CVEN 5969: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Series

Fall, Tu/Th 2:30-3:45pm, 3 credits

Instructor: Rita Klees

Course Description

Worldwide, in 2024, about 1 in 4 (2 billion) people lack access to safe and readily available water at home.听The global climate crisis directly threatens the water security of countries and heightens existing challenges in managing water resources.听 An estimated 1.42 billion people 鈥 including 450 million children 鈥 currently live in areas of high water vulnerability.听 Predicted growing world population, pandemics, and climate-related extreme weather events鈥 especially floods and droughts 鈥 will heighten water insecurity.

Almost half the global population (3.6 billion) lack access to improved sanitation. Inadequate hygiene practices such as open defecation and lack of handwashing negatively impact water and sanitation outcomes.听 For example, unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) cause over 1000 deaths of children under age five every day, or about 400,000 deaths per year. Besides public health, the WASH sector interacts with, and impacts upon, the nutrition, education, environment, and economic growth of communities worldwide, and disproportionately. Gaps in WASH service delivery are found in marginalized, rural, informal, immigrant and indigenous communities in low-, middle-, and high-income countries alike. At least 2 million Americans, for instance, live without running water or proper sanitation in their home. Besides the challenge of reaching those unserved by safe WASH practices, maintaining investments already made in water and sanitation infrastructure and services has proven to be difficult.听Over the past 20 years, 30-40% of rural water systems in Sub-Saharan Africa have failed prematurely and more than half of all installed toilets are unused, misused or abandoned.

Against this backdrop, the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include Goal #6 to 鈥淓nsure access to water and sanitation for all by 2030.鈥澨 Reaching the SDG Goal #6 involves a complex and inter-related range of natural resources, infrastructure, services and human behaviors 鈥 all of which will be studied in this course. 听Fundamental concepts and best practices in WASH will be introduced.听 We will examine current WASH conditions and trends and take a critical look at the underlying political, economic, social, and technical reasons why millions of people听still do not have safe drinking water and improved sanitation services and lack hygiene practices that ensure health benefits.听 Using case studies, guest speakers, debates, readings and videos, we will examine a broad range of WASH interventions and programming, focusing on evidence-based solutions.

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Course topics include the following:

Water Security & Service Delivery:

  • The global drinking water challenge
  • Health Impacts
  • Rural drinking water supply technologies and service delivery
  • Urban drinking water supply technologies and service delivery
  • Decentralized household water treatment and storage
  • Climate change and water security
  • Water, energy and food nexus
  • Water as a business

Sanitation & Hygiene

  • The Global Challenge of Sanitation & Hygiene/the SDGs & WASH
  • Health impacts of inadequate sanitation & hygiene
  • Urban sanitation technologies/issues/challenges
  • Rural sanitation technologies/issues/challenges
  • Sanitation as a business
  • Fecal sludge management
  • Hygiene and Handwashing
  • Behavior change and WASH
  • Menstrual Hygiene Management

Overarching Issues in WASH听

  • Water security and transboundary shared water resources
  • Social justice, decolonization,听& WASH
  • Emerging Technologies for Resilient WASH
  • Reaching the unserved and the vulnerable
  • Monitoring and Evaluation
  • Gender and WASH
  • The Enabling Environment for WASH: National policies, plans, institutions
  • Financing WASH
  • Humanitarian WASH
  • Non-Household WASH

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the course the students will be able to identify:

  • the nature and scope of the WASH challenge
  • key elements of water security
  • the social, economic, institutional, and environmental benefits and challenges of providing access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation
  • WASH technical options for a variety of settings
  • Sustainable WASH service delivery approaches
  • vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations and ways to reach them
  • the role of hygiene and behavioral change in the WASH sector
  • innovative approaches to improved WASH particularly in light of future challenges such as global pandemics, water scarcity, conflict, climate change, and urbanization听
  • emerging issues and research needs听

Prerequisites

This course is open to graduate students in all disciplines, and undergraduates with permission of the instructor.听