Legitimacy of source-separating wastewater systems with Swedish water utilities

Nutrient management is one of the critical challenges for developing sustainable circular economies in cities. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus from our food end up in our wastewater and pose an environmental threat when they are released in waterways. Yet, these nutrients are essential for crop production and food security. Hince human excreta contains the bulk of nutrients going through the urban ecosystem. Source separation of excreta from the rest of urban wastewater flows can enable safe and efficient nutrient recovery. Yet, source-separating wastewater systems are not yet common in urban areas. The aim of this study is to assess the legitimacy of source-separating wastewater systems from the perspective of wastewater professionals in Sweden. The study uses interviews and a survey to explore the pragmatic, normative, cognitive and regulatory dimensions of legitimacy and how these aspects can vary between different municipalities. Finally, it looks into possible knowledge-based activities to increase legitimacy. The results from this study show variations in legitimacy levels in urban areas in Sweden. Overall opinion appears to be neutral to the concept rather than negative. Although many see multiple barriers to implementation. Normative legitimacy (moral motivation) was relatively high, while cognitive legitimacy (knowledge & experiences) was lowest. Respondents from organizations where source-separation is being implemented, or they believe that it will be implemented within 10 years, generally saw more drivers and fewer barriers. These innovators were also more interested in knowledge-based activities. Overall recommendations to increase cognitive knowledge regarding source-separating systems among multiple stakeholders seems the most promising path forward to increase legitimacy in the Swedish wastewater sector

Urine recycling-Diffusion barriers and upscaling potential; case studies from Sweden and Switzerland

In this study, we explored why urine recycling systems have failed to gain wide-scale expansion despite their high potential for food and fertilizer security. Additionally, we examined the future perception of urine recycling in Sweden and Switzerland, as these two countries are at the forefront of technological advancement. Along with identifying barriers, we also proposed pathways for overcoming those barriers and achieving the upscale. The analysis was conducted using the technological innovation (TIS) approach, which is technology-focused, i.e., revolves around emerging technologies. Additionally, the study provides a methodological contribution to the innovation systems research by employing the Delphi method in conjunction with urine recycling experts to enforce transparency and prevent bias in the analysis. For urine recycling to overcome its current challenges, actors must work collectively. There needs to be a combination of top-down and bottom-up efforts to achieve the upscaling pathways. Lobbying and knowledge provision are necessary to adjust the current regulatory frame-work in a manner that provides public and private incentives. For urine recycling to diffuse and break into the mainstream market, we must move beyond enthusiasts, innovators, and niche markets into the mass market (ordinary people); dedicated service providers can facilitate this process. Pilot projects have been found integral to urine recycling upscaling. Future work could conduct life cycle assessments on existing pilot projects to un-derstand the environmental and economic performance of urine recycling systems when scaled up

No legitimacy: A study of private sector sanitation development in the Global South

What is needed for the private sector to successfully establish itself as a key player in delivering sustainable sanitation in the Global South? The present paper aims to offer some answers to this through the case of Peepoople AB, a company delivering a single-use biodegradable toilet bag in informal settlements. The company aimed to but failed in combining sustainable development of sanitation and financial gain for investors. We suggest that explanations for the failure can be found in the interaction between the company and the development– and aid organisations already involved in sanitation development. Through Strategic Niche Management, we look at whether the company managed to create relevant social networks, expectation dynamics and learning processes. The company gained legitimacy with end users, but failed to gain legitimacy in the development sector as it did not prioritise the kind of learning and competence considered relevant in the sector

Serious games in support of transformative multi-stakeholder sanitation planning for increased resource recovery: Specifications for game development

Globally, 2.3 billion people lack sanitation. Innovative solutions are needed that allow for rapid service expansion to underserved populations. Serious games can bring new perspectives into rigid planning and decision-making by increasing the understanding of complex issues, supporting learning of alternative perspectives and enhancing stakeholders cooperation. Existing games are inadequate for addressing the sanitation challenge and current frameworks for game development are neither comprehensive, nor tailored to sanitation planning. The objectives of this report are a) to develop a generic framework for development of serious games supporting transformative planning and governance; and b) to develop a set of specifications for a serious game for transformative sanitation planning specifically, c) to present a sanitation planning game prototype, and d) to report on an assessment of this game prototype. The report is based on literature studies and prototyping with user tests. A comprehensive framework for game development is presented and specifications for a serious game in sanitation planning are described. Initial game prototyping found that not all specifications could be fulfilled. Yet, focusing the framework on the serious purpose of the game, its worldview, its content, and its context of use brought a different but useful logic into the game design process

