Status of household water treatment and safe storage in 45 countries and a case study in Northern India

Abstract

This thesis examines the present of the status of HWTS technologies across the world, and in one location Lucknow, India. The data for the global status of HWTS was collected by contacting the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) groups of 45 UNICEF country offices. The second aspect of this study analyzes the user perceptions and behaviors relative to HWTS and quality of water at the point of consumption, post HWTS treatment in the field. This was executed by conducting 240 sanitary surveys and 276 water quality tests in Lucknow, India. The results of the study reveal that there is a lack of technical expertise in understanding and implementing these systems in the 45 UNICEF countries contacted and in the author's field site in Lucknow, India. Moreover, it was observed in India that safe storage was not being promoted properly by the NGO the author worked with. It was also observed that HWTS technologies are still relatively expensive because of which they are beyond the reach of the poor. Moreover, lack of education amongst the masses makes scale-up more challenging. However, going by the interest shown by both the UNICEF country offices and the respondents in Lucknow, it is only a matter of time and concerted effort, before we start to see substantial scale-up of HWTS.