Understand the key terms, definitions, and methods of SaniChoice and learn how to use the different functionalities. You will also find two videos, a guided tour and the story of Amita, that supports sanitation planning in a growing small town in Nepal.
The SaniChoice Practitioner's guide provides a five-steps procedure to define the required case data and discuss results with stakeholders.The steps integrate into any structured decision making (SDM) framework such as CLUES, Sanitation21, or City Sanitation Planning.
Choose from five presentation, four exercises, and two example session plans to design your SaniChoice training and built up future users.
Contact Information
Eawag - Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
Dorothee Spuhler
Überlandstrasse 133
CH-8600 Dübendorf
The number of valid system configurations from the appropriate technologies is typically very large. In a participative process, only a few options can be discussed meaningfully with stakeholders. A manageable number of options lies somewhere between three and 15. In order to make sure that the set of options remains diverse to illustrate how different options perform regarding different decision objectives, SaniChoice uses the system templates. Each option that is selected is from a different preselected template.
By default, SaniChoice provides the systems with the highest system appropriateness scores. But systems can also be selected according to one of the resource products such as phosphorus, nitrogen, total solids (as an indicator for organics and energy) or water. Either the potential recovery ratios are considered or the losses to soil, air, and surface waters.
By default, SaniChoice provides a diverse set of options ("Diversity") by selecting the systems with the highest targets from the desired templates. To ignore the templates, the selection type can be set to "Ranking".
To learn more on building entire system check out the Build Entire Sanitation Systems.
Qualitative estimates of the applicability of each technology given the phase of humanitarian context in a specific case. It is based on three categories:
Refers to the humanitarian phase immediately following an emergency. It usually covers the first days up to the first few weeks, where effective short-term measures are applied to alleviate the emergency situation quickly until more permanent solutions can be found.
Refers to the phase starting after the first weeks of a crisis and can last several months or longer.
The allocation of technologies to different humanitarian/development phases is mainly based on speed of implementation, budget and material requirements. It allows giving a first general orientation but may differ in a specific local situation.
Refers to either a longer-term approach aiming to develop sanitation infrastructure in general (Development) or in a humanitarian context (Recovery), it refers to the phase where the aim is to rehabilitate infrastructure or implement long-lasting sanitation infrastructure and services.
Acute Response
applicable
Stabilization
ignore
Development / Recovery
ignore
What is the local availability of concrete in your case area?
Tilley, Elizabeth, Ulrich, Lukas, Lüthi, Christoph, Reymond, Philippe, Zurbrügg, Christian (2014): Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies - 2nd Revised Edition; Paul Donahue; Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland
What proportion of each type of electricity supply is available in the given case?
What level of operation and maintenance capacity is available/feasible in your case area?
What proportion of of the areas as what level of fuel supply?
How is the pipe supply distributed in your case area?
How is the pump supply distributed in your case area?
What level of spare parts supply is available/feasible in your case area?
Type of water supply is defined by three categories:
Rath, Maria (2017): Identifying Appropriate and Sustainable Sanitation Technologies in Expanding Urban Areas of Developing Countries - Case Study in Arba Minch, Ethiopia; Günter Langergraber, Dorothee Spuhler; University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna
Loetscher, Thomas, Keller, Jürg (2002): A Decision Support System for Selecting Sanitation Systems in Developing Countries; Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
Mara, Duncan David (2008): Sanitation Now: What is Good Practice and What is Poor Practice?; Sub-department of Environmental Technology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, NL
What proportion of each type of water supply is available in the given case?
Akvo., (2020): Settled Sewerage (Small Diameter); akvopedia.org
How much water volume is used for sanitary use (flushing and anal cleansing) in litres per person per day?
How is the ease of excavation distributed in your case area?
Loetscher, Thomas, Keller, Jürg (2002): A Decision Support System for Selecting Sanitation Systems in Developing Countries; Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
How is the flooding risk distributed in your case area?
Monvois, Jacques, Frenoux, Clément, Gabert, Julien, Guillaume, Marie (2010): How to Select Appropriate Technical Solutions for Sanitation - Guide 4; Programme Solidarité Eau (pS-Eau), Paris, France
Loetscher, Thomas, Keller, Jürg (2002): A Decision Support System for Selecting Sanitation Systems in Developing Countries; Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
What is the local groundwater depth?
