CVEN 4969/5969: Water Security, Sanitation and Hygiene

Fall, Tu/Th 2:30-3:45pm, 3 credits

Also cross-listed as EVEN 4969.

Instructor: Rita Klees

Course Description

Worldwide, in 2025, about 1 in 4 (2 billion) people lack access to safe and readily available water at home. The global climate crisis exacerbates existing global water insecurity and heightens challenges in managing water resources. Equally alarming, almost half the global population (3.6 billion) lack access to improved sanitation and hygiene. In combination, unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)  practices cause over 1000 deaths of children under age five every day. Besides public health, the WASH sector interacts with, and impacts upon, the nutrition, education, environment, and economic growth of communities worldwide, and disproportionately. Gaps in WASH service delivery are found  in marginalized, rural, informal, immigrant and indigenous communities in low, middle and high income countries alike. At least 2 million Americans, for instance, live without running water or proper sanitation in their home. Besides the challenge of reaching those unserved by safe WASH practices, maintaining investments already made in  water and sanitation infrastructure and services has proven to be difficult.  Over the past 20 years, 30-40% of rural water systems in Sub-Saharan Africa have failed prematurely and more than half of all installed toilets are unused, misused or abandoned.

Against this backdrop, the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include Goal #6 to “Ensure access to water and sanitation for all by 2030.”  Acheiving SDG Goal #6  involves a complex and inter-related range of natural resources, infrastructure, services and human behaviors – all of which will be studied in this course. Fundamental concepts and best practices in WASH will be introduced.  We will examine current WASH conditions and trends  and take a critical look at the underlying political, economic, social, and technical causes. Using case studies, guest speakers, debates, readings and videos, we will  examine a broad range of WASH interventions and programming, focusing on evidence-based solutions.  

Course topics include the following:

Water Security & Service Delivery:

  • The global drinking water challenge
  • Health Impacts
  • Rural drinking water supply technologies and service delivery
  • Urban drinking water supply technologies and service delivery
  • Decentralized household water treatment and storage
  • Climate change and water security
  • Water, energy and food nexus
  • Water as a business

Sanitation & Hygiene

  • The Global Challenge of Sanitation & Hygiene/the SDGs & WASH
  • Health impacts of inadequate sanitation & hygiene
  • Urban sanitation technologies/issues/challenges
  • Rural sanitation technologies/issues/challenges
  • Sanitation as a business
  • Fecal sludge management
  • Hygiene and Handwashing
  • Behavior change and WASH
  • Menstrual Hygiene Management

Overarching Issues in WASH 

  • Water security and transboundary shared water resources
  • Social justice, decolonization, & WASH
  • Emerging Technologies for Resilient WASH
  • Reaching the unserved and the vulnerable
  • Monitoring and Evaluation
  • Gender and WASH
  • The Enabling Environment for WASH: National policies, plans, institutions
  • Financing WASH
  • Humanitarian WASH
  • Non-Household WASH

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the course the students will be able to identify:

  • the nature and scope of the WASH challenge
  • key elements of water security
  • the social, economic, institutional, and environmental benefits and challenges of providing access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation
  • WASH technical options for a variety of settings
  • Sustainable WASH service delivery approaches
  • vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations and ways to reach them
  • the role of hygiene and behavioral change in the WASH sector
  • innovative approaches to improved WASH particularly in light of future challenges such as global pandemics, water scarcity, conflict, climate change, and urbanization
  • emerging issues and research needs 

Prerequisites

This course is open to graduate and  undergraduate (junior and senior level – with permission of the instructor) students in all disciplines.