Research Abstracts

With over 1 billion people without access to clean water and over 1.4 billion people without access to modern energy services [Alliance for Rural Electrification Web Site, April 2008; www.ruralelec.org], renewable energy (RE) technologies can play an important role in meeting the needs of these peop

Lake Victoria basin has a large rural and rapidly growing peri-urban population that lacks sustainable solutions to safe and adequate water supply, energy and sanitation. Access to safe water and sanitation was 60% and 53%, respectively, by 2006. An Integrated Water, Energy and Sanitation Solution (

Currently, only 41% of Cambodians have access to safe drinking water. To combat this issue, Resource Development International Cambodia (RDIC) has been promoting and developing affordable clay pot water filters to be sold across the country. Although the filters have excellent bacterial removal capa

The water quality from open hand-dug wells in Mtopwa village in Blantyre was assessed over a period of four months. The research entailed conduction of experiments using recommended methods to analyse selected water quality parameters. Interviews were also conducted with the Blantyre City Assembly (

In sub-Saharan Africa 85% of those without access to safe water live in rural areas where the consequent poverty and ill health disproportionately affect women and children. The widespread development of groundwater is the most affordable and sustainable way of improving access to secure water for t

In light of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, a multivariate linear model was built to estimate the percent of each countries’ population having reasonable access to clean drinking water. The statistical program ARC [1] was used to determine which adequately transformed variables were

Africa is not only suffering from water shortage but also from data shortage. The continent cannot fall back on a cross-country hydro-meteorological measuring net. Development cooperation organizations as planners often have the problem that no, or insufficient, hydro-meteorological data is availabl

Arsenic is a serious problem in groundwater in Bangladesh, West Bengal, and other regions, with up to 100 million people worldwide estimated to be at risk. Long term consumption leads to arsenicosis, skin lesions and cancers. There is a clear need for cheap, simple, non-toxic field test kits for rou

This paper examines some of the challenges related to international development, delivery of the UN Millennium Development Goals and the provision of effective infrastructure, in particular with respect to safe water supplies and sanitation.

Over one billion people are without access to safe water, while twice as many lack access to improved sanitation services, making these two of the world’s most pressing issues. The sustainability of critical infrastructure systems, such as water and sanitation, is a necessary (though not sufficient)