Browsing by Author "Willcock, Simon"

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    Comparative sanitation data from high-frequency phone surveys across 3 countries
    (Elsevier, 2024-06-26) Lewis, Amy R.; Bell, Andrew R.; Casas, Ana; Kupiec-Teahan, Beata; Mendoza Sanchez, José; Willcock, Simon; Anciano, Fiona; Barrington, Dani J.; Dube, Mmeli; Hutchings, Paul; Karani, Caroline; Llaxacondor, Arturo; López, Hellen; Mdee, Anna L.; Ofori, Alesia D.; Riungu, Joy N.; Russel, Kory C.; Parker, Alison H.
    With less than half of the worldʼs urban population having safely managed sanitation due to the high cost and difficulty of building sewers and treatment plants, many rely on off-grid options like pit latrines and septic tanks, which are hard to empty and often lead to illegal waste dumping; this research focuses on container-based sanitation (CBS) as an emerging off-grid solution. Off-grid sanitation refers to waste management systems that operate independently of centralized infrastructure and CBS is a service providing toilets that collect human waste in sealable containers, which are regularly emptied and safely disposed of. These data relate to a project investigating CBS in Kenya, Peru, and South Africa, focusing on how different user groups access and utilize sanitation – contrasting CBS with other types. Participants, acting as citizen scientists, collected confidential data through a dedicated smartphone app designed by the authors and external contractors. This project aimed to explore the effective scaling, management, and regulation of off-grid sanitation systems, relevant to academics in urban planning, water and sanitation services, institutional capability, policy and governance, and those addressing inequality and poverty reduction. The 12-month data collection period offered participants small incentives for weekly engagement, in a micro payment for micro tasks approach. Participants were randomly selected, attended a training workshop, and (where needed) were given a smartphone which they could keep at the end of the project. We conducted weekly smartphone surveys in over 300 households across informal settlements. These surveys aimed to understand human-environment interactions by capturing daily life, wellbeing, income, infrastructural service use, and socioeconomic variables at a weekly resolution, contributing to more informed analyses and decision-making. The smartphone-based approach offers efficient, cost-effective, and flexible data collection, enabling extensive geographical coverage, broad subject areas, and frequent engagement. The Open Data Kit (ODK) tools were used to support data collection in the resource-constrained environment with limited or intermittent connectivity.
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    Evaluating the circular economy for sanitation: findings from a multi-case approach
    (Elsevier, 2020-07-15) Mallory, Adrian; Akrofi, Daniel; Dizon, Jenica; Mohanty, Sourav; Parker, Alison; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Prasad, Sharada S.; Welvita, Indunee; Brewer, Timothy R.; Mekala, Sneha; Bundhoo, Dilshaad; Lynch, Kenny; Mishra, Prajna; Willcock, Simon; Hutchings, Paul
    Addressing the lack of sanitation globally is a major global challenge with 700 million people still practicing open defecation. Circular Economy (CE) in the context of sanitation focuses on the whole sanitation chain which includes the provision of toilets, the collection of waste, treatment and transformation into sanitation-derived products including fertiliser, fuel and clean water. After a qualitative study from five case studies across India, covering different treatment technologies, waste-derived products, markets and contexts; this research identifies the main barriers and enablers for circular sanitation business models to succeed. A framework assessing the technical and social system changes required to enable circular sanitation models was derived from the case studies. Some of these changes can be achieved with increased enforcement, policies and subsidies for fertilisers, and integration of sanitation with other waste streams to increase its viability. Major changes such as the cultural norms around re-use, demographic shifts and soil depletion would be outside the scope of a single project, policy or planning initiative. The move to CE sanitation may still be desirable from a policy perspective but we argue that shifting to CE models should not be seen as a panacea that can solve the global sanitation crisis. Delivering the public good of safe sanitation services for all, whether circular or not, will continue to be a difficult task
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    Evidence of similarities in ecosystem service flow across the rural–urban spectrum
    (MDPI, 2021-04-17) Welivita, Indunee; Willcock, Simon; Lewis, Amy; Bundhoo, Dilshaad; Brewer, Timothy R.; Cooper, Sarah; Lynch, Kenneth; Mekala, Sneha; Mishra, Prajna Paramita; Venkatesh, Kongala; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Hutchings, Paul
