Public health risk assessment tool: strategy to improve public policy framework for onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS)

Abstract

Public health risk assessment of onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS) in the city of Port Harcourt, Nigeria and its environs was carried out between the period of August 2012 and April 2013. The objective of the study was to show how the public health risk assessment tool can be used to improve public policies on OWTS. The study involved desk study reviews of the related literature on OWTS, an audit survey of 245 OWTS in the residential area of the city, a public policy survey of OWTS in Port Harcourt city, a public health risk assessment, field observations and investigations. The results revealed that there were no specific policies, legislative and regulatory standards for sustainability of OWTS practice and no risk assessment considerations in the current policy instruments. In general terms, the public policy instruments of OWTS were found to be inadequate for improved and standard system construction, installation, operations and maintenance, compliance, enforcement and inspection. The outcome of the risk map showed widespread and dispersed risk in the use of OWTS.

Social-ecological system

“…Governance is the structure and process that society uses to make decisions and share power. It is also the interaction of laws, norms, institutions and processes through which society exercises powers and responsibilities to make and implement decisions and ensure accountability, as well as set the rules under which management operates (Cookey et al, 2016;Folke et al, 2005;Moench et al, 2003;Moore & Unsworth, 2006;Pahl-Wostl, 2009;Pahl-Wostl et al, 2012;Rogers & Hall, 2003;Tropp, 2007). Balancing competing interests about who is entitled to what services, how services are provided, who pays and how competing interests are balanced, as well as decisions about how to recover resources and reuse from sanitation, are governance responsibilities (Moriarty et al, 2007).…”

Regenerative sanitation foundations

“…Other drawbacks are the inability of laws to support more adaptive and flexible frameworks for improved sanitation service delivery (Clarvis et al, 2014; Figure 2.5 Application of the principle of biomimicry and biophilia in flower and butterfly constructed wastewater treatment wetland system design (Source: Koottatep et al, 2007;Polprasert & Koottatep, 2017). Cookey et al, 2015Cookey et al, , 2016a. The key factors for the achievement of FPG for the 'place' and 'scale' are presented in Box 2.7.…”

Sanitation 4.0

“…Urban sanitation facilities in most developing countries are characterized by unimproved services and limited access to 'safely managed' infrastructure. These facilities are usually poorly operated and maintained, which causes very high abandonment rates due to failure and non-standard procedures for proper faecal sludge management, thus increasing risks to public health and environmental quality (Cookey, 2013, Cookey et al, 2016aCSIR, 2007;Kaminsky & Javernick, 2015;Rodgers et al, 2007;WSP, 2007) (see Section 5.2.4). Meanwhile, urban sanitation in developed countries is challenged with ageing sewered infrastructure dating back more than 100 years (when brick sewers were common) and now deterioration in performance occurs as blockages and leakages lead to infiltration and exfiltration, resulting in poor service delivery) (Ahmadi et al, 2015;Andersson et al, 2016;Ashley & Hopkinson, 2002;Brown & Caldwell, 1984;Corcoran et al, 2010;Diagne, 2013;El-Sheikh, 2011;Fenner & Saward, 2004;Kemp, 2000;Miszta-Kruk, 2016;Reynolds & Barrett, 2003;Qasem et al 2009;USEPA, 1991) (see Section 5.2.5).…”