Monvois, Jacques, Frenoux, Clément, Gabert, Julien, Guillaume, Marie (2010): How to Select Appropriate Technical Solutions for Sanitation - Guide 4; Programme Solidarité Eau (pS-Eau), Paris, France
How is the slope distributed in your case area?
Spuhler, Dorothee, Fritzsche, Julian, Illmanen, Kukka, Jain, Akanksha, Willimann, Cyril, van Sloten, Matthias (2021): Own Estimation (Best Guess) from the SaniChoice Project Team 2021; Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development (SANDEC), Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland
How is the soil type distributed in your case area?
How much total surface area per person (m2/pers) is available offsite for decentralized and centralized treatment technologies for the case?
Monvois, Jacques, Frenoux, Clément, Gabert, Julien, Guillaume, Marie (2010): How to Select Appropriate Technical Solutions for Sanitation - Guide 4; Programme Solidarité Eau (pS-Eau), Paris, France
How much surface area (m2) is available in the case per unit of planned onsite technology (e.g. for a double pit latrine)?
Spuhler, Dorothee, Fritzsche, Julian, Illmanen, Kukka, Jain, Akanksha, Willimann, Cyril, van Sloten, Matthias (2021): Own Estimation (Best Guess) from the SaniChoice Project Team 2021; Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development (SANDEC), Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland
How is the temperature distributed over the year in your case area?
How is the accessibility by motorized vehicles (e.g. pumping trucks) at locations planned for onsite sanitation technologies distributed in your case area?
How many of the implementation sites can pollute nearby drinking water sources (e.g. groundwater wells)?
Rath, Maria (2017): Identifying Appropriate and Sustainable Sanitation Technologies in Expanding Urban Areas of Developing Countries - Case Study in Arba Minch, Ethiopia; Günter Langergraber, Dorothee Spuhler; University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna
Bouabid, Ali, Louis, Garrick (2015): Capacity Factor Analysis for Evaluating Water and Sanitation Infrastructure Choices for Developing Communities; Journal of environmental management Vol. 161
Ddiba, Daniel (2016): Generation and Assessment of Sanitation Systems for Strategic Planning (GRASP) - Evaluating Screening Attributes to Identify Locally Appropriate Technology and System Options for Developing Urban Areas; Dorothee Spuhler; Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland
How is the construction skills availability distributed in your case area?
Rath, Maria (2017): Identifying Appropriate and Sustainable Sanitation Technologies in Expanding Urban Areas of Developing Countries - Case Study in Arba Minch, Ethiopia; Günter Langergraber, Dorothee Spuhler; University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna
How is the design skills availability distributed in your case area?
Rath, Maria (2017): Identifying Appropriate and Sustainable Sanitation Technologies in Expanding Urban Areas of Developing Countries - Case Study in Arba Minch, Ethiopia; Günter Langergraber, Dorothee Spuhler; University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna
How is the operation and maintenance skills availability distributed in your case area?
Cleansing method is defined by two categories:
Cleansing method is defined for the user interface (FG U) technologies only.
Loetscher, Thomas, Keller, Jürg (2002): A Decision Support System for Selecting Sanitation Systems in Developing Countries; Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
How is the cleansing method distributed in your case area?
Construction parts supply is applied specifically for humanitarian contexts, where accessibility of construction materials might be limited or special prefabricated parts might cause delays and higher costs due to the required transportation. It is defined by three categories:
Spuhler, Dorothee, Fritzsche, Julian, Illmanen, Kukka, Jain, Akanksha, Willimann, Cyril, van Sloten, Matthias (2021): Own Estimation (Best Guess) from the SaniChoice Project Team 2021; Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development (SANDEC), Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland
What level of accessibility does each type of parts (required for construction) have in your case?
Spuhler, Dorothee, Fritzsche, Julian, Illmanen, Kukka, Jain, Akanksha, Willimann, Cyril, van Sloten, Matthias (2021): Own Estimation (Best Guess) from the SaniChoice Project Team 2021; Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development (SANDEC), Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland
What lifetime is a technology required to have in the case?
