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Water scarcity and sanitation pose a critical global challenge worsened by population growth and the finite nature of freshwater resources. Despite the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) advocating for universal water and sanitation access, progress remains insufficient. Presently, approximately 50% of generated wastewater is released into the environment without adequate treatment, emphasizing the urgent need to address this issue. This article examines the socio‐economic and technical aspects of both centralized and decentralized wastewater treatment systems (DWTS) and assesses the environmental impact, spatial footprint, and energy usage across treatment technologies. An economic analysis underscores the cost advantages of DWTS, especially in sparsely populated regions. With modular designs, DWTS not only provides environmental and economic advantages but also enables water reuse. The research concludes that adopting DWTS is crucial in achieving SDG6 targets and ensuring universal access to safe sanitation, especially in low‐density and newly developed areas. This thorough investigation of wastewater management contributes to the ongoing dialogue on sustainable solutions amidst escalating global challenges of water scarcity and sanitation. This perspective provides quantitative assessments of wastewater treatment systems. In densely populated areas, centralized wastewater treatment system (CWTS) offers advantages of scale, while in low‐density regions, decentralized wastewater treatment systems (DWTS) offer scope benefits. While CWTS benefit from scale economies, DWTS capitalize on compactness, offering a modular design that allows for easy scaling and require less land.

Background In rural Bangladesh, India and elsewhere, pour-flush pit latrines are the most common sanitation system. When a single pit latrine becomes full, users must empty it themselves and risk exposure to fresh feces, pay an emptying service to remove pit contents or build a new latrine. Double pit pour-flush latrines may serve as a long-term sanitation option including high water table areas because the pits do not need to be emptied immediately and the excreta decomposes into reusable soil. Methods Double pit pour-flush latrines were implemented in rural Bangladesh for ‘hardcore poor’ households by a national NGO, BRAC. We conducted interviews, focus groups, and spot checks in two low-income, rural areas of Bangladesh to explore the advantages and limitations of using double pit latrines compared to single pit latrines. Results The rural households accepted the double pit pour-flush latrine model and considered it feasible to use and maintain. This latrine design increased accessibility of a sanitation facility for these low-income residents and provided privacy, convenience and comfort, compared to open defecation. Although a double pit latrine is more costly and requires more space than a single pit latrine the households perceived this sanitation system to save resources, because households did not need to hire service workers to empty pits or remove decomposed contents themselves. In addition, the excreta decomposition process produced a reusable soil product that some households used in homestead gardening. The durability of the latrine superstructures was a problem, as most of the bamboo-pole superstructure broke after 6–18 months of use. Conclusions Double pit pour-flush latrines are a long-term improved sanitation option that offers users several important advantages over single pit pour-flush latrines like in rural Bangladesh which can also be used in areas with high water table. Further research can provide an understanding of the comparative health impacts and effectiveness of the model in preventing human excreta from entering the environment.

Non-sewered sanitation systems (NSSSs) could improve sanitation in healthcare facilities (HCFs) within urban areas of developing countries. However, they are not usually applied in these areas. In this study, the PEST analysis, which refers to analyzing the feasibility and potential of a project in terms of four factors – political, economic, social, and technological – was used to examine the practical application of NSSS in HCFs in Beijing, China. The results found that the support of NSSS applications in HCFs outweighs the challenges. Particularly in rural areas, NSSS has significant potential for application. Implementing these strategies would enhance sanitation in HCFs and reduce the spread of diseases.

New and alternative sanitation systems are increasingly discussed and find their way into implementation. However, discussions on sanitation concepts often are held in a rather emotional way. Furthermore, not all the available sanitation concepts might be known to the decision maker. The work presented here attempts to contribute to a good discussion and decision making process by compiling available technologies, by defining easy-to-implement criteria for a sustainability assessment method and by integrating these results into a simulation tool which allows to visualize the related resource fluxes (e.g. those on nutrients, such as N, P and K) and to analyse different sanitation options with regard to their capital and operational costs and with regard to environmental impact criteria such as greenhouse gas emissions. Whilst the calculations are to be considered as being approximate in their nature (due to uncertainties or lack of suitable input data), this tool allows the planners, with sometimes little modelling experience, to consider the characteristics of sanitation systems. Whilst starting from earlier work, such as Eawag's Sanitation Compendium and work on material flow analysis, work described in this contribution merges resource flux modelling, easy-to-use simulation and visualization and methods of life cycle assessment and life cycle costing. The simulation tool is freely available on https://www.ifak.eu/en/products/sampsons.

This article analyzes the results of the work of scientists in the Russian Federation in the field of water supply and sanitation for the historical period of the Russian Federation from 1992 to 2022 inclusive (31 full years). The subject of the research are dissertations for the degree of candidate or doctor of Sciences in the scientific specialty 2.1.4. “Water supply, sewerage, construction systems for the protection of water resources” (05.23.04 to 02/24/2021) in accordance with the nomenclature of scientific specialties. In this paper, we propose a classification of the analyzed works to the main object of research in accordance with the structural part of the water supply and sanitation systems. We explore the intensity of successful defenses of scientific and qualification works by year, the popularity of various areas of scientific research, as well as the rating of Russian cities evaluating relevant scientific works.

