguably more meaningful for systemic change.
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