Introduction to WASH: Context and Environment

Introduction to WASH: Context and Environment

Appreciation of the context for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services is necessary if those services are to be effective and long-lasting. This Module provides essential background to WASH in Ethiopia by explaining broader topical issues such as sustainability, resilience, population growth, urbanisation, climate change, and global policy. It will also look at the interconnections between people and their environment, and the science that underpins that relationship.

Learning Outcomes for this Module

After you have studied this Module you should be able to:

• Describe the impacts of our actions and behaviour on the environment in which we live, and identify ways in which we can all contribute to creating a better environment.
• Understand the patterns of change and underlying trends in population, climate and urbanisation, and how these may affect progress in WASH.
• Describe the water cycle, the importance of a safe water supply and the relationship between water resources and human activities.
• Explain the effects of pollution on the natural environment and in human health, and how this influences waste disposal options.
• Describe the national and international policy context for the WASH sector in Ethiopia.

How to use this Module

This Module is designed for independent study, although you may in fact be studying in a group with others. Either way, we recommend that you use a Study Notebook that you keep with you as you work through the Module to note down answers to questions and keep a note of any important points.

The Module is divided into 15 separate study sessions, each expected to take about two hours to study if you are learning on your own. You will see that the study sessions all have a similar structure. Following a brief introduction, each study session has a set of learning outcomes that are linked to self-assessment questions (SAQs) at the end of the session. Within the text, there are in-text questions (ITQs) with answers that you can see by clicking on 'Reveal answer'. When you come across one of these questions, try to answer it in your head or by noting down your answer in your notebook before you read the response that is given. This will help you to learn.

Each session ends with a summary, which lists the key points that have been made, and the SAQs. Each SAQ tests one or more of the learning outcomes that were stated at the beginning of the session. When you have finished reading, you should work through the SAQs, writing answers in your notebook before checking against those provided. Writing your answers, rather than just thinking about them, will reinforce your learning and enable you and anyone else to check how well you have achieved the learning outcome.

Important terms are highlighted in bold and defined in the text. You will find that the first learning outcome for all study sessions is to be able to understand and use these key terms. All the key terms from this Module are also defined in the accompanying Glossary.

You will see that the sources of information used in the text are indicated by the name of the author or organisation followed by the date of publication in brackets, for example ‘(Haddis and Genet, 2012)’. Full details of these sources are listed alphabetically by author in the list of references. If an article has more than two authors, we have used the notation ‘Faris et al., 2012’, where ‘et al.’ is a shortened form of the Latin words for ‘and others’.

Please note that we have used UK English spellings rather than US spellings. Please also note that all years are according to the Gregorian rather than Ethiopian calendar, unless otherwise stated.