Thanks a lot Elisabeth

Hi Burton,
You've probably found the answer to your question in the meantime by reading the two books recommended above. But I don't like to see a question unanswered on the forum, so my quick answer to your question would be:
The challenges faced when collecting samples from a pit latrine are:
- how to get a representative sample for a household or a community,
- how to know what parameters to analyse,
- how to know which laboratory to use and
- how to get the money for the tests.

Regards,
Elisabeth

What are some of the challenges faced when collecting samples from a pit latrine

Sandec-eawag have recently published an article in The Journal of Environmental Management: Methods to reliably estimate faecal sludge quantities and qualities for the design of treatment technologies and management solutions
There may be others .. Dr Linda Strande is the person to ask.

Hi Burton,

You'll find lots of useful information if you browse through some previous posts on this forum: You can find them by putting "sludge accumulation" into the search field, or by looking in this sub-category:
forum.susana.org/214-vault-content-resea...udge-characteristics

I can also recommend to you the book by Kevin Tayler on fecal sludge treatment:
forum.susana.org/280-faecal-sludge-treat...dle-income-countries

Regards,
Elisabeth

Please i need help,am currently working on a project related to the topic and i am stuck trying to come up with a good methodology. Any ideas and suggestions would help. Thanks in advance.

Thank you very much for your response. If quantification only needs to be done based on containment facilities (pit latrines) excluding open defecation and that all pit latrine locations were captured using a hand held GPS considering that the area of study is small. what then can be the suitable methodology to follow in order to at least estimate the quantity.

My experience in Malawi, is that it is very hard (practically) to quantify faecal sludge in a community's containment facilities (pit latrines) using GIS and remote sensing.

I assume you mean urban areas. For faecal sludge quantification you would need location of houses, household size, plus whether or not a pit latrine was present.

1.) Maps of the city would not include shape files at the level to include pit latrines, rather shape files would typically at the most contain plot sizes. And, not every plot has a pit latrine, hence the problem with open defecation, or maybe an urban house is only using flush toilets.
2.) In Malawi drone work has been done as part of cholera response, and even using drones it is very hard to "pull out" where a pit latrine is. For example, it is about the same footprint as a traditional kitchen which is also separate from the house by a few meters. Mzuzu University is currently working with UNICEF Malawi on the use of drones for WASH, but again it is hard.

The better option for faecal sludge quantification, here in Malawi at least, is to use census data, which indicates number of members in a household and the % of households using pit latrines. Take a look at our work here in Mzuzu in the following paper:

Chiposa, R., Holm, R. H., Munthali, C., Chidya, R. C. G. and de los Reyes III, F. L. Characterization of pit latrines to support the design and selection of emptying tools in peri-urban Mzuzu, Malawi. Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, 2017, 7(1), pages 151-155. DOI: 10.2166/washdev.2017.096 washdev.iwaponline.com/content/7/1/151

Is it possible to quantify faecal sludge in a community's containment facilities( pit latrines) using GIS and remote sensing? if yes, how?

Are their any books or articles or journals i can refer to, that show the step by step calculations of faecal sludge accumulation rates after collecting data from field surveys, especially for pit latrines.