Tools
This document is a field guide for practitioners and researchers (Spanish version) to assess the climate resilience of drinking water supplies using the How Tough is WASH framework. It provides guidance on collecting data using a mixed-methods approach to score each of the six indicators in the framework. While we suggest a range of tools to support assessments, teams are encouraged to rely on their judgement and local knowledge to assess resilience.
Publications
Climate Resilient WASH
- Infiltrated pits: using regional groundwater data to estimate methane emissions from pit latrines (Hydrology)
- Field-based methods for measuring greenhouse gases emissions from on-site sanitation systems: A systematic review of published literature. (Heliyon)
- Assessing the Climate Resilience of Community-Managed Water Supplies in Ethiopia and Nepal
- Applying a WASH Risk Assessment Tool in a Rural South African Setting to Identify Risks and Opportunities for Climate Resilient Communities
- Infrastructure alone cannot ensure resilience to weather events in drinking water supplies – ScienceDirect
- Associations between climate variables and water quality in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review – ScienceDirect
- The How Tough is WASH framework for assessing the climate resilience of water and sanitation
- Towards climate resilience and environmentally sustainable health care facilities
- Climate change and water and sanitation: Likely Impacts and Emerging Trends for Action
- Urban and rural sanitation in the Solomon Islands: How resilient are these to extreme weather events?
- Deliberating the potential for atmospheric water harvesting to accelerate household access to safe water
- The resilience of water supply and sanitation in the face of climate change Technical report
- Securing 2020 vision for 2030: climate change and ensuring resilience in water and sanitation services
- WASH and climate resilience metrics (presentation to the WASH-Climate-Health Alliance, November 2020) ( downloads as powerpoint)
- Delivering safe sanitation for all: areas for action to improve the situation in the pan-European region
- Equity in Global North–South research partnerships: interrogating UK funding models. Global Social Challenges Journal
Securing Public Health Benefits
Our work on securing public health benefits includes research to understand how safety of services can be improved. We are working on a project to understand how to increase uptake of water safety plans in the Western Pacific region and on the ongoing Lancet Commission on WASH. We have also worked with the South African Medical Research Council to look at climate factors influencing hospitalisations from pneumonia. Under our How tough is WASH? project we aim to undertake some further health risk modelling. Papers on these issues include:
- Geospatial mapping and multivariate statistical analysis for assessing groundwater quality in west El Minia District, Egypt. (Water)
- Environmental hygiene in outdoor food markets in Africa: a scoping review | Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development | IWA Publishing (iwaponline.com)
- Domestic Water Quantity, Accessibility and Health
- COVID-19: Urgent actions, critical reflections and future relevance of “WaSH”: Lessons for the current and future pandemics
- Estimating infection risks and the global burden of diarrheal disease attributable to intermittent water supply using QMRA.
- Carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risk assessment of heavy metals contamination in groundwater in the west of Minia area, Egypt, Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal
Access to services
Our work on increasing access to services includes understanding how the mix of on-grid and off-grid services can be optimised to support improving access and quality of services. Our work on climate change and on securing health benefits are contributing to thinking about how we can ensure services can be improved and made more accessible for poor people. Papers on these issues include:
- Access to and factors influencing drinking water and sanitation service levels in informal settlements: Evidence from Kampala, Uganda. Habitat International
- Evaluation of water safety plan implementation at provincial water utilities in Vietnam | Journal of Water and Health | IWA Publishing (iwaponline.com)
- Lagged association between climate variables and hospital admissions for pneumonia admissions in South Africa
- How we assess water safety: A critical review of sanitary inspection and water quality analysis
- Does payment by results work? Lessons from the a multi-country WASH programme.
- Water and sanitation service levels in urban informal settlements: a case study of Portee-Rokupa in Freetown, Sierra Leone Beyond the Network City