Challenges of poor surface water drainage and wastewater management in refugee camps

Abstract

Since refugee camps are meant to be temporary and setting them up usually require urgency, little attention has been given to provision of surface water drainage and to a lesser extent wastewater management. As the population of refugees in these camps continues to grow, the effectiveness of drainage infrastructure continues to diminish. In addition, availability of sufficient safe drinking water and wastewater management have become difficult in the refugee camps across the world. The present situation in refugee camps across the world, such as flooding and outbreak of water-related diseases in South Sudan refugee camps, has made the need for sustainable approach to solving the problems to be very urgent. One sustainable way of solving the problems of flooding and outbreak of diseases in refugee camps is to provide effective drainage and wastewater infrastructure that ensures all the wastewater are properly collected, treated and reused for various purposes such as agriculture, drinking, laundry and other relevant uses. This paper therefore presents the current state of drainage and wastewater management in two refugee camps and propose low-cost technologies for stormwater management, wastewater collection, treatment and potential reuse, suitable for these refugee camps.

Nature‐based Solutions for sustainable flood management in East Africa

“…Additionally, poor lasting maintenance is a barrier in peri‐urban areas, as there is no clear single stakeholder responsible for managing NbS (Douglas, 2018; Mulligan et al, 2020). Furthermore, regular maintenance of the existing conventional drainage system in EA cities is a challenge, due to unregulated solid waste dumping, obstructions and unkempt vegetation, thus, some fear integrating NbS can compound existing pressures on the drainage network (Opeyemi et al, 2016).…”