Costs, Climate and Contamination: Three Drivers for Citywide Sanitation Investment Decisions

Abstract

Significant progress is needed, in both large cities and small towns, to meet the ambitious targets set at international and national levels relating to universal access to safely managed sanitation. There has been increased recognition in the urban sanitation sector that in rapidly growing cities, there is unlikely to be a single centralized sanitation solution which can effectively deliver services to all demographics, and that heterogeneous approaches to urban sanitation are required. At the same time, due to competing investment priorities, there is a greater focus on the need for sanitation investments to address multiple objectives. However, calls for more informed sanitation planning and a more dynamic and disaggregated approach to the delivery and management of sanitation services have had limited impacts. This is in part due to the complexity of the drivers for sanitation investment, and the difficulties involved in identifying and addressing these multiple, often conflicting, goals. This paper examines three potential drivers of citywide sanitation decision-making-public health, sustainability and economic performance-via the three proxies of contamination, climate change and costs. It examines the importance of each driver and proxies, how they are considered in investment decisions, the current state of knowledge about them, and priority aspects to be included in decisions. At present, while public health is a common driver for improving sanitation, there are significant gaps in our understanding of fecal contamination spread and exposure, and how to select sanitation solutions which can best address them. Climate change is sometimes seen as a low priority for the sanitation sector given the immediacy and scale of existing challenges and the uncertainty of future climate predictions. However, potential risks are significant, and uninformed decisions may result in greater costs and increased inequalities. Cost data are sparse and unreliable, and it is challenging to build robust cost-effectiveness analyses. Yet these are needed to compare citywide options based on least-cost over their full life cycle. This paper provides insights into how existing evidence on contamination, climate change and costs can inform decisions on sanitation investments and help chart a sustainable way forward for achieving citywide services.

Safely Managed On-Site Sanitation: A National Assessment of Sanitation Services and Potential Fecal Exposure in Indonesia

“…This is particularly true given the large number of villages experiencing extreme weather events observed in this study (flood: n of villages = 19,675 (23.4%), drought: n of villages = 8587 (10.2%)). Yet, oftentimes, the sanitation sector sees climate change as a low priority and does not yet proactively incorporate such risks into strategies and planning [11,24]. The positive associ-ation between septic tank emptying practice and flooding occurrence is consistent with previous studies in Cambodia, Tanzania, and elsewhere [8,12,52].…”

“…Intense flooding could also raise the groundwater table, exacerbating drinking water source contamination from 'uncontained' on-site sanitation [24], which would be of primary concern in densely populated areas of Indonesia, where the poor rely on groundwater for drinking. This suggests that the adverse impact would disproportionally affect poor and vulnerable groups, highlighting the need for action from an equity standpoint [11]. Conversely, drought occurrence was negatively associated with septic tank emptying, suggesting smaller sludge accumulation rates potentially due to limited water usage for flushing by households (i.e., lower water content in sludge) and higher temperature (i.e., acceleration in the microbiological digestion process) in these areas.…”

“…Other areas where there is missing or poor quality data include sanitation system typologies, emptying practices in both urban and rural areas, and the ability to assess the magnitude of the fecal exposure risks associated with the appropriate management of such on-site systems. There are further data gaps around the influence of weather conditions on on-site sanitation management, which are altered further by climate change [8][9][10][11];, knowledge of these impacts is limited to small scale study areas [12,13]. Taking Indonesia as an example, the purpose of this paper is to address these gaps by providing insights into the current status and practices for on-site sanitation services in the contexts of LMICs.…”

Co-developing evidence-informed adaptation actions for resilient citywide sanitation: Local government response to climate change in Indonesia

“…For instance, preventive action to conduct desludging ahead of the rainy season and systems to manage water storage in the dry season. These ideas are also reflected in the literature with one study suggesting also desludging ahead of the wet season (Oates et al, 2014) and another study emphasised the importance of preventative maintenance, system monitoring and warning mechanisms (Mills et al, 2020). In the literature, early warning systems were also seen as critical to mainstreaming climate change adaptation into water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) development planning in Ghana (Alhassan and Hadwen, 2017).…”

“…Evidence of the potential consequences of climate change for sanitation is emerging, but yet to translate to substantive government commitments to action in low- and middle-income countries. Recent review papers outline the many ways climate hazards disrupt sanitation services (Howard et al, 2016; Mills et al, 2020). The threat of climate change has led to calls to build sanitation resilience to ensure sanitation SDG targets are met (Howard, 2021; De Albuquerque, 2021).…”