Thesis (M.S.P.H.)--University of Michigan, 1942.

Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Michigan, 1946.

When we consider global sanitation from within the framework of sustainable development, we are both failing to meet the needs of the present and are jeopardizing the capacity of future generations to do so. The primary function of sanitation and waste treatment is the protection of public health, but it is urgent that we also consider the long-term sustainability of sanitation and waste treatment systems. Our choice of sanitation and waste treatment systems is intimately connected to the greatest equity and sustainability challenges of our time, and we need something better than the Porcelain Dream (i.e. flush toilets, sewerage, and centralized conventional wastewater treatment). This thesis explores the design of sustainable sanitation systems from three different but complementary perspectives: 1. In a material flow analysis (MFA), I evaluate the positive impact of ecological sanitation (or the reuse of nutrients in excreta for agriculture) as an intervention to mitigate nitrogen pollution and improve stewardship of the global nitrogen cycle. I find that ecological sanitation can substitute 51% of nitrogenous fertilizer use, reduce discharge of nitrogen to waterways by 71%, decrease nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions by 34%, and improve the circularity of the agricultural-sanitation nitrogen cycle by 22%. 2. Through environmental engineering research, I derive fundamental drying characteristics of fresh faeces to support the development of ecological and sustainable sanitation. Based on this characterization, I propose the use of the Guggenheim, Anderson, and de Boer (GAB) model for predicting the relationship between water activity (aw) and equilibrium moisture content, calculating the heat of sorption, and estimating the corresponding energy requirements for drying of fresh faeces. Given an anticipated range of initial moisture contents of 63 to 86%, I estimate an energy requirement of 0.05 to 0.4 kJ/mol to inactivate pathogens in fresh faeces. 3. Via an evaluation of the composting toilet project at the University of Victoria (UVic), I explore factors critical to promoting a paradigm shift from the conventional to more ecological and sustainable systems. I identify the following as factors that facilitated implementation in the Exploration and Adoption/Preparation phases: supportive and self-reinforcing research and outcomes, favorable adopter characteristics, and the technology’s beneficial features. The overall objective of the research is to communicate that the design of sustainable sanitation systems is urgent, with implications both locally and globally, and to provide information to support a shift towards more sustainable sanitation systems. / Graduate / 2020-12-11

In informal settlements, shared sanitation facilities offer pragmatic solutions as it allows inhabitants to access sanitation because they cannot install in-house toilets. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) classifies shared sanitation as unimproved because there is a tendency for facilities to be mismanaged resulting in unhygienic practices. This study addressed the issues around the quality of shared sanitation by looking at how sanitation activities between men and women shape the use and management of shared sanitation facilities within and between households. The study adopted a qualitative research paradigm, at both macro and micro levels, of data collection. It made use of a thorough review of literature and in-depth interviews which provided a deeper insight into how sanitation policy and practice shape and influence sanitation processes in informal settlements and the wider implications they have on state-society relations. A case study method of inquiry of Phomolong informal settlement revealed that shared sanitation is embedded in a host of a complex and overlapping processes, which revolve around tenure insecurity, urban poverty, gender power relations and the historical legacies of racialised urban planning. The study concludes that the absence of a coherent sanitation policy for informal settlements has not only widened sanitation backlogs in informal settlements, but it has significantly deteriorated these communities’ sense of citizenship and belonging. To understand Phomolong’s informality, one has to appreciate that self-management underpins its sanitation processes as a result of inadequate state-led service delivery. Although the Free Basic Sanitation policy (FBSan) is designed to specifically cater for poor urban communities, it has done little to alleviate the challenges of informal urban sanitation. A host of social issues shape how shared sanitation is accessed, perceived and managed on a daily basis. Specifically, gender and tenure status provide an added layer of challenges as women navigate the burden of being the custodians of household health and hygiene as well as their own personal security and dignity. / Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Anthropology and Archaeology / MSocSci / Unrestricted

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / This study examined the institutional challenges facing the City of Windhoek in the provision of water supply and sanitation in the Havana Informal Settlement. Like most cities in developing countries, Namibia is faced with the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality, even though Namibia after its liberation developed several policies to ensure that equitable service delivery is provided to all its citizens. Approximately 60% of the city’s population resides in informal settlements, with inadequate and poor service delivery such as sanitation and water supply. External factors such as climate change amongst others have a huge impact in a water-scarce country such as Namibia on attaining the sustainability of water resources.

