Planning & Design of Sanitation Systems and Technologies

Introduction to sanitation planning & systems approach

To get started, you will get an overview of why sanitation is important for human health and environmental protection, especially in urban areas. Then, you will learn about what an Enabling Environment is and why it is important. Towards the end of the first week, you will get a taste of some state-of-the-art environmental sanitation planning approaches (Sanitation 21, CLUES, CLTS) that are currently being used in international development work.

Sanitation systems & technologies

After getting to know different sanitation planning frameworks in the first part of this week, you will learn about the key terminology and concepts used in the systems approach to environmental sanitation. We will also explore why systems thinking is crucial for urban environmental sanitation.

Sanitation systems & technologies

During week 3, you will dive more deeply into the technical aspects of different sanitation systems, from the simple single pit system to more complex centralised treatment systems. We introduce you to the main treatment processes in detail, highlighting advantages and disadvantages of each.

Urban sanitation solutions - Case studies

In this week, you will see much of the theory of the last weeks be put to the test. Here, we present you with case studies from Africa and Asia in which different sanitation solutions from neighbourhood to national scale are trialled or already fully established. Do you already feel familiar with all of them? Watch this week’s video collection to find out!

Urban sanitation tools

In this last week of the course, we focus on the urban realm. You will become familiar with various urban sanitation tools, such as excreta flow diagrams (SFD’s) and sanitation safety planning, and with overarching themes of urban sanitation, such as the role of gender in sanitation planning, and behaviour change in urban sanitation.