Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development
Water Supply and Treatment
Our research focuses on low-cost approaches to measuring and improving drinking water quality in developing countries, and on working with key stakeholders so that this information leads to improvements in safe water access.
Research themes and projects
- Geogenic Contamination
Naturally occurring chemical contaminants affect the health of millions of people worldwide. The two most important contaminants, in terms of health impact, are arsenic and fluoride.
In order to reduce the consumption of geogenically contaminated water, economic, institutional, and psychological factors are at least as important as technical ones. The Water Resource Quality (WRQ) project brings together researchers from different fields to develop a holistic framework for mitigation of arsenic and fluoride contamination of drinking water.
- Microbial Contamination
In many areas worldwide the central water infrastructure is not available at all, or not reliable, leading to microbially contaminated water at the tap.
In such cases, decentralized water treatment such as filtration, chlorination, boiling, or solar disinfection (SODIS) can be applied. Our current main research project centers on ultrafiltration with the Gravity-Driven Membrane (GDM) filter technology.
- Monitoring and Surveillance
Sound management of chemical and microbial drinking water quality is frequently hampered by inadequate monitoring and surveillance. The WST group supports development of capacity for water quality monitoring and surveillance, by making use of new and emerging testing approaches which can be applied under challenging circumstances, by people with little technical background. As water quality data becomes increasingly available, monitoring and surveillance can better inform the design and redesign of projects, policies, and global programmes such as post-2015 development goals.
