Current Projects

Water Reuse from the project/EPA website

Understanding and Unlocking the Nationwide Potential for Water Reuse

The objective of this research is to identify drivers of and barriers to successful adoption and implementation of water reuse projects across the United States. The overarching research questions of our study are: (1) What factors such as organizational processes, regulations, social, regional, and geographical contextual factors contribute to acceptance, or the lack thereof, in the successful implementation of a water reuse project?; (2) How best can we understand, characterize, and navigate the landscape of opportunities for water reuse in the nation and provide utility managers, regulators and policymakers with tools and materials to advance water reuse in their communities?Read more »
Project Picture 1

Combinations of Factors Enabling WSP Capacity Development to Increase Access to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation Services

This study seeks to analyze data on water service providers (WSPs) in the Kasai Oriental Province, DRC to determine the combination of conditions such WSP capacities result in the different outcomes sought by the project.Read more »

Completed Projects

SWS Collective Action Approaches Research Program

One of the priority areas of focus for the USAID SWS learning partnership (see other project) is on collective action approaches for WASH service delivery. This research has defined a collective action approach as a process in which sector stakeholders regularly convene and take joint actions to address shared problems, in which: problems are complex, and their solutions require deliberation and action by many actors; members agree on a shared vision and shared problem definition; and stakeholders clarify responsibilities and hold each other accountable for actions. SWS will continue to learn about how collective action approaches work, when and why...Read more »

Sustainable WASH Systems (SWS) Learning Partnership

This research applied, researched, and learned about systems-based approaches to improving the sustainability of WASH services. SWS rigorously tested changes in system strength by using complexity aware monitoring techniques to track changes that resulted from partners' system change approaches.Read more »
System Dynamic Modeling

Rural Water Systems Dynamics Modeling

This study used graphical modeling, cross impact analysis with qualitative system dynamics modeling, and network analysis, to gain insight into the systemic interaction between the factors that influence sustainability of rural water services, and to assess stakeholder alignment.Read more »
Toilet

Transactive Knowledge Networks, Legitimacy, and Sanitation Sustainability in Resource-Limited Communities

The research identified important factors required for sustainable operation and maintenance via a Delphi panel and case studies. It then used msQCA to determine the necessary and sufficient factors (or combination of factors) that lead to successful or unsuccessful operation and maintenance.Read more »
Building of shared communal toilets in India

Sustainable Sanitation Systems: Understanding Priorities, Processes, and Pathways to Success

This research studies sanitation systems at the nexus of society and technology, seeking to (1) identify community and sanitation priorities, (2) determine to what extent existing resource recovery and non-resource recovery sanitation technologies can address these priorities; (3) analyze the combinations of factors that lead to successful and failed sanitation systems; and (4) evaluate the social, economic, and environmental impacts and overall relative sustainability of sanitation systems.Read more »

Decision-making and Practices in Rural Fecal Sludge Management

This research aims to describe the decision-making process of rural latrine owners and pit emptiers in low-income communities with the goal of understanding how to achieve safely managed rural sanitation.Read more »