Public Willingness to Pay for and Participate in Sanitation Infrastructure Improvement in Western China's Rural Areas

The suitability and feasibility of public-private partnership (PPP) patterns in a rural context have not been well-documented and understood. To address this research gap and practical plight, this study aims to analyze the rural resident's willingness to pay for and participate in the improvement of rural sanitation facilities, and further explore the drivers and barriers affecting their decisions. This study was performed in rural areas of three western provinces, including Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia, of western China's rural areas by conducting a survey on 1,248 rural residents. In Inner Mongolia, the proportion of respondents who were willing to pay was highest, while the proportion of respondents who may provide labor was lowest among the three provinces. Respondents from Ningxia had the least willing to pay, and respondents from Shaanxi had the highest willingness to participate. Overall, respondents' rural (living) duration time, personal interest in local government notice, and the latest time when the sanitation facilities were improved could significantly affect their willingness. In Inner Mongolia, occupation and water availability could significantly influence respondents' willingness, and both gender and health conditions had significant impacts. In Ningxia, respondents' personal interest in local government notice had a notable impact on willingness, and low-income respondents showed a more notable willingness to pay and participate. In Shaanxi, occupation and water availability could significantly influence respondents' willingness. Respondents' personal interest in local government notice had a notable impact on their willingness. This study is of significant importance to understand rural resident's participation in sanitation infrastructure improvement to support relevant PPP projects, and is important to solve poverty-caused dilemmas.

Studio In-Situ

This photo essay explores the possibility of radically shifting the understanding of the design studio as a spatial construct. By considering the seven-year evolution of a (socalled) design-build project known as the Imizamo Yethu Water Platforms, it recognises the possibility of dislocating the design studio from its traditionally centralised space in the academy and moving it to the site of its investigation or intervention for the duration of a project. The Imizamo Yethu Water Platforms aimed to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in a severely under-resourced informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa, through the insertion of small permanent public spaces. Due to a number of reasons, including the physical characteristics of the sites selected for these spaces, the design studio gradually shifted its physical location to such an extent that virtually the entire design, documentation and construction process took place in-situ.

The Economic and Health Impacts of Inadequate Sanitation

Nearly half of the world’s population, 4.2 billion people, lack access to a hygienic sanitation facility. About 673 million people regularly defecate outdoors, in the open. Many of those who still lack access to sanitation services are among the most challenging populations to reach: the poorest, the most remote, and the most marginalized. Inadequate sanitation is also a major cause of death and disease in countries around the world, causing 432,000 diarrheal deaths annually and contributing to several neglected tropical diseases, including intestinal worm infections, schistosomiasis, and trachoma. It also contributes to malnutrition, adversely affecting early childhood development and thus affecting long-term outcomes, such as educational attainment and earnings in later life. The disease burden of inadequate sanitation overwhelmingly falls on the poor. Sanitation infrastructure access can result in direct benefits that households receive when they have access to sanitation services and an external benefit or externality produced by a community’s access to clean sanitation infrastructure. Thus, for the full benefits of sanitation infrastructure to be realized, efforts should focus on improving community-wide coverage of improved sanitation and eliminating open defecation. This expands the menu of policy options available for targeting conditions like anemia and undernutrition and would require a significant shift in thinking for many researchers and policymakers, who tend to overlook the important role of disease in determining “nutritional” outcomes. Beyond their intrinsic value to human health and well-being, improved sanitation services would play a contributory and catalytic role in furthering progress toward other development goals, particularly those relating to education, and sustainable economic growth. Thus, furthering people’s access to adequate sanitation services is a necessary milestone in the global stride toward a sustainable, high quality of life for all.

Sustainable Wastewater Management to Reduce Freshwater Contamination and Water Depletion in Mexico

At present, most rivers, lakes, and reservoirs in Mexico have significant anthropogenic contamination. The lack of sanitation infrastructure, the increase in the number of nonoperational or abandoned sanitation facilities, limited enforcement of environmental regulations, and limited public policies for the reuse of treated wastewater all contribute to the contamination and water availability problem. The reasons for this are identified as (1) the high maintenance and operational costs in sanitation facilities (including electricity consumption); (2) poor planning and practices of wastewater management and reuse by municipalities; (3) national policies that do not favor the reuse of treated wastewater for agriculture, industry, and municipal services instead of using groundwater as at present; (4) failure to adopt a governance model at the three levels of government; and (5) transparency in the management of financial resources. Some measures to improve this situation include (a) transparent decision-making; (b) participation and accountability in budgeting and planning at the national, state, and municipal levels; and (c) planning for the reuse of treated wastewater to reduce groundwater extractions and to reduce discharges to surface waters from the beginning of every WWTP project.

Water Conservation Planning at Telkom University Landmark Tower Bandung Campus

Telkom University makes efforts in developing higher education facilities and capacities by constructing new campus buildings. One of the supports for improving services is sanitation infrastructure in the form of installations consisting of clean water installations, wastewater installations and ventilation, and rainwater installations with the concept of installed clean water. Each building that will be built in the area of West Java Province applies the concept of green buildings and conservation air as regulated in the Regional Regulation of West Java Province 13 of 2013 concerning Buildings, including campus building builders so that business actors are required to implement water management which aims to maintain quality, quantity, and continuity of clean water in West Java Province. The implementation of the installation with the concept of green buildings and air conservation is carried out at the Telkom University Landmark Tower building, which aims to use clean water in the building which can be more efficient because the location of the building is in a clean water distress zone based on the basin map of West Bandung Regency. The implementation of water conservation that is planned is WAC-3 waste water recycling (water recycling) which can be used as a rinse and watering the garden. Construction of infiltration wells which functions to reduce rainwater runoff and increase groundwater reserves, WAC-5 rainwater storage (rainwater storage) which can be used as alternative raw water. The use of the WAC-2 water-saving sanitary device (water feature) uses water usage and PDAM water costs. The application of air conservation that ignores water is 17.5% in the dry season and 61.5% in the rainy season of the clean water need total.