Sustainable Sanitation as a Part of an IWRM in the Karst Area of Gunung Kidul: Community Acceptance and Opinion

Abstract

To overcome the problem of water scarcity in a rural karst area located in Gunung Sewu, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, water from an underground cave (Bribin Cave) is pumped and distributed to the people. Since karst aquifers are often considered as highly vulnerable to contamination from human activities, potential problems caused by current sanitation and hygiene practices in the recharge region must be anticipated. About 90% of the people in the recharge area use pour flush syphon toilets with poorly designed septic tanks and the rest have simple pit latrines. However, the existing septic tanks are very poorly designed and are actually only improved infiltration pits. One possible option to reduce the risk of aquifer contamination is to promote sustainable sanitation, which combines hygienic aspects with recycling of nutrients from human feces and urine. Sustainable sanitation comprises different technologies including low cost technology, which can be afforded by the community and provide economic benefit to the low income inhabitants in Gunung Sewu. The technology proposed is urine diverting and composting toilets. This paper presents the existing condition of rural domestic wastewater treatment and the opinion/ acceptance of the community in karst area of Gunung Sewu towards urine diverting and composting toilets. The results of the survey shows that although the acceptance of using the composting toilet is not high (25% to 43%), the interest of the community in using the end product is relatively high. While the acceptance of composting fertilizer from feces (humanure) ranges from 37% to 57%, urine fertilizer attracts 42%-71% respondents' interest.