What scalability is a technology required to provide in your case?
The criterion has been developed specifically and is only applicable for humanitarian contexts. Semi-quantitative estimates of the performance of each technology given the preference for the time within which functional toilets are required in a specific case. It is based on the following three categories:
Spuhler, Dorothee, Fritzsche, Julian, Illmanen, Kukka, Jain, Akanksha, Willimann, Cyril, van Sloten, Matthias (2021): Own Estimation (Best Guess) from the SaniChoice Project Team 2021; Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development (SANDEC), Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland
How acceptable are the following speeds of implementation for finishing the toilet structure?
Speed of implementation for treatment technologies is defined for humanitarian contexts based on three categories:
Spuhler, Dorothee, Fritzsche, Julian, Illmanen, Kukka, Jain, Akanksha, Willimann, Cyril, van Sloten, Matthias (2021): Own Estimation (Best Guess) from the SaniChoice Project Team 2021; Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development (SANDEC), Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Duebendorf, Switzerland
How acceptable are the following speeds of implementation for realizing a treatment technology in your case?
Arba Minch
Changunarayan
Cox's Bazar - Acute
Cox's Bazar - Stabilisation
Didactic Example
Katarniya
Quebrada Verde
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Arba Minch is located in the southern part of Ethiopia and, in 2017, had a population of 114’570 inhabitants. With an annual growth rate of 4.5%, it is one of the fastest growing cities of Ethiopia. The area of the city is large (56 km2), with a low average density (approx. 2000 inhabitants per km2). But most of the population is concentrated in the residential areas around the university. The Arba Minch town municipality (AMTM) is part of the Great Rift Valley and is bordered by the Abaya and Chamo lakes in the East as well as by a mountain escarpment in the West. The topography is very diverse and combines both steep and undulating terrain of the upper town area and flat areas in the valley. It is divided into four sub-cities, which have been restructured into eleven administrative “kebeles” (smallest administrative zone). In the 2012, around the town of Arba Minch, in the Arba Minch District, there were 164,529 people, of whom 82,265 were male and 82,264 were female. In this district, 53.9% practiced Protestantism, 29.3% practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, 12.6% practiced Traditional beliefs, and all other religious practices made up 4.1%.
The situation can be briefly summarized as followed, for more detailed information, please refer to the appropriateness criteria in the case settings:
The case study located in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, was conducted by a large team of researchers from six different research institutes. The report of the case study was published in the Volume 271 of the Journal of Environmental Management in 2020.
The situation can be briefly summarized as followed, for more detailed information, please refer to the appropriateness criteria in the case settings:
Cox's Bazar is a refugee settlement in Bangladesh counting approximately 14’509 inhabitants in 2020. The camp can be characterized as very dense, with many areas being regularly flooded during the monsoon season and travel therefore mostly possible by foot. The population residing in the camp is contains predominantly people with Muslim affiliation. It was assumed that the emergency is in its initial phases to simulate the acute phase of an emergency. During the acute phase of an emergency the number of people in the camp is expected to rise quickly and unexpectedly. The new arrivals require urgently access to sanitation solutions and therefore toilets need to be built rapidly. Many NGOs (including substantial funds) as well as the military of Bangladesh are present, however coordination between the different entities has not yet been properly organized. Supply chains have not yet been properly set up. Overall, it is a chaotic situation with high levels of need and vulnerability.
The situation can be briefly summarized as followed, for more detailed information, please refer to the appropriateness criteria in the case settings:
This case study was based on a project by Kukka Ilmanen and Akanksha Jain of their master’s degree in environmental engineering at the Institute of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland.
