Full lifecycle costs of urban sanitation in Narok, Kenya (CACTUS)
Period: 2021 – 2022 (MSc dissertation)
Organization: School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Project: CACTUS (Climate and Costs in Urban Sanitation), funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Overview
For my MSc (Eng) in Water, Sanitation and Health Engineering (passed with distinction), I researched the full lifecycle costs of urban sanitation systems under the CACTUS project. A case study of Narok town, Kenya was conducted to estimate the cost of the urban sanitation system over the whole sanitation value chain — containment, emptying, transport, treatment and end-use/disposal.
The study built on my long-term partnership with Narok Water and Sewerage Services Co., Ltd., where I previously worked as a GIS specialist.
Outputs
- Shit-flow diagram (SFD) Lite report in Narok town, Kenya — published at sfd.susana.org, showing the latest sanitation situation in the municipality (October 2022)
- Does “Low Cost” Urban Sanitation Exist? Lessons from a Global Data Set — Igarashi, J. et al. (2023), Environmental Science & Technology, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.3c05731
Skills
Sanitation cost analysis, sanitation value chain, fieldwork & data collection, SFD