Conference of the North-South Centre at ETH Zurich: Strong Eawag presence
In her presentation at the first Annual Conference of the North-South Centre, Eawag Director Janet Hering underlined the institute’s long-standing engagement in developing and emerging countries. In view of the major social, ecological and economic challenges faced by these countries in particular, the North-South Centre – established at the ETH Zurich in 2007, with Eawag as an affiliated institute – seeks to promote knowledge transfer and the development of sustainable solutions.
The Conference focused on various aspects of “water for development” – “water for people”, “water for food”, “water for nature” and “multi-stakeholder approaches to water management”. Eawag was particularly well represented in the area of “water for people”. This was hardly surprising since, as Janet Hering pointed out, Eawag has been concerned with sanitation in developing countries since 1980, and these activities have been largely coordinated by the Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries (Sandec) since 1995. Reviewing the broad range of Sandec research, she highlighted projects in the areas of Sodis (solar disinfection of drinking water), faecal sludge management and solid waste management.
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However, as Janet Hering emphasized, other departments of Eawag are also active in developing countries. As an example, she mentioned the Lake Kivu project carried out by the Surface Waters department. The vast amounts of methane stored in the depths of this African lake are to be used for power generation. To assess the impacts of methane recovery on the ecosystem, Eawag has developed a computer model for simulating processes in the lake and is investigating internal nutrient flows in collaboration with local partners. |
Finally, Janet Hering presented the new “Eawag Partnership Program”, which includes support for six research fellowships per year for students from developing countries.
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Eawag researchers were also responsible for about a quarter of all the posters presented at the North-South Centre’s Annual Conference, e.g. the poster on the fluoride problem presented by Lars Osterwalder, Michael Mattle, Francis Kage, Ester Wanja, Kim Müller, Regula Meierhofer, Chris Zurbrügg and Annette Johnson. Worldwide, more than 200 million people suffer from fluorosis – a condition caused by elevated concentrations of fluoride in drinking water, which affects the teeth (mottled and brittle dental enamel) and skeleton (deformed and brittle bones and joints). |
Together with research partners in Kenya, Eawag has been studying a new method of extending the lifespan of fluoride filters. This involves the addition of phosphate and calcium to the bone char filter material. As the results of initial experiments were extremely promising, the method is now to be investigated in detail.