Water and sanitation research

Over 2.6 billion people – two out of every five people – still do not have access to adequate sanitation, resulting in widespread transmission of disease.  Diarrhoea alone kills 4,000 children every day - causing more child deaths than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined. In addition, an estimated 1.6 billion people – an estimated fifth of all humanity – live in areas where water is scarce and climate change is likely to make this situation much worse.

DFID is committed to producing evidence on what works and what doesn’t in delivering clean drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as water for agriculture, and economic growth. Clean drinking water, hygienic toilets and effective hand washing all have a high impact on reducing disease. Helping people meet these basic needs could prevent around 2.4 million unnecessary deaths every year. Our research focuses on both improving water security and ways of managing existing water resources, as well as improving people’s access to water, sanitation and improved hygiene.

We support one of the largest research programmes for sanitation and hygiene in the world.  The Sanitation and Hygiene Research Programme (SHARE) will contribute to preventing 100,000 child deaths from diarrhoeal diseases each year in Africa and Asia, as well as improve the nutritional status, cognitive performance and physical growth of some 30 million school-age children.

Research already carried out is beginning to show its worth by both triggering changes in thinking across the sector, and prompting more money to be invested by governments in bringing safe water and sanitation to their people.

• Vision 2030: The resilience of water supply and sanitation in the face of climate change study carried out jointly with the World Health Organisation (WHO) looked at how resilient current technologies and approaches to water, sanitation and hygiene are in the in the short and medium-term (2020 and 2030). The project made use of forecasts developed by the Hadley Centre with a focus on extreme rainfall events as the major stress on water sources and sanitation systems.
• Research-Inspired Policy and Practice Learning in Ethiopia (RIPPLE) led to an increase in finance and support for functioning water pumps and access to safe water for rural populations in the region. The programme looked at ways to make sure that water supply systems are both functional and sustainable.  It prompted a ten-fold increase in spending by the Ethiopian local Government for safe water supply and sanitation.
• The New and Emerging Technologies (NET) competition recently funded a project to explore the potential of ‘Smart Water Systems’ (or M-Water) which use rapidly developing mobile communications to identify and improve water services in Africa, and beyond.
• Groundwater and Climate Change in Africa project developed a set of continental groundwater maps that can be used to define vulnerability to climate change. The research has challenged conventional thinking that climate change will automatically harm groundwater, as stated in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th Assessment Report.