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A review of sustainable sanitation systems in Africa

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Abstract

Access to proper sanitation is still elusive in many parts of Africa. While significant improvement in global sanitation has been realised, the sanitation situation in Africa is still appalling with almost 20 % of the population reported to still practice open defecation in Sub Saharan Africa. The impacts of poor sanitation systems range from negatively impacting natural resources water quality, to causing health risks to the populations involved. Obviously, the current sanitation systems have gaps and can barely help the situation, which points to the necessity of a paradigm shift in the wastewater management to include interventions that would make proper sanitation achievable for all. Such interventions include decentralisation and resource recovery, which will not only produce environmentally acceptable effluents, but are also pertinent in achieving decreased costs for sanitation systems, hence making them more affordable. The decentralised system is cheaper than the centralised system, mainly due to decreased sewer needs and combining it with resource recovery. This provides an opportunity of decreasing costs further due to the several economic benefits attached to the recovered products. Whereas sanitation involves both wastewater and solid waste, this review paper discusses the current sanitation situation in Africa and proposes a wastewater management plan that could contribute to improvement for small agricultural communities. The plan encourages zero waste generation through decentralisation and recovery of water, energy and by-products such as nutrients and organics relevant to the local community. Apart from the proposed technological strategies, a winning sanitation management plan should also be appreciated and supported by all stakeholders, which can be achieved through proper communication and integration of local user needs.

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Source: WHO and UNICEF (2015)

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support from VLIR-OUS, the Belgian scholarship body and National Water and Sewerage Corporation for further support in Uganda. Willy Verstraete and Korneel Rabaey acknowledge support from the Ghent University Multidisciplinary Research Partnership (MRP) “Biotechnology for a Sustainable Economy” (01 MRA 510W). Korneel Rabaey also acknowledges support from FWO via the FWO-MOST scheme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LabMET, Faculty of Biosciences Engineering, University of Ghent, Coupure Links 653, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Irene Nansubuga, Willy Verstraete & Korneel Rabaey

  2. Department of Agricultural and Bio-Systems Engineering, Makerere University, P.O. 7062, Kampala, Uganda

    Noble Banadda

  3. National Water and Sewerage Corporation, Plot 39, Jinja Road, P.O. Box 7053, Kampala, Uganda

    Irene Nansubuga

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  1. Irene Nansubuga
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Correspondence to Noble Banadda.

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Nansubuga, I., Banadda, N., Verstraete, W. et al. A review of sustainable sanitation systems in Africa. Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol 15, 465–478 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11157-016-9400-3

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