Going Small When the City Grows Big
Abstract Actual development of water and wastewater systems in towns is an outcome of several interrelated factors such as physical, economic, and social environments. Demography is also an important factor to consider in the formulation of development strategies. Too often in policy papers, population increase only serves as an argument for urgent action, but rarely as a factor in its own right that affects chances of improving a grave situation. A model is developed to generate water management options in urban areas related to population growth. A hypothesis is that management should go small in periods when the city expands rapidly. A study is presented of the development of water and sanitation in the town of Kisumu in Kenya on the shore of Lake Victoria during last century. The aim is to describe and analyze actual development in the water sector and to foresee what prospective developments could be identified in light of continued rapid population growth. The slow growth of the town in the colonial period allowed towns to adequately meet the needs of all residents for water. The extremely rapid population growth after Independence in 1963 interacted with other factors to cause a successive deterioration of residents access to water and sewage disposal.
The determination of an optimal waste management scenario for Kampala, Uganda
The quality of the environment in the city of Kampala is deteriorating. The city needs a novel waste management approach to improve the environmental quality in its heterogeneous settlement patterns. Earlier, an integrated urban waste flow model (IUWFM) was applied to project the future waste flows and their impacts on the environment of Kampala using four waste management scenarios. These scenarios were ‘business-as-usual’, ‘more enforcement’, ‘more collection’ and ‘proper management’. The robustness of the scenario results was determined by using a multi-criteria decision analysis. Twenty-four criteria were identified and grouped as environmental, economic, social, technological and general. Equal weights were assigned to these five sets of criteria. The four scenarios were evaluated against all criteria, and a sensitivity analysis was performed on the role of the equal weights on the choice of the scenarios. The results showed that ‘proper management’ scenario, which integrates diverse technologies and management programs matching with the local context, is the optimal approach to improve Kampala’s environmental quality. Scenarios that emphasized more waste collection, but less resource recovery were ranked in the middle. The scenario of maintaining the status quo performed worst. Application of a mix of diverse technologies and management programs matching the local conditions is the most optimal solution to improve Kampala’s environmental quality.
Organic Waste Recycling
Characteristics of Organic Wastes. Composting. Biogas Production. Algae Production. Fish Production. Aquatic Weeds and Their Utilization. Land Treatment of Wastewater. Land Treatment of Sludge. Planning, Institutional Development and Regulatory Aspects. Index.