Groundwater Protection and Sanitation
Inadequate sanitation often leads to contamination of vital groundwater resources.
Source: BGR
The UN proclaimed the year 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation (IYS). This aims at directing the public attention towards the large number of people that do not have access to sanitation services what leads to considerable health threats for these people. This lack of sanitation also provokes problems for the quality of groundwater resources, as dissipating waste water can pollute aquifers that often are important for the drinking water supply.
BGR is part of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA), an alliance of international organisations concerned with sanitation aspects. As part of this initiative, BGR focuses on the relationship between groundwater protection and sanitation.
Activities and Outputs:
- Symposium to the International Year of Sanitation (IYS)
- Himmelsbach, Thomas: Groundwater Quality and Sanitation; Eschborn, 31.01.2007 (PDF, 276 KB)
- Factsheet Basic Sanitation and Groundwater Protection (PDF, 115 KB)
- KREKEKER, T. (2008): Decentralised Sanitation and Wastewater Treatment. Revised 2nd edition: 65 p., Hannover. (PDF, 1 MB)
- Sustainable Sanitation and Groundwater Protection. Fact sheet, 08/2009 (PDF, 699 KB)
- Vaessen, Vanessa: Workshop on „Groundwater Protection and its link to Sustainable Sanitation and Town Planning" (PDF, 763 KB), 20th August 2011, 14th SuSanA Meeting, Stockholm, Sweden
Events:
- Symposium "Coupling Sustainable Sanitation and Groundwater Protection", 14. - 17. October 2008 in Hannover, Germany
This international symposium is part of the International Year of Sanitation and will discuss the relation between sanitation and groundwater protection from a scientific as well as policy perspective. All relevant information are available on the symposium's homepage.