Access to water supply and sanitation services remains a challenge in many parts of the world. The expected growth of the world's population, from about 7.8 billion people today to 9.8 billion people by 2050, and to around 11 billion people by the end of 2100, will create even higher demand and a greater strain on these basic services. Goal 6 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) aims to ‘Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’ by 2030. However, in a recent report, UN-Water warns us that if things continue on the current path, the world will miss the targets of SDG 6. The selection of appropriate water and sanitation technologies is key to meeting SDG 6 targets. This paper presents an original framework of a decision support system (DSS) for the selection of appropriate water supply and sanitation (Watsan) technologies in developing countries. The proposed DSS has three components. The first component is the user interface, where the inputs are the assessment of a community's capacity to manage a given water supply or sanitation system, and its regional specificity. The second component of the DSS is a database of Watsan technologies classified according to the capacity requirement level (CRL) metric, and finally, the third component is a matching algorithm for the selection of appropriate Watsan technology options. Case studies and simulations results are presented for the evaluation of the performance of the decision support system.

Nutrient recovery technologies have been constantly developed and optimised to address challenges in water and wastewater management, sanitation, and agri-food systems, while promoting sustainable management of resources and circular phosphorous economy. However, these technologies have been rarely explored beyond the laboratory-scale in developing countries where it is mostly needed. In this study, a nutrient recovery batch reactor system was installed at a local farm in the Philippines to process raw septage from an onsite sanitation system, a septic tank, to recover a high-value fertiliser for local crop production. The batch reactor was used for two processes, namely acid hydrolysis for pre-treatment of septage and chemical precipitation for recovered phosphorous fertiliser (RPF). The recovered fertiliser was then applied to produce eggplants and tomatoes, which are the common crops grown in the farm. Results show that an average of 290 g of RPF was produced for every 100 L of raw septage processed. With hydrolysis, 77% of the phosphate concentration were released as phosphates from the solid component of the raw septage. About 98.5% of phosphates were recovered from the hydrolysed septage. The RPF when applied to the farm’s eggplants and tomatoes has yields comparable to that of the commercial fertilisers. This study was able to demonstrate the potential of a resource-oriented sanitation system that promotes nutrient recycling towards sustainable agriculture that further leads to meeting the United Nations sustainable development goals, particularly zero hunger (goal 2), clean water and sanitation (goal 6), sustainable cities and communities (goal 11), and responsible consumption and production (goal 12).

The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has produced continent-wide analysis of many aspects of Africa's infrastructure challenge. The main findings were synthesized in a flagship report titled Africa's Infrastructure: a time for transformation, published in November 2009. Meant for policy makers, that report necessarily focused on the high-level conclusions. It attracted widespread media coverage feeding directly into discussions at the 2009 African Union Commission Heads of State Summit on Infrastructure. Although the flagship report served a valuable role in highlighting the main findings of the project, it could not do full justice to the richness of the data collected and technical analysis undertaken. There was clearly a need to make this more detailed material available to a wider audience of infrastructure practitioners. Hence the idea of producing four technical monographs, such as this one, to provide detailed results on each of the major infrastructure sectors, information and communication technologies (ICT), power, transport, and water, as companions to the flagship report. These technical volumes are intended as reference books on each of the infrastructure sectors. They cover all aspects of the AICD project relevant to each sector, including sector performance, gaps in financing and efficiency, and estimates of the need for additional spending on investment, operations, and maintenance. Each volume also comes with a detailed data appendix, providing easy access to all the relevant infrastructure indicators at the country level, which is a resource in and of itself.

The main objective of sanitation systems is to protect and promote human health by providing a clean environment and breaking the cycle of disease. In order to be sustainable, a sanitation system has to be not only economically viable, socially acceptable and technically and institutionally appropriate, but it should also protect the environment and the natural resources. ‘Resources-oriented sanitation’ describes the approach in which human excreta and water from households are recognized as resource made available for reuse. Nowadays, ‘resources-oriented sanitation’ is understood in the same way as ‘ecological sanitation’. For resources-oriented sanitation systems to be truly sustainable they have to comply with the definition of sustainable sanitation as given by the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA, www.susana.org). Constructed treatment wetlands meet the basic criteria of sustainable sanitation systems by preventing diseases, protecting the environment, and being an affordable, acceptable, and simple technology. Additionally, constructed treatment wetlands produce treated wastewater of high quality, which is fostering reuse, which in turn makes them applicable in resources-oriented sanitation systems. The paper discusses the features that make constructed treatment wetlands a suitable solution in sustainable resources-oriented sanitation systems, the importance of system thinking for sustainability, as well as key factors for sustainable implementation of constructed wetland systems.

In the main office building of GTZ in Eschborn, Germany a resource-oriented sanitation system containing urine diversion (UD) toilets and waterless urinals has been in operation since 2006. After 2.5 years of operating the system, a first overall evaluation of the system in terms of its acceptance amongst the users and the cleaning staff was conducted by carrying out two surveys and many interviews. The overall result is that most of the users appreciate the sanitation concept in theory but have problems with the technical design of the particular type of UD flush toilets installed here. The survey results also gave some directions towards which hygiene devices the users would appreciate in order to overcome their reluctance to sit down on the toilet seat in public buildings (the sitting being necessary for correct operation of the urine valve to separate urine from flush water). Also, it is difficult to convince the cleaning and facility maintenance staff of the necessity of special cleaning and preventative maintenance routines. Hence, before such systems can be widely used, clear cleaning routines and maintenance instruction are required as well as certain technical modifications of this type of UD flush toilets to optimise the urine/water separation and the flushing properties of the toilet.