Assessing the impact of a risk-based intervention on piped water quality in rural communities: the case of mid-western Nepal

Ensuring universal access to safe drinking water is a global challenge, especially in rural areas. This research aimed to assess the effectiveness of a risk-based strategy to improve drinking water safety for five gravity-fed piped schemes in rural communities of the Mid-Western Region of Nepal. The strategy was based on establishing community-led monitoring of the microbial water quality and the sanitary status of the schemes. The interventions examined included field-robust laboratories, centralized data management, targeted infrastructure improvements, household hygiene and filter promotion, and community training. The results indicate a statistically significant improvement in the microbial water quality eight months after intervention implementation, with the share of taps and household stored water containers meeting the international guidelines increasing from 7% to 50% and from 17% to 53%, respectively. At the study endline, all taps had a concentration of <10 CFU Escherichia coli/100 mL. These water quality improvements were driven by scheme-level chlorination, improved hygiene behavior, and the universal uptake of household water treatment. Sanitary inspection tools did not predict microbial water quality and, alone, are not sufficient for decision making. Implementation of this risk-based water safety strategy in remote rural communities can support efforts towards achieving universal water safety

Modelling human choices: MADeM and decision‑making

Research supported by FAPESP 2015/50122-0 and DFG-GRTK 1740/2. RP and AR are also part of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics FAPESP grant (2013/07699-0). RP is supported by a FAPESP scholarship (2013/25667-8). ACR is partially supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Supercritical water gasification of effluents from composted human excreta and recycling of the aqueous phases for microalgae cultivation

Effluents from composted human excreta were sampled and characterized. Results show a constancy in the characteristics and nutrient content of these effluents. Then, these effluents were treated with supercritical water gasification, producing hydrogen rich gas (67-69%). Carbon efficiencies of 41-43% were achieved. Microalgae Chlorella vulgaris (CV) and Phaeodactylum tricornutum (Ph.t) cultivation were studied in the gasification aqueous phase (AP). No growth was observed in the raw AP even with adjusted pH. CV could grow in the activated carbon treated AP with similar results for cell concentration and pigment content, but with higher biomass production than in its control medium. Ph.t was unable to grow even in the treated AP. These results show promising development in recuperating energy and nutrients from effluents from composted human excreta, combining energy production, microalgae valorization and contributing to close the nutrient loop

Assessing the Impact of a Risk-Based Intervention on Piped Water Quality in Rural Communities: The Case of Mid-Western Nepal

Ensuring universal access to safe drinking water is a global challenge, especially in rural areas. This research aimed to assess the effectiveness of a risk-based strategy to improve drinking water safety for five gravity-fed piped schemes in rural communities of the Mid-Western Region of Nepal. The strategy was based on establishing community-led monitoring of the microbial water quality and the sanitary status of the schemes. The interventions examined included field-robust laboratories, centralized data management, targeted infrastructure improvements, household hygiene and filter promotion, and community training. The results indicate a statistically significant improvement in the microbial water quality eight months after intervention implementation, with the share of taps and household stored water containers meeting the international guidelines increasing from 7% to 50% and from 17% to 53%, respectively. At the study endline, all taps had a concentration of &lt;10 CFU Escherichia coli/100 mL. These water quality improvements were driven by scheme-level chlorination, improved hygiene behavior, and the universal uptake of household water treatment. Sanitary inspection tools did not predict microbial water quality and, alone, are not sufficient for decision making. Implementation of this risk-based water safety strategy in remote rural communities can support efforts towards achieving universal water safety

REACH-Nepal Catalyst - baseline to endline household-level water quality data

Non-randomized pre/post evaluation of 5 piped water supplies in Western Nepal. This data file contains the water quality data collected from 120 households based on conducting a household survey and sampling of household storage containers. Organizations: Eawag, Helvetas-Nepal. Related publications: 1. Tosi Robinson, D., Schertenleib, A., Kunwar, B. M., Shrestha, R., Bhatta, M., & Marks, S. J. (2018). Assessing the impact of a risk-based intervention on piped water quality in rural communities: The case of mid-western Nepal. International journal of environmental research and public health, 15(8), 1616. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph1508161

Assessing the Impact of a Risk-Based Intervention on Piped Water Quality in Rural Communities: The Case of Mid-Western Nepal

Ensuring universal access to safe drinking water is a global challenge, especially in rural areas. This research aimed to assess the effectiveness of a risk-based strategy to improve drinking water safety for five gravity-fed piped schemes in rural communities of the Mid-Western Region of Nepal. The strategy was based on establishing community-led monitoring of the microbial water quality and the sanitary status of the schemes. The interventions examined included field-robust laboratories, centralized data management, targeted infrastructure improvements, household hygiene and filter promotion, and community training. The results indicate a statistically significant improvement in the microbial water quality eight months after intervention implementation, with the share of taps and household stored water containers meeting the international guidelines increasing from 7% to 50% and from 17% to 53%, respectively. At the study endline, all taps had a concentration of &lt;10 CFU Escherichia coli/100 mL. These water quality improvements were driven by scheme-level chlorination, improved hygiene behavior, and the universal uptake of household water treatment. Sanitary inspection tools did not predict microbial water quality and, alone, are not sufficient for decision making. Implementation of this risk-based water safety strategy in remote rural communities can support efforts towards achieving universal water safety

Track Reconstruction with Cosmic Ray Data at the Tracker Integration Facility

The subsystems of the CMS silicon strip tracker were integrated and commissioned at the Tracker Integration Facility (TIF) in the period from November 2006 to July 2007. As part of the commissioning, large samples of cosmic ray data were recorded under various running conditions in the absence of a magnetic field. Cosmic rays detected by scintillation counters were used to trigger the readout of up to 15\,\% of the final silicon strip detector, and over 4.7~million events were recorded. This document describes the cosmic track reconstruction and presents results on the performance of track and hit reconstruction as from dedicated analyses