Innovations for Global Development: From Monitoring Water Quality to Sustainable Housing
How can we provide inclusive design and simple construction processes for sustainable and resilient housing? Which technologies can be leveraged to ensure high quality of recycled water as an alternative water source? The most recent projects selected for the ETH4D Research Challenges & Seed Grants are addressing these challenges by using local materials and online sensors and remote monitoring. Get to know all five projects below.
Research Challenges
Online-monitoring of recycled water quality, India
As a consequence of severe water shortages due to rapid urbanization, Bangalore (India) has issued a zero-liquid discharge policy, which requires large apartment complexes to treat all wastewater on site and reuse it locally. Today, there are several thousand on-site water reuse systems in the city, however, only limited information on the microbial quality of the treated water is available.
The research group at EAWAG/ETHZ, has developed algorithms that predict the microbial quality of recycled water for on-site water reuse systems based on measurements from simple and commercially available sensors. These algorithms have been developed in the laboratory, and now require validation in real-life applications in target contexts.
ETH PI: Prof. Eberhard Morgenroth
Partners: external pageATREE
Low-Cost Sustainable CEB Dwellings, Morocco
The existing advances in sustainable dwellings usually involve high-tech equipment or workers and technicians on-site, which may be less suitable for low-income countries. For example, Morocco lacks affordable housing but also suffers from accompanying socioeconomic issues such as unemployment (9.3%) and illiteracy (26.2%).
With a novel design template and fabrication process for constructing Compressed Earth Block (CEB) dwellings developed during the past two years in Morocco, the proposed construction process is sustainable and applies to almost any manual CEB press while no electricity is needed onsite. This project will to build a living experiment in the intended culture, context and climate of the developed design and construction process.
ETH PI: Prof. Kristina Shea
Partners: Cooperative Belarej, Argilex Sarl, Gianni Botsford Architects and Ove Arup & Partners
Seed Grants
AKYAS Liquids-Diverting Toilet interface, Bangladesh
Urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs) are waterless toilets that allow for the separation of urine and faeces. This makes them compatible for rocky areas where digging (i.e. for pit latrines) is impossible, and allows the separate treatment of urine and faeces and in turn, for more targeted, appropriate methods. While most people in the West are wipers (use paper for anal cleansing), most in the East are washers (use water for anal cleansing). As a result, the uptake of UDDTs has lagged either because the current pans are incompatible with the hygiene practices of the user, or, in the case of modified pans, the liquid contaminates the faeces and cause odor and/or technology failure.
This research will support the development of a toilet pan that serves both wiper and washer populations. The pan uses diverting liquids (urine and cleansing water) from faecal waste without forcing the user to abandon or change their hygiene practices. This research will address both the technical modifications and user-acceptability of a new liquids-diverting dry toilet (LDDT).
ETH PI: Dr. Jurgita Slekiene
Partner: external pageAKYAS Sanitation
Real-time monitoring for faecal sludge dewatering in Lebanon
The sanitation needs of one-third of the world’s population are met by non-sewered sanitation. Technologies for treatment of faecal sludge that accumulates in onsite containments is becoming increasingly important worldwide. One of the most important treatment steps is dewatering, as faecal sludge contains more than 95% liquid. However, established technologies for solid-liquid separation of faecal sludge have a large footprint and are time-consuming processes.
Research at the external pageMEWS group at Sandec, Eawag on chemically-enhanced dewatering has shown that this is a promising option to optimise dewatering. However, it cannot yet be scaled up, as robust process control is lacking. Thus, the group is currently testing different sensors for the prediction and control of conditioner dosage in the laboratory at Eawag. MEWS is collaborating with CubeX, a Lebanese start-up who are developing a mobile faecal sludge dewatering truck. The CubeX prototype is still missing a reliable and robust process control system to be able to operate the dewatering truck as a financially viable solution. The aim is to validate the use of total solids (TS) sensors for the optimal dosage of conditioners in order to scale up this solution for faecal sludge management in general, the missing step for a project on full-scale automated system for dewatering using conditioners.
EAWAG PI: Dr. Linda Strande
Partner: external pageCubeX
Planning a prosperous forest-infrastructure-matrix
Landscapes across Asia are changing rapidly due to major investments in agriculture, infrastructure construction, urbanisation and, to some extent, forest restoration. At the same time a continuously high number of people depend on forest products for their livelihoods. To reduce poverty while maintaining or increasing forest cover, forest management needs to be coupled with infrastructure development and urbanisation, e.g. improved road networks and electrification. On the other hand, built infrastructures also negatively impact forests and ecosystems through increased access contributing to overexploitation, forest conversion and fragmentation. Spatial planning is one critical precondition to harness positive outcomes of infrastructure constructions for communities and avoid, reduce and mitigate negative impacts.
The main objectives of this project are to explore the trade-offs between infrastructure development and tree cover over time and to initiate a co-learning process about spatial planning procedures integrating conservation and restoration of forest landscapes in Lao PDR in comparison with southern India. The outcome will be an evaluation of the preconditions for a prosperous forest-infrastructure-matrix that can lead to further applied research on how infrastructures can contribute to forest transitions from decrease to increase in forest cover.
ETH PI: Fritz Kleinschroth
Partner: external pageLaotian Forestry Research Center, external pageTree Diversity for Resilient Landscapes at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT
Learn more about the Research Challenges and Seed Grants here.