Cox's Bazar is a refugee settlement in Bangladesh counting approximately 14’509 inhabitants in 2020. The camp can be characterized as very dense, with many areas being regularly flooded during the monsoon season and travel therefore mostly possible by foot. The population residing in the camp is contains predominantly people with Muslim affiliation. The camp has already existed for several decades and it cannot be assumed that the need for the camp will end soon. There is no longer an influx of people coming in and the camp is no longer in the acute phase of the emergency and in general, has characteristics belonging to the stabilization and recovery phases of an emergency. However, high levels of need and vulnerability remain critical. The WASH sector has identified huge gaps in faecal sludge management and disposal solutions. Due to a combination of factors, desludging of latrines built during the acute phase of the response has become an urgent priority and major gap. The crisis has created an imminent public health risk posed by the large number of poor-quality pit latrines, in many cases in the direct vicinity of shallow wells equipped with hand pumps. At present, 40 % of the pit latrines in the mega camp are estimated to be full. The government authorities, with support from the WASH sector, are putting greater emphasis on building toilets that are safe, emptiable and more sustainable.
The situation can be briefly summarized as followed, for more detailed information, please refer to the appropriateness criteria in the case settings:
This case study was based on a project by Kukka Ilmanen and Akanksha Jain of their master’s degree in environmental engineering at the Institute of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland.
This is an didactic example developped for the practicioners guide. It is about the fictional town of Thirty Springs. The example is based on a case study in Ethiopia that took place between 2015 and 2019 in collaboration with the Arba Minch University and Town Municipality.
Katarniya is a very typical example of an emerging small town in the mid-western region of Nepal with a population of approximately 2’000 inhabitants. The city faces rapid and unplanned growth, so the population today is probably already far above 2000 inhabitants. Furthermore, it is characterized by a weak institutional setting and a lack of human and financial resources. Therefore, several sanitation related problems could occur as the population is growing rapidly. Basic sanitation elements such as toilet infrastructure are present, but full sanitation systems are mostly absent.
The situation can be briefly summarized as followed, for more detailed information, please refer to the appropriateness criteria in the case settings:
The case study was conducted by a team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), Dübendorf, Switzerland in cooperation with the Institute of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland.The leading researcher of the Case Study was Dorothee Spuhler. The report of the case study was published in the Volume 145 of the journal "Water Research" in 2018.
The community of Quebrada Verde (QV) is located in the lower part of the Lurin River Basin in the Pachacámac District in Lima, Peru. QV is a semi-informal settlement with 800 inhabitants. It borders on the north and the west with highlands, and on the east and the south with the agricultural area and the Lurin River, one of the three main rivers in Lima. The settlement is equipped with a mix of urban, rural, and peri-urban infrastructures. The primary source of income for many settlers in the peri-urban areas of Lima is still agriculture which represents a significant percentage of economic activities. It receives inadequate drinking water and lacks a public sewer system. This leads to health risks. Parasites and diarrheal diseases are reported. An effort to provide safe sanitation service to such settlement through a container-based sanitation system has been shown by a social venture in Lima, x-runner. This system relies on a urine-diverting dry toilet (UDDT) with centralized emptying and treatment. However, these innovations are restricted by the absence of suitable regulations for their services that require different organization than centralized sewer systems. The provision of safe sanitation services for Lima’s informal settlements is a dilemma for both communities and regulators. Both parties are seeking a long-term solution, yet the implementation might not come soon. Alternative services, e.g., container-based sanitation or the condominial sewer, can be something to look forward to. Another technology that has long been used for treating wastewater is an activated sludge process. Activated sludge systems, such as conventional activated sludge and anaerobic-aerobic systems in sequencing batch reactors (SBR), have been implemented in Lima. The conventional activated sludge system is particularly applied at the wastewater treatment plant (PTAR) at PTAR Cieneguilla in the district of Cieneguilla in the Lurin Valley.
The situation can be briefly summarized as followed, for more detailed information, please refer to the appropriateness criteria in the case settings:
The case study was conducted by the researchers Ainul Firdatun Nisaa representing the Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany as well as the Department of Environmental Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya, Indonesia; by Manuel Krauss representing the Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany as well as the Research Institute for Water and Waste Management at the RWTH Aachen University (FiW), Aachen, Germany and by Dorothee Spuhler from the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), Dübendorf, Switzerland. The report of the case study was published in the Number 9 of the Volume 13 of the journal "Water" in 2021.
Your settings are applied to all technologies and the best possible systems are calculated.