Community Water Supply Management
Course Summary:

Although much progress has been made over the last three decades, still more than one billion people lack access to a safe, reliable and affordable water supply, and more than twice that number still lack access to basic sanitation. This course provides the essential skills and knowledge required to plan and implement, with communities, water supply and sanitation projects and programmes worldwide, particularly in less developed countries.

Course Objectives:

  • design and implement appropriate and sustainable solutions to water supply and sanitation for small, rural communities in particular in developing countries, with due regard to the technical, social and institutional constraints imposed by the surrounding environment
  • assess water supply and sanitation needs for communities in villages and refugee camps
  • plan and implement water source evaluation and development programmes, including low-cost well drilling
  • facilitate community participation and management projects and programmes
  • design, cost and implement small sustainable water distribution, storage and treatment systems
  • evaluate the health impacts of community water supply and sanitation systems.

Course Outline

Communities and Development

  • Introduction to community-level development
  • Behaviour change, inclusion and equity
  • Water, sanitation and hygiene in communal / public spaces
  • Community management: strengths and weaknesses thereof
  • The project cycle
  • Stakeholder analysis; Logical frames
  • Quantitative and qualitative data collection.

Emergency Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation

  • Nature & type of emergencies (natural and man-made disasters, rapid- and slow-onset, complex emergencies)
  • Phases of emergency 
  • Public health in emergencies
  • Water treatment in above contexts e.g. camp scale, household water treatment
  • Excreta disposal mainly refugee camp situation (acute versus post-acute phases)
  • Solid waste management hazardous materials e.g. hospital waste
  • Environmental sanitation solid waste, vector control, hygiene education/promotion
  • Disaster management: refugee camp logistics, coordination with other sectors
  • Data collection & analysis rapid and comprehensive assessments
  • Public information needs e.g. health risks, water disinfection, location of emergency centres etc.

Health, Sanitation and Wastewater Treatment

  • Health: classification of water- and excreta-related disease; relationship between water, sanitation and related disease; risk behaviours in relation to water-and excreta-related disease; hygiene evaluation and promotion latrines, composting latrines, septic tanks, soakage systems, ecological sanitation
  • Urban sanitation: Conventional and low-cost sewerage, faecal sludge management.
  • Wastewater treatment basics, low energy systems, reuse.

Managing and Financing World Water and Wastewater

  • Institutional models for urban water supply and sanitation including the role of utilities
  • Public Operator Partnerships and Public Private Partnerships
  • Economic value of water and cost-reflective pricing
  • Commercial, fixed asset accounting
  • Analysis of Financial Statements
  • Tariff principles, increasing block tariffs and lifeline tariffs
  • Average historical cost accounting and long run marginal costing
  • Demand responsiveness: Ability to pay and Willingness to pay
  • Pricing and service differentiation for the poor
  • Sources of finance for a long-term asset based industry
  • Decision-making for financial management: The Waterman Simulation.

Research Processes

  • Knowledge, truth and certainty
  • The nature and purpose of research
  • How and why research gets funded; key drivers and trends
  • Planning a research project
  • Collecting and analysing data.

Surface and Groundwater Hydrology

  • The hydrological cycle and the influence of man
  • Basics of hydraulics
  • Precipitation, measurement of precipitation amount and intensity, spatial analysis. Interception and depression storage.
  • Runoff measurement; velocity area methods. Structures; hydraulic principles of weirs & flumes. Stage measurement.

Water Quality Monitoring

  • Water quality issues: acceptability for human consumption, agricultural use, ecology. Water quality standards
  • Monitoring fundamentals and approaches
  • Water quality sampling & analysis: practicals / demonstration of selected, basic measurements/methods.

Water Source Engineering

  • Wells and boreholes
  • Gravity and pumped pipe systems for water conveyance
  • Handpumps
  • Surface water storage with earth dams
  • Water treatment principles and challenges.

Advanced technologies for water supply and sanitation

  • Current and future treatment challenges for water supply and sanitation
  • Advanced biological processes for water supply and sanitation  
  • Advanced physical processes for water supply and sanitation
  • Advanced chemical processes for water supply and sanitation
  • Challenges associated with developing and implementing advanced technologies for water supply and sanitation
  • Tools and methodologies for selecting and sizing advanced treatment technologies.
     

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