Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development

Water Safety Management

748 Million people do not yet have access to an improved water source, about 1.8 Billion people use a source of water that is unsafe and large disparities in access to water exist between rural and urban areas and different regions. Sandec’s research on safe water promotion is analyzing the water challenges to develop and evaluate appropriate solutions to strengthening access to and enhance the consumption of safe drinking water in vulnerable households in low income countries.

Our research focus:

  • Laboratory and field-level performance evaluation of innovative methods for drinking water treatment and safe storage in low-income areas
  • Assessment of effective and sustainable safe water interventions, strategies and programs
  • Impact evaluations of improved access to safe drinking water
  • Assessment of water management and climate resilience of WASH

Contact

Regula Meierhofer Group Leader Water Safety Management Tel. +41 58 765 5073 Send Mail

Ongoing Projects

SWP assesses recontamination risks in treated water and evaluates strategies to prevent it: safe storage options, UV-C disinfection in storage containers and passive system-level chlorination.

Strategies to reduce the recontamination of water
In this project we are assessing the performance of different GDM configurations and implementation models for drinking water treatment at household or community level.

Gravity Driven Membrane Filtration (GDM)
Visual narratives for more inclusive and integrated urban water management

Urban Water Flow Diagram

Completed Projects

The project evaluates the impact of hygiene promotion, household water treatment or scheme level chlorination on water quality and child health

WASH and child health during Covid-19 in Nepal
This project aims at quantifying the health burden women in Nepal are facing by carrying water from the community sources to their homes

Health impact of carrying water
SODIS is a simple, low-cost method for the disinfection of drinking water. Microbiologically contaminated water is filled into transparent PET-bottles and exposed to the sunlight for 6 hours.

Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS)
This project assessed challenges for production and marketing of ceramic water filters in Nepal and carried out marketing trials for ceramic water filters in Kenya and Bolivia.

Marketing Ceramic Water Filters

Team

Regula Meierhofer Group Leader Water Safety Management Tel. +41 58 765 5073 Send Mail
Loïc Fache Project Officer - Water Safety Management Tel. +41 58 765 5583 Send Mail

External Team Members

Dr. Akina Shrestha
Lecturer & researcher
Kathmandu University
School of Medical Science
akinakoju@kusms.edu.np