Designing for climate change: twenty-five design features to improve sanitation technology resilience in low- and middle- income countries

Abstract

Climate change is exacerbating events such as floods and droughts, and trends including sea-level rise, leading to failures in sanitation technologies, increased public health risks and environmental pollution. To reduce these risks, it is crucial to incorporate climate resilience into sanitation technology designs. In this study, we reviewed academic and selected grey literature and identified 25 design features that can contribute to the technology’s resilience to an increasingly volatile and extreme climate. Design features that were conceptually similar were collated into seven categories. These categories included: (i) avoid exposure to hazards, (ii) withstand exposure to hazards, (iii) enable flexibility, (iv) contain failures, (v) limit consequences of complete failure, (vi) facilitate fast recovery and (vii) features that provide resilience benefits beyond technological resilience. In this paper we define the categories and design features, and provide examples of each feature in practice. We also outline how the resilience design features can support sanitation designers and implementers to critique the climate resilience of sanitation technology, and prompt more resilient designs of sanitation technology.