Hello. For academics, why not go with the papers suggested above. For non-academic professionals, I have found that books such as Rose George's "The Big Necessity" or Ben Fawcett and Maggie Black's "The Last Taboo" are excellent starting points, embracing societal and cultrual issues whilst describing approaches. Both are 10 years old so lacking on more recent developments (FSM innovations, advances in both CLTS and SanMark) but still 99% relevant.

In my first day of WaSH Engineering course, we introduce the SDGs, watch a video, and have a few readings to introduce the class.

I use this video, The Story of Cholera,

And then an introductory chapter from my book (Chapter 2 is on health and the role of the engineering) Mihelcic, J.R. et al. Field Guide in Environmental Engineering for Development Workers: Water, Sanitation, Indoor Air, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Press, Reston, VA, 2009.

We then discuss this open access paper and have an assignment regarding it "Mihelcic, J. R., Naughton, C. C., Verbyla, M. E., Zhang, Q., Schweitzer, R. W., Oakley, S. M., ... & Whiteford, L. M. (2017). The grandest challenge of all: The role of environmental engineering to achieve sustainability in the world's developing regions. Environmental Engineering Science, 34(1), 16-41. Open Access"

Hope this helps, James Mihelcic

Hi Nora.
I think the paper is open access. If not, you can write to Chris or any of the other authors, I am sure they will be happy to share.

PS: I can share if needed but think its good to let the authors know directly or through metrics that their paper is being read.

paresh

Hi Paresh,

This research paper sounds very interesting and super relevant. Especially their key point that the sanitation system consists of both, the technological and the social aspects. Do you know how I (and other people) could get access to this paper. I would love to be able to read more than the abstract:)

Hyun, C., Burt, Z., Crider, Y., Nelson, K. L., Prasad, C. S. S., Rayasam, S. D. G., … Ray, I. (2019). Sanitation for Low-Income Regions: A Cross-Disciplinary Review. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 44(1), 287–318. doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-101718-033327

Thanks a lot in advance!
Nora

I agree that wikipedia is a good place to start with, Elizabeth's efforts have improved the quality of wiki articles on sanitation immensely.
sanitation has a wide range of issues that can be looked at from various perspectives. If somebody is interested in looking at it from gender and/or inequalities perspective, I would certainly add Susun Chaplin's annotated bibliography available at cprindia.org/news/6353

paresh

Hi Abishek,

Sounds like you are looking for something for the layperson to read. In that case, there is nothing better than the Wikipedia articles! Get them to read the Wikipedia article on sanitation and on WASH:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASH

And if you see flaws in those articles then please help me/us to improve them.

Apart from that, we have also compiled key readings by forum category and sub-category here on this page (although an update of these would be good; we last updated this a few years ago):
forum.susana.org/key-documents

Hope this help,
Elisabeth

Thanks Paresh !

Review papers are a great way of starting, I agree. And these papers you've mentioned are definitely some of the latest key readings to understand sanitation perspectives. Hyun et al., 2019 gives a nice review of the different fields that intersect at Sanitation what each of their motivations are.

I am also wondering if there are there other readings such as "Introduction to WASH Basics" that cuts through some of the inherent knowledge that those of us in the sector assume is common knowledge. Something that summarizes these key developments in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene.

Hi Abhishek.
Review papers are a good way to start understanding a new field. I would recommend the following

Hyun, C., Burt, Z., Crider, Y., Nelson, K. L., Prasad, C. S. S., Rayasam, S. D. G., … Ray, I. (2019). Sanitation for Low-Income Regions: A Cross-Disciplinary Review. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 44(1), 287–318. doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-101718-033327

Rosenqvist, T., Mitchell, C., & Willetts, J. (2016). A short history of how we think and talk about sanitation services and why it matters. Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, 6(2), 298–312. doi.org/10.2166/washdev.2016.118

Nelson KL, Murray A. 2008. Sanitation for unserved populations: technologies, implementation challenges, and opportunities. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 33(1):119–51

Best
paresh

Hi all,

There are a lot of WASH courses online, many Wikipedia entries, tonnes of journal articles and reports from several WASH projects across the globe.

This recent Forum thread on WASH inventory covers some (forum.susana.org/forum/?view=topic&catid=54&id=23416&start=1000).

But if we were to suggest just 1 or 2 readings for an introduction to WASH, to other sector related professionals, or perhaps to students in related fields such as engineering and policy-

Which ones would you recommend ? Are there any favorites ?

Thanks a lot !

Abishek S Narayan
Co-lead for SuSanA WG6: Cities
Doctoral Researcher, Eawag-Sandec