Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Index: Development and Application to Measure WASH Service Levels in European Humanitarian Camps

Abstract

The Humanitarian Agents (HAs), are among the first entities dealing with the impacts of natural and man-made disasters. This is more than essential in areas, where the National governments and associated economies are either overwhelmed to respond or unprepared to act. Under such pressing conditions, the agents, as any other similar entity, depend on a variety of monitoring and assessment tools in order to reach the most suitable decisions per case. These tools are mostly employed for the scope definition and the content of their responses, the communication of the information among the various agents, and the reporting to their donors and other beneficiaries. To this end, several field tools have been developed worldwide. Building on such a background, the present effort describes a new tool and it argues towards the development and implementation of a WASH related Composite Index. The purpose of the Index is to facilitate the WASH related assessments in refugee camps, by capturing and reflecting the actual WASH conditions and provide the necessary information for efficient program planning and implementation. Starting with Europe and specifically the humanitarian camps in Greece, the development of the Index may allow its worldwide application, while adhering to the necessary and essential standards that govern the work of all HAs operating in the sector.

Development and Application of Water and Land Resources Degradation Index (WLDI)

“…The classification of the produced sub-indices' simulations scores as well as the score of the WLDI to seven (7) classes (Table 4), was developed through Fisher's Linear Discriminant Analysis, which is a classical method for jointly classification and dimension reduction [68]. The segmentation in seven degradation classes followed the logic of similar indices development in the pertinent literature [22,62,64,[74][75][76][77]. The results of sensitivity analyses depict that the indicators Aridity, Rainfall, Drought Impacts, and Water Demand are the "key players" of the WDLI.…”

“…Earth 2021, 2, FOR PEER REVIEW 13 and dimension reduction [68]. The segmentation in seven degradation classes followed the logic of similar indices development in the pertinent literature [22,62,64,[74][75][76][77].…”

Evaluating the Degradation of Natural Resources in the Mediterranean Environment Using the Water and Land Resources Degradation Index, the Case of Crete Island

“…The indicators are mostly derived from the appropriate selection of processes and of corresponding appropriate data. They are used to simplify, quantify and express information on complex phenomena, thus facilitating communication and decision-making [12,13,[47][48][49][50]. The value of such tools increases when, due mostly to lack of direct measurable information, indicators may be the only means to provide the required relevant information [51].…”

“…The assessment of ecosystem services is an example of such use [44,48,49]. In other words, the indicators play the role of a communication channel between the parts of a complex reality and the policymakers [44,49,50]. There are two main categories of indicators, (i) simple ones, using individual variables that describe specific dimensions of the phenomenon or system under study and provide limited information and (ii) composite indicators, created by groups of simple indicators so as to synergistically describe complex systems or phenomena [2,49,[52][53][54].…”

Reaching those left behind: knowledge gaps, challenges, and approaches to achieving SDG 6 in high-income countries

“…American Indian, Alaskan Native, Black, and Hispanic households are more likely to lack indoor plumbing (Deitz & Meehan 2019;Meehan & Jurjevich 2020). Even where piped water supplies and basic sanitation do exist, problems of poor water quality, inadequate quantity, and unsafe waste management are often found among low-income, historically marginalized, and minority populations, as documented among Indigenous Canadians living on reserves (Anthonj et al 2019); remote Indigenous communities in Australia (Hall 2019;Hall et al 2020); Tribal Nations (Eggers et al 2018) and Alaska Native communities in the U.S. (Mattos et al 2020); itinerant and sedentary Roma communities across Europe belonging to diverse groups including Sinti, Travellers, Kalé, and Gens du voyage (Van Hout & Staniewicz 2012;Davis & Ryan 2016;Anthonj et al 2020); displaced persons (Araya et al 2019), migrant communities (Semenza et al 2016), and refugee camps (Dhesi et al 2018;Tsesmelis et al 2020) in Europe; rural and peri-urban Black communities in the southern U.S. (Stillo & Gibson 2016;Flowers et al 2019); Hispanic communities along the U.S.-Mexico border (Rowles et al 2020) and in California's San Joaquin Valley (Balazs et al 2011); and people experiencing homelessness (Capone et al 2018;Frye et al 2019).…”