SOPAC launches Pacific WASH portal www.pacificwater.org

SOPAC, the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission has launched an interactive information portal on water, sanitation and hygiene for the Pacific. It has information on all WASH-related SOPAC initiatives, programmes and projects by three main themes:

• Water Resources Management: the Pacific Hydrological Cycle Observing System (HYCOS), drinking Water Quality Monitoring (WQM), the Pacific Island Climate Update (ICU) and the Pacific Water and Climate Resource Centre
• Water and Wastewater Asset Management: Water supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) including RainWater Harvesting (RWH) and appropriate water and wastewater technologies, drinking Water Safety Planning (WSP), Water Demand Management (WDM)
• Water Governance: Pacific Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) programme, and the Pacific Partnership Initiative on Sustainable Water Management

Other features include:

• The Pacific Water Action Matrix Database
• Country profiles
• A Resource Centre with key documents, links and SOPAC publications related to water, sanitation and hygiene. An option to  search for links and resources and access customized toolkits on key topics related to water, sanitation and hygiene, with an initial focus on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) are planned.
• Events & Multimedia including a photo & video gallery, events calendar and a SOPAC water staff travel planner

You can also sign up to the quarterly Pacific Water Partnership E-newsletter

Source: SOPAC, 17 Oct 2008

Compendium of sanitation systems and technologies

Tilley, E. … [et al.] (2008). Compendium of sanitation systems and technologies. Dübendorf, Switzerland, Eawag/Sandec and Geneva, Switzerland, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). 158 p : ill. Includes references and glossary.
ISBN: 978-3-906484-44-0

Download: high resolution version [5.4 MB] | low resolution version [4.0 MB]
Hard copy version: US$ 30

This compendium provides helps identify and evaluate sanitation options in the context of the Household Centered Environmental Sanitation (HCES) planning approach. It sis aimed at engineers, planners and other professionals who are familiar with sanitation technologies and processes.

Part 1 describes different system configurations for a variety of contexts. Part 2 consists of 52 different Technology Information Sheets, which describe the main advantages, disadvantages, applications and the appropriateness of the technologies required to build a comprehensive sanitation system. Each Technology Information Sheet is complemented by a descriptive illustration.

See also: New compendium supports environmental sanitation, Source Bulletin, Aug 2008

UrbWatSan – Nepal

This web site provides news, features and publications on urban water and sanitation in Nepal. There is also a list of watsan agencies in Nepal and a small photo gallery.

At first glance UrbWatSan – Nepal appears to duplicate the efforts of NGO Forum Nepal web site in terms of news coverage.

UrbWatSan – Nepal is run by the NGO Guthi with support from UN-Habitat.

Water and peace for the people

Water and peace for the people : possible solutions to water disputes in the Middle East
Jon Martin Trondalen
Water and Conflict Resolution Series – UNESCO-IHP (New series)
Book, 246 pages, 16 maps, 7 tables, 23 figs, colour photographs, annexes, biblio., index
2008, ISBN 978-92-3-104086-3
Price: € 38.00
Order here

This book proposes practical and objective solutions to the entrenched water conflicts in the Middle East. The author reveals and clarifies the complexity of the water conflicts, drawing on years of experience facilitating and chairing water negotiations in the region.

The bottom line is: Unless the countries involved co-operate, the consequences will be devastating. The lack of plentiful and clean water for the people will not only result in severe human suffering, but could also have grave geopolitical consequences.

The book covers four critical areas:
- the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, where new documentation reveals alarming trends,
- the politically sensitive Golan Heights, with its water disputed by Israel and Syria,
- the Hasbani water dispute between Lebanon and Israel,
- the longstanding water resource dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.

A loo with a view: The world’s most scenic lavatories

We spend a large part of our lives in the smallest room, yet rarely do we give it a second thought. One man, however, has travelled the world in search of the most breathtaking lavatories.

[...]

Luke Barclay, author of Loo With a View, set off on a two-year global mission: to find bathrooms, dunnies, restrooms and outhouses of distinction to write home about. And not just toilets distinguished by innovative designs or a flash flush, what Barclay sought was a loo that offered more than just a facility, he wanted breathtaking atmosphere, a space in which to contemplate the world. On his journey, the intrepid Brit found 40 latrines that met his criteria: in the rice plantations in Bali, just off Interstate 15 in Las Vegas, and slap bang in the middle of a mini desert near Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, to name but a few.

Tengboche Monastery, Nepal, with a view of Mount Everest

[...]

Barclay’s introduction explains that he is not alone in his appreciation of the finer lavs in life. A number of other bog spotters exist [like wc international], and together they form “a small but enthusiastic global community – undivided by class, race or religion – united by a love of loos that have views”.