Importance of Internal Factors for Community-Managed Water and Wastewater Systems in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Community management is often seen as part of the solution to increase access to drinking water and wastewater management where municipal services are lacking. This article intends to increase the knowledge regarding self-organized communitymanaged water and wastewater systems in urban and peri-urban areas. A theory-building case-study approach, including three different neighbourhoods in Bolivia and their respective communitybased organizations, was selected. Four prerequisites – leadership, agreed vision, collective action and management – and associated enabling factors connected to three distinct planning and management phases were found to be of major importance for community-managed water and wastewater systems

Bridging sanitation engineering and planning: theory and practice in Burkina Faso

The global challenge of providing sanitation services to the un-served underlines a need to change the way in which sanitation planning and service provision is approached. This paper offers a framework for categorizing sanitation projects planning processes based on planning steps and procedural planning theory to help engineers and sanitation planners gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of these processes. The analysis identifies and discusses trends in both guidelines and actual sanitation programs. The results show that contemporary sanitation planning guidelines and field projects utilize patchwork processes of different planning modes, although the step of designing options is dominated by an expert-driven, rational-comprehensive approach. The use of planning theory can help engineers to ask critical questions about the objectives of the planning process and to develop context-appropriate planning processes that will make a difference for improving sanitation service provision

Gamifying and evaluating problem structuring: A card game workshop for generating decision objectives

Serious games, gamification, or game-based interventions are increasingly used as tools to aid participatory decision-making processes, but their evaluation is often not very rigorous. Therefore, it is still unclear whether game-based interventions are really beneficial. We focused on the following overarching question: how effective are game-based interventions specifically designed to support decision-making processes. We used an illustrative case to reflect on this question. Using a published framework proposing that design processes of game-based interventions and their evaluation are intertwined, we designed simultaneously (1) a game-based intervention, specifically a card game and a workshop structure in which this card game is to be used, and (2) its evaluation procedure, formulating evaluation questions and proposing measure instruments based on the literature. We pre-tested the evaluation procedure in a small pilot study with 10 students. We illustrate the use of the design framework for an intervention to generate objectives in a decision-making process about sustainable wastewater management. Through our illustrative case, we identify future research opportunities about designing game-based interventions and evaluating their effectiveness. We found that it is possible to address the dual challenge of game-based interventions for participatory decision-making processes: (1) designing an informative and engaging game-based intervention without telling participants what to think and (2) designing a tailored evaluation procedure. Designing the game-based intervention and its evaluation simultaneously is valuable, because both are strongly intertwined. However, conducting the evaluation is demanding and requires the collaborative efforts of scientists, including across disciplinary boundaries. For instance, the data collection effort could be distributed among different research groups to increase sample size. This would allow including control treatment(s) and covering the variation span of the confounding factors more broadly. All material is made openly available to foster collaborative future research

Knowledge evolution within human urine recycling technological innovation system (TIS): Focus on technologies for recovering plant-essential nutrients

Adopting urine-recycling technologies can support a transition to circular nutrient management systems. Although these technologies have been developed since the 1990s, their large-scale implementation remains limited. From a technological innovation system (TIS) perspective, "knowledge development and diffusion" is a critical function in the development phase. Yet, available methods in the literature to evaluate this function are not standardized. Hence, this study aims to fill this literature gap by developing a novel multi-criteria framework for evaluating knowledge functions. Several characteristics of emerging technologies are reflected in the criteria, including the rate of growth, novelty, diffusion, and relationship to incumbent systems. The knowledge base was measured by bibliometric analysis of publications obtained from comprehensive mapping. Results showed that the rate of publications and knowledge diffusion increased sharply in 2011-2021 compared to 1990-2010. However, the function still has insufficiency in some criteria. The lack of innovation in scientific research and the diversification of technologies were found to be impediments. The analysis also identified the lock-in of con-ventional technologies and centralized infrastructures in terms of publication dominance as another impediment. For the TIS to be legitimate and to grow, more pilot-scale implementations at a higher level are recommended to demonstrate that the technology works in practice

Lessons from co-designing a resource-recovery game for collaborative urban sanitation planning

The aim of this study is to describe the development of an innovative planning tool to promote the knowledge and collaboration needed to overcome challenges in the sanitation sector. A serious game was designed to share knowledge about resource recovery and support attitude-change and collaboration between stakeholders. This study documents the co-design process of game development from conception based on a set of specifications the game should achieve, through iterative testing with relevant stakeholders as players. The resulting prototype of the game showed that it was not possible to include all the original desired specifications in the final game. Stakeholders found that the game was engaging, stimulated creativity and achieved its goal