    In 2006, the world’s population passed the threshold of being equally split between rural and urban areas. Since this point, urbanisation has continued, and the majority of the global population are now urban inhabitants. With this ongoing change, it is likely that the way people receive benefits from nature (ecosystem services; ES) has also evolved. Environmental theory suggests that rural residents depend directly on their local environment (conceptualised as green-loop systems), whereas urban residents have relatively indirect relationships with distant ecosystems (conceptualised as red-loop systems). Here, we evaluate this theory using survey data from >3000 households in and around Hyderabad, India. Controlling for other confounding socioeconomic variables, we investigate how flows of 10 ES vary across rural, peri-urban and urban areas. For most of the ES we investigated, we found no statistical differences in the levels of direct or indirect use of an ecosystem, the distance to the ecosystem, nor the quantities of ES used between rural and urban residents (p > 0.05). However, our results do show that urban people themselves often travel shorter distances than rural people to access most ES, likely because improved infrastructure in urban areas allows for the transport of ES from wider ecosystems to the locality of the beneficiaries’ place of residence. Thus, while we find some evidence to support red-loop–green-loop theory, we conclude that ES flows across the rural-urban spectrum may show more similarities than might be expected. As such, the impact of future urbanisation on ES flows may be limited, because many flows in both rural and urban areas have already undergone globalisation
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    Measuring, modeling and mapping ecosystem services in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania
    (V.H. Winston & Son, Inc., 2011-10-31T00:00:00Z) Fisher, Brendan; Turner, R. Kerry; Burgess, Neil D.; Swetnam, Ruth D.; Green, Jonathan; Green, Rhys; Kajembe, George; Kulindwa, Kassim; Lewis, Simon L.; Marchant, Rob; Marshall, Andrew R.; Madoffe, Seif; Munishi, P. K. T.; Morse-Jones, Sian; Mwakalila, Shadrack; Paavola, Jouni; Naidoo, Robin; Ricketts, Taylor; Rouget, Rouget; Willcock, Simon; White, Sue; Balmford, Andrew
    In light of the significance that ecosystem service research is likely to play in linking conservation activities and human welfare, systematic approaches to measuring, modeling and mapping ecosystem services (and their value to society) are sorely needed. In this paper we outline one such approach, which we developed in order to understand the links between the functioning of the ecosystems of Tanzania's Eastern Arc Mountains and their impact on human welfare at local, regional and global scales. The essence of our approach is the creation of a series of maps created using field-based or remotely sourced data, data-driven models, and socio-economic scenarios coupled with rule-based assumptions. Here we describe the construction of this spatial information and how it can help to shed light on the complex relationships between ecological and social systems. There are obvious difficulties in operationalizing this approach, but by highlighting those which we have encountered in our own case-study work, we have also been able to suggest some routes to overcoming these impediments
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    Nature provides valuable sanitation services
    (Elsevier, 2021-02-19) Willcock, Simon; Parker, Alison; Wilson, Charlotte; Brewer, Timothy R.; Bundhoo, Dilshaad; Cooper, Sarah; Lynch, Kenneth; Mekala, Sneha; Mishra, Prajna Paramita; Rey, Dolores; Welivita, Indunee; Venkatesh, Kongala; Hutchings, Paul
    Much previous research shows that safe disposal of human waste has a positive impact on human wellbeing, while preventing the degradation of ecosystems. However, to date, the role that ecosystems themselves play in treating human waste has been largely neglected. We conceptualize the role nature plays in treating human waste—acting as a pipeline and/or treatment plant. We estimate that nature is treating ~41.7 million tons of human waste per year worldwide, a service worth at least 4.4 ± 3.0 billion USD year−1. We demonstrate the opportunities and challenges of quantifying these “sanitation ecosystem services,” using 48 cities across the globe as a worked example. In highlighting this, we are not marginalizing the vital role of engineered infrastructure, but instead are promoting better understanding of how engineered and natural infrastructure interact within a circular economy. This is a promising route for further research and may allow adaptive design and management, reducing costs, and improving effectiveness and sustainability.
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    Understanding rural-urban transitions in the Global South through peri-urban turbulence
    (Springer, 2022-08-04) Hutchings, Paul; Willcock, Simon; Lynch, Kenneth; Bundhoo, Dilshaad; Brewer, Timothy R.; Cooper, Sarah; Keech, Daniel; Mekala, Sneha; Mishra, Prajna Paramita; Parker, Alison; Shackleton, Charlie M.; Venkatesh, Kongala; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Welivita, Indunee
    Much previous research has problematized the use of a binary urban–rural distinction to describe human settlement patterns in and around cities. Peri-urban zones, on the edge of urban settlements, are important both in the sheer magnitude of human population and in terms of being home to vulnerable populations with high rates of poverty. This Perspective presents a framework that conceptualizes rural–urban transition through the prism of shifts in natural, engineered and institutional infrastructure to explain the processes of rapid change and the dip in service provision often found in peri-urban areas in the Global South. We draw on examples related to the provision of water and sanitation to illustrate the theory and discuss its implications for future research on the peri-urban. A research agenda is set out that emphasizes the importance of studying early warning signs of service dips using systems theory concepts such as flickering and critical slowing down. Through such approaches, research can better predict and explain what we call peri-urban turbulence and inform the development of mitigation strategies to reduce the vulnerabilities that peri-urban residents too often face during periods of rural–urban transition.