‘Loo with a View‘ (£7.99) by Luke Barclay is published by Virgin Books

Source: Charlotte Philby, The Independent, 18 Oct 2008 [includes a selection of pictures from the book]

A Guide to Advocacy for Integrity in the Water Sector

This advocacy guide published by the Water Integrity Network (WIN) is a guide to practical action for advocacy towards curbing corruption and it consists of a series of articles based on the project cycle of an advocacy plan.

Contents

• Introduction to the WIN advocacy guide
• Advocating for integrity in the water sector
• Forming coalitions
• How to start anti-corruption advocacy
• International agreements
• Linking to other anti-corruption work
• Water sector risk mapping
• Glossary

India Water Portal’s photostream on Flickr

India Water Portal, a website dedicated to water issues in India, has created a repository of photographs on Flickr.

There are currently nearly 50 photo sets in the repository on topics ranging from traditional water harvesting to rural sanitation.

The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste

George, R. (2008). The big necessity : adventures in the world of human waste. London, UK, Portobello Books and New York, NY, USA. 304 p.
ISBN: 978-1846270697 (UK)
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8271-5 USA)
Price: GBP 9.09 / US$ 26
UK orders / US orders

The Big Necessity – as one Mumbai toilet builder called the toilet – is the account of the travels of journalist Rose George through the profoundly intriguing but stupidly neglected world of the disposal of human waste, which houses characters like Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization; Wang Ming Ying, who is attempting to alleviate environmental devastation and deforestation in China by persuading rural Chinese to install biogas digesters, which produce cooking gas from human feces; Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, whose NGO Sulabh has built half a million toilets in India, as well as the world’s only museum of toilets; and the flushers of London and New York’s sewers, who scoff at roaches but hate rats nearly as much as they hate congealed cooking fat and tri-ply toilet paper.

Human “waste” – it needn’t be – is full of nutrients. It is a rich, valuable, inexhaustible material, as rich as the world of people who work with it. The Big Necessity is an overdue exploration of a hidden world and of the world’s biggest unsolved public health crisis. It is a cultural, colourful travelogue around a fact of life that is common to everyone, as necessary as breathing, and a source of endless fascination, if only we dare to look.

Read more

Groundwater Conditions in Sri Lanka – a Geomorphic Perspective

Panabokke, C.R. (2007). Groundwater conditions in Sri Lanka : a geomorphic perspective. Colombo, Sri Lanka, National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka. 150 p.

Price: unknown
Available from: National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka, info@nsf.ac.lk

This book of 12 Chapters [...] is a scholarly investigation into the groundwater conditions in Sri Lanka.

Having shown the main characteristics of groundwater- its occurrence, movement, replenishment, storage (in aquifers), quality and quantity in brief to begin with, leaving the detail treatment of each aspect for the subsequent chapters, the author has exhaustively surveyed past annuls of literature / investigations undertaken by Water Resources Board (WRB), National Water Supply & Drainage Board (NWS&DB), other organizations and individual scholars, numbering 327 in all, bringing the whole subject in to a right research focus for the WRB and other research bodies to emulate.

He has then proceeded to elaborate geomorphic settings, form and content of main aquifer types – karstic aquifers, deep aquifers, regolith aquifers, deep fracture-zone aquifers, shallow coastal sand dune aquifers, alluvial aquifers and lateritic aquifers (Chapters 3 – 9)

Groundwater conditions and its utilization in the hard rock regions of the wet zone, in relation to land forms, present levels of utilization and potential threats to it are amplified in Chapter 10. This is followed by an account of “Springs in Sri Lanka” (Chapter 11)

Chapter 12 – “An Approach Towards Sustainable Use of Groundwater”, deals with the subject in terms of general conditions, threats to quality, over exploiting available quantity, and most importantly, the problems and prospects of sustainable use of groundwater for the human well-being both directly and indirectly.

Read the rest of this review by M.U.A.Tennakoon here (Island Online, 04 Oct 2008)

Read other reviews by Dr. J. Handawela here (Sunday Times Online, 04 Jun 2008) and by Prof. Ananda Gunatilaka here (Daily News, 06 Feb 2008)

WASH Institute web site

In collaboration with WaterAid, Winrock International (India), WEDC, SIWI, IRC and SEI, Plan India is taking a lead role under the framework of the “WASH Institute”. It is aimed to organize both non-formal and formal courses on “Water and Environmental Sanitation” through partnership with NGOs/INGOs, Government training institutes and academic institutions. The WASH Institute aims to cater to the capacity building needs in India and the neighbouring countries in the region.

The web site is still largely “under construction” but does contain background information on the development of the institute.

Web site: http://www.washinstitute.net