Includes bibliographical references / From 1994 to 2008, South Africa's national government disseminated numerous policies, laws, regulations and strategies to support its objective of providing basic sanitation access to the urban poor by 2014. The state has yet to attain this objective - ostensibly due to poor municipal execution of national policy. This thesis challenges this assessment, as it overlooks how non-municipal actors have shaped implementation and ignores possible weaknesses in policy. After assessing the delivery of sanitation services in Cape Town informal settlements, I found that disputes among municipal implementers, policy beneficiaries and social advocates about broadly framed policy, as well as policy gaps in servicing informal settlements, contributed to the City's failure to achieve national objectives. The local actors'differences and policy gaps necessitated the re-formulation of sanitation policy and programmes in Cape Town according to conflicting rationalities that accommodated the'lived' and 'practical' realities of servicing informal settlements. In light of these circumstances, this thesis argues that there is a disproportionate focus on turning national policy into practise - for this viewpoint misses how policy oftentimes is re-formulated according to local actors' perspectives and experiences. Understanding the complex interplay between policy rationales and implementation realities can contribute to more constructive means of effectively providing sanitation services for South African informal settlements.

This investigation was conducted in order to show that insanitary conditions may exist in the swimming pool at North Texas State Teachers College provided the proper precautions are not taken; and, in contrast that this pool can be sanitary and entirely safe when operated and used according to the necessary sanitary specifications.

In 1938, the Board of Supervisors of Prince William County, Virginia, appropriated sufficient money to the State Department of Health to provide the county with a full-time health service. This department included the services of a medical health officer, a public health nurse, and a public health engineer. Inasmuch as the inclusion of the services of a graduate engineer in rural health departments in the State was a recent innovation, supplanting that of the field-trained sanitarian, the standardized sanitation program was insufficient. Very shortly, however, it was observed that the improvement of school sanitation would, in addition to the public health value discussed later, involve sufficient engineering problems to show the advantages to be gained by the new resident engineering service. A comprehensive program of this kind would also involve problems of economics and politics, which could be surmounted only by careful technical design and judicious application of the funds available. There is little doubt that the ultimate possibilities have not been revealed, but the completion of the program serves to disclose some of those possibilities. The degree of perfection attained in this specific program may be determined by the reader; but for the purpose of this thesis, it is of little moment, since the conclusions drawn are justified by the facts. A review of literature preceding the main portion of the thesis includes sections on soil and ground-water pollution, water supply, and sewage disposal. Descriptions of the county, the school system, and the health department follow, in an effort to present the implements or factors contributing to the performance of the program. In reviewing the program each project is described and discussed separately so that technical points may best be considered. A report of the conditions existing before the beginning of the work is included, as well as a review and discussion of the results. Suitable conclusions of an economic, political, and technical nature are noted, and the plans and specifications of one project are appended. / Master of Science

In this thesis, I explore the collective excrement apparatus of Kampala, or the “shitscape”. I consider the diverse ways that the city’s inhabitants utilise different materials to manage their daily defecation, from flush toilets and latrines to plastic bags, septic tanks, and wastewater channels. In doing so, I unravel the historical and contemporary construction of toileting as a critical component of the modern city in the global south, and the everyday role of excrement in the inclusion and exclusion of Kampala’s inhabitants. The shitscape therefore invites a discussion of how the city’s sanitation infrastructures are thought about and implemented in a way that both reflects and reinforces the socio-economic disparities of its residents. The thesis begins with an historical analysis of how the city was shaped by colonialism and how this affects the contemporary shitscape in terms of ideas about urbanity, modernity, and hygiene, and then analyses how the material and symbolic groundwork of the colonial period is extended into the planning and living of today’s city. Tracing the city’s main wastewater channel through affluent areas and informal settlements of central Kampala, I use ethnographic and qualitative methods to understand the everyday toileting materialities and performances, and its role in the ways in which the city is read, perceived, and lived by its inhabitants. The study’s primary theoretical contribution is to contribute to Lefebvre’s theories about the production of urban space by bringing it into conversation with postcolonial and feminist literatures that knit together bodily function and material infrastructure. This everyday look at the how the city’s shitscape operates ultimately offers ways to challenge prevailing notions of urbanity, and prompts thinking about alternative possibilities for how city life is conceptualised.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.