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Editorial: January 2017: one year and counting
01.01.2017
One year of the 15-year period (2016–2030) of the Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) has passed. A number of conferences and commentaries have marked the occasion by noting some encouraging signs of progress, while still acknowledging the major challenges which lie ahead. Unsurprisingly, there is recognition that achieving the goals and targets will be even harder than arriving at agreement over their wording. -
Editorial: Serving the urban poor
01.10.2016
This issue of Waterlines addresses some of the issues surrounding water and sanitation services in urban environments. These areas of habitation vary greatly in regard to their size, population density, topography, wealth, housing standards and infrastructure, and access to public services. In the context of this journal and its focus – low-income settlements in low- and middle-income countries – such habitations are nearly all fast-growing, under-planned, and under-provided with infrastructure and services. Their inhabitants are predominantly poor but they have well-developed survival skills. Many have left rural settings which they perceive as having less to offer in terms of opportunities and services. -
Editorial: Something new? Or something better?
01.04.2016
If you are reading these words and enjoying access to this journal, the chances are you also have the luxury of ready access to a clean and convenient toilet which safely removes your faeces out of sight via a water seal. Any unsightly or malodorous experiences are only temporary, and most of the time you never think about the destination and final resting place of your transported, treated, and transformed excrement. It is only if your septic tank or sewer – for you are unlikely to be a pit latrine user – fills up or gets blocked that these matters get forced to your attention. -
Beyond ‘functionality’ of handpump-supplied rural water services in developing countries
01.01.2016
Many rural point-water sources in developing countries consist of wells or boreholes equipped with handpumps. Various estimates have been made of the functionality of such water points, and functionality is now routinely monitored in national and local surveys of service performance. We argue, however, that a single binary (functional/non-functional) indicator is crude and insufficient to provide much information about service sustainability. We set out a categorization of functionality which includes three sub-categories of functional water points and five non-functional sub-categories, with well/handpump water points in mind. We use a simple model to demonstrate that reduction of high rates of early post-construction abandonment and reduction of total downtimes would greatly improve service performance. We show that functionality levels for multi-age populations of wells or boreholes equipped with handpumps would not normally be expected to exceed about 85 per cent. We recommend going beyond functionality monitoring via the collection of quantitative data on rates of abandonment, frequency and duration of breakdown, combined with descriptive narratives of actions to manage and repair water points, in order to generate more nuanced understanding of service performance. -
Waterlines – the final editorial
01.09.2022
Recently, the difficult decision was taken to discontinue the journal Waterlines. The reasons concerned the financial viability of the publication – an ironic reminder perhaps that the financial dimension of sustainability affects not only services and behaviours such as water, sanitation, and hygiene, but also publishing, too.