Low-cost sewerage

This book, the result of contributions by both academics and practitioners who attended the International Conference on Low-cost Sewerage held at the University of Leeds, England, in July 1995, provides a valuable exchange of ideas and experience to enhance the opportunity for greater provision of appropriate, safe and sustainable sanitation to as wide an urban population as possible. As a result of the currently very rapid urban population growth, the demand for sewerage exceeds the resources of most high-density urban areas in developing countries. Low-cost alternatives to conventional sewerage need to be developed and in this book such low-cost sewerage technologies are described and their applications in both developed and developing countries are detailed. The subjects discussed include: simplified sewerage, especially its in-block variant now generally called condominial sewerage, along with guidelines for its design; settled sewerage; a mechanism for objectively selecting the order in which communities should be provided with sewerage; a description of four sewerage projects in Pakistan and two in India, some conventional, some using interceptor tanks on house connections; an operational manual for a new simplified sewerage scheme in Ghana; a shallow sewerage system suitable for a small rural community in Greece; small diameter gravity sewers in the United States; solids-free sewage in Colombia; water conservation through the use of low-volume flush toilets; and surface water drainage in the city of Indore, India. It is hoped that through the dissemination of the current state of knowledge about low-cost sewerage this valuable technology will be accepted as one of the tools available to solve the pressing problems of urban and peri-urban sanitation in developing countries.