Dear SuSanA Members, 
 
Thank you for the information.  
Especially for Ar Paresh's notings,
 
I am being appreciative of Paresh Sir's efforts, in sourcing data on FSM and their evolution, 
wish to encourage you to source data, and do your assessment on the practical feasibility of the success trials at all locations. 
 
Pl. keep up the good work, and wish, a Chinese translator could make available the relevant details as done by Prof Cheng, in
English Etc..
 
With best regards, and wishes to make a lot happening at ideal FSM for benefit of communities,  
 
Prof Ajit Seshadri, 
Head-, Environment,
The Vigyan Vijay Foundation Ngo 
New Delhi,  India. 
 

Dear Prof Seshadri 
I am aware of some of the IIHS's work and have had a chance of meeting Kavitha. I have referred to their papers and reports throughout my PhD. A lot of their work is also uploaded on the SuSanA Library and posted about on the forum - see here , here and here for example. 

Dear Cheng,
I know that a lot of literature is likely to exist in other languages. Since I am doing this exercise independently, I decided to limit my search to English language literature only. However, it would be interesting for me and others to know more regarding on-going work and literature emerging from China. It would be great if you could share relevant reports or papers or briefly tell us about it. 

Thanks
Paresh

Hi Paresh,

I am happy to know you did such work, which may be also in my research plan. 

Maybe there is some hidden literature that is not written in English.  For instance, I know many FSM literature in Chinese which can only be searched by Chinese platform, like CNKI.  

If you need my assistance, please let me know. 

Kind regards

Cheng

Dear SuSanA Member-
Ar. Paresh and others.

We wish you well on your PhD Researching and other assessments on FSM and their handling, towards evolve reuse in communities. 

We note that IIHS Chennai Office, is doing a lot of field work on FSM Desludging operations and transfer of FS to remedial centres by tanker lorry trips Etc. Ex communities. 

IIHS, Chennai  concerned person  is  Dr. Ms Kavitha Wankade, and  main work is with TNUSSP, in various District Towns in Tamil Nadu.

You may source relevant info on the subject Etc.. The data conveyed for making aware details on FSM handling Etc,  to our SuSanA Members, please.

With best wishes for your ongoing R&D and allied work on FSM Etc..

Prof Ajit Seshadri, 
Chennai. 
8th August, 2021.

Thanks Daniel for responding. 
This is an exploration at the moment and I am not trying to answer any question. Nor am I planning a systematic review of the literature at the moment. As pointed out to me by a good friend, systematic LR is great but the early focus is on establishing boundaries so that the final selection becomes manageable. It also requires team work and I don't have that right now. 
I am exploring the possibility of conducting a bibliometric analysis of a systematic search and hoping to identify themes emerging in recent FSM literature. I referred to the themes identified by Hyun et al. but realised that FSM is far more complex than conventional sanitation and involves far many actors and therefore only a few themes look relevant. Some themes that have been identified by others, and/or I have a hunch that are likely to emerge include 'working with the private sector', regulations, behaviour change communication, capacity development, etc.

Though it is specifically aimed for my PhD thesis, I imagine the audience to include a mix of practitioners and academic researchers. especially those who do both. For my PhD research, I am looking at FSM planning process in small towns in India (more in this thread ).  

Regards
paresh

Hi Paresh,
Thanks for sharing about your ongoing work
I am curious about the question(s) you aim to answer through your systematic search. The research question or main objective of the work as well as the intended target audience do influence the search terms you use as well as the bibliographic databases and search engines used for the search strategy. Could you tell us more about the main aim/question of your work so as to give a better idea about what approaches may be appropriate?

Kind regards,
Daniel

Thanks Rochelle for pointing me out to this well written paper. I am keen on understanding the process that went behind deciding the list of key words. Did you decide to drop a keyword because the results become unwieldy? (like 'excreta' in my search)

Also curious about inclusion of google scholar. It has the most extensive search results, but it doesn't allow easy filtering out or bounding the search thereby making it unmanageable. The search with the key words mentioned in my previous post returns with ~20 thousand items including ~15k after 2014.  

Regards
paresh

Here is how we did a systematic search for literature on FSM in our most recent work:


A dataset of values of FS was collected from any papers found that stated a financial value of re-using FS. An initial focused group of key documents was identified using the knowledge hub of the sustainable sanitation alliance (SuSanA). SuSanA is a network for individuals and organisations working in sanitation; a combination of publication hub, grey literature and discussion forum providing the latest state of knowledge of the sector [16 ]. Searches were additionally performed within Scopus, Google Scholar and the Water Engineering and Development Centre at Loughborough University knowledge—a forum holding conference papers, publications and reports for policymakers and practitioners in the water and sanitation sector [17 ]. Terms used included ‘sanitation as a business’, ‘financial value excreta’, ‘circular economy sanitation’, ‘faecal sludge reuse’, ‘resource recovery sanitation’ and ‘excreta resource recovery’. The review process only considered examples from countries defined as low or middle income by the World Bank [18 ]. Papers were filtered by whether or not they presented any financial data about the FS reuse potential in low-income countries. Papers presenting financial data were reviewed and are summarised in Table 1 . The upstream technology used (sewers, Container-Based Sanitation [CBS], septic tanks or pit latrines) was also recorded to see if it influenced the value of the product recovered. The majority of the cases looked at FS either from on-site sanitation, defined as systems where the excreta is stored on the plot where generated, such as pit latrines, or septic tanks [19 ]. Of these, 45% of the papers surveyed were published in 2015 or later and 83% had been published since 2010. Where businesses practising resource recovery were known but financial data about reuse could not be found, or needed clarification,

Mallory, A., Holm, R. and Parker, A. A Review of the Financial Value of Faecal Sludge Reuse in Low-Income Countries. Sustainability, 2020, 12, 8334. DOI: 10.3390/su12208334  www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/20/8334

Hello All.
Just curious what boundaries would members here suggest to make a systematic search of literature on FSM. I am considering the following boundaries

• Key words: "safe sanitation"  OR  "safely managed sanitation"  OR "human feces" OR  "human faeces"  OR  "faecal sludge"  OR  "fecal sludge"  OR  "faecal waste"  OR  "fecal waste"  OR  "human waste"  OR  nightsoil  OR  "septic tank"  OR  "on-site sanitation"  OR  "pit latrine" OR  "pit emptying" OR desludging OR "de-sludging"
• Period: 2014 and later (the year the FSM book was published) OR 2011 and later (last decade, also after the 1st FSM conference)
• Language: English
• Web of science and Scopus categories related to 6 disciplines: Engineering, Public health (not medicine), Environmental science, Economics, Planning, Social sciences (These are the major disciplines contributing to sanitation literature - Hyun et al., 2019 ) 

I don't think limiting by geography is a good idea as most of the literature is for the developing countries. I had earlier used the keyword 'excreta', but it added a lot of literature on related to excreta of animals and the number of search results increase manifold. 

Further, a lot of work especially in India is in the form of reports and presentations available on websites of respective organisations and/or SuSanA. Think I'll add that to the list, though one will need to find an easy way to do it. 

Currently, a search using above (without bounding by period) returns with ~2400 results on Web of science and ~2100 results on Scopus. I am sure there will be many duplicates. I am planning to add a similar search on PubMed

I'd be happy to receive suggestions (especially related to keywords) to not miss out important literature in this systematic search.

Regards
paresh