Abstract
The pre-selection of locally appropriate sanitation technologies and systems is crucial for strategic sanitation planning as any decision is only as good as the options presented. One approach that allows us to systematically consider the local conditions and a diverse range of conventional and novel technologies and systems is the Santiago method. In this paper, we discuss whether the Santiago method can be applied to the case of Latin America and what we would gain from this application. We do so by expanding the Santiago technology library with technologies that have been shown to be promising in metropolitan areas of Latin America, such as condominial sewer, container-based sanitation, and activated sludge. We then apply Santiago to the semi-informal settlement Quebrada Verde (QV) in Lima, Peru. Using Santiago, we were able to generate 265,185 sanitation system options from 42 technologies and 18 appropriateness criteria. A set of 17 appropriate and divers are then selected. The diversity is defined by 17 system templates. To further evaluate these 17 systems, resource recovery and loss potentials are quantified. Higher nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and total solids recovery are observed for systems that combine urine diversion and biofuel production. The case of QV shows that the Santiago method is applicable in the Latin American context.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes a safe sanitation system as a system that separates excreta from human contact at all levels of the sanitation chain
We briefly present and discuss these results and discuss two technologies that were added to the Santiago library for this case: the condominial sewer and the activated sludge technology
The Santiago method was successfully applied to the case of the semi-informal settlement Quebrada Verde (QV) in the metropolitan area of Lima, Peru
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes a safe sanitation system as a system that separates excreta from human contact at all levels of the sanitation chain. The fact that conventional sewer systems are not the one-for-all solution in urban settings makes on-site systems a viable option to accommodate the need for urban sanitation provision in a special context, such as densely populated settlements [6] This condition has led to the development of novel options that are potentially more appropriate (independent from water, energy, and sewers) and less capital intensive and more sustainable in terms of resource protection through the possibility of recovering nutrients, energy, and water. Examples of such more innovations are condominial sewers [7] or container-based sanitation systems [8]
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