Emergency sanitation


Emergency sanitation is the management and technical processes required to provide sanitation in emergency situations. These can include man-made or natural disasters. Emergency sanitation is also required during humanitarian relief operations for refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. "Sanitation" normally refers to the management of excreta, with "Environmental sanitation" also including stormwater management, solid waste disposal, vector control and air pollution.
Providing showers and handwashing facilities is also part of emergency sanitation during all phases.
The immediate sanitation phase focuses on a providing proper waste management resources. The main course of action during this stage is reducing open defecation. It is implemented as a course of initial action in emergency situations and it lasts from one to three months. Toilets provided might include very basic latrines, pit latrines, bucket toilets, container-based toilets or chemical toilets.
The short term sanitation phase provides technology to contain fecal matter for as long as six months. 75% of the affected population have access to such resources and 75% of the collected waste is disposed of properly. One waste bin that is around 100 liters is provided for the use of 100 people. Bins are placed at a maximum walking distance of 50 miles from congregated areas of people.
Waste management bins installed during the long-term phase are sustainable to use for three years. During this phase, 95% of the population have access to the bins and 95% of the waste is properly of. Bins are placed at a maximum distance of 15 miles from living areas.  Fecal sludge management becomes a priority during the long-term emergency management phase.

Background

The term "Emergency" is perceived differently by different people and organisations. In a general sense, an emergency may be considered to be a phenomenon originating from a man-made and/or natural disaster which results in a serious, usually sudden threat to the health or well-being of the affected community which relies on external assistance to easily cope up with the situation. There are different categories of emergency depending on its time frame, whether it lasts for few weeks, several months or years.The number of people who are and will be affected by catastrophes, which are increasing in magnitude and frequency, is rapidly increasing. The affected people are subjected to such dangers as temporary homelessness and risks to life and health.
Emergency sanitation is put into place to create suitable living conditions for populations who lack proper water resources and to decrease the spread of waterborne illnesses. In June of 2012, a conference was held with various relief agencies and government officials in order to address proper management of human fecal matter along with the public health of people struck with disaster. They concluded that the current solutions to improper sanitation were not up to date nor the best of quality. The decision to utilize technology to track human feces collection along with the creation of emergency sanitation coordination centers and the use of smart toilets were among a few of the implemented policies.

Standards

The
Sphere standards have three standards relating to excreta management., namely
To address the problem of public health and the spread of dangerous diseases that come as a result of lack of sanitation and open defecation, humanitarian actors focus on the construction of, for example, pit latrines and the implementation of hygiene promotion programs.
The supply of drinking water in an urban-setting emergency has been improved by the introduction of standardized, rapid deployment kits. Alternatively, germ-infected water can be sanitized by adding disinfectants, boiling and/or filtering. If the water supply contains toxic chemicals it cannot be made safe to drink.
In the immediate emergency phase, the focus is on managing open defecation, and toilet technologies might include very basic trench latrines, pit latrines, bucket toilets, container-based toilets, chemical toilets. For short-term emergencies there should be an approximate of 1 latrine or toilet for every 50 people, and work should be done with the goal of eventually reducing this amount to 20 people per latrine/toilet if possible. The short term phase might also involve technologies such as urine-diverting dry toilets, septic tanks, decentralized wastewater systems.
In urban emergencies, the main focus is usually on a quick rehabilitation and extension of existing services such as sewer-lines and waste-water treatment plants. This can also include the installation of sewerage pumping stations to improve or extend services.
The creation of provisional hand washing stations or the distribution of hand sanitizer are put into practice so that people keep their hands clean and thus eliminate the propagation of germs.
Information on health care can be provided to the affected population in their respective languages, including instructions on how to use latrines efficiently. Further efforts can be made to help educate individuals who are not able to read the health communication materials.

Settings

The emergency response often has to differ greatly based on the setting it takes place.

Home-based

Home-based settings are settings where people choose to stay in or close to their homes. While this setting offers the quickest way to recovery, it also poses a high risk of sanitation-related consequences due to the common lack of access to outside help and inadequate public health monitoring.

Host community

Host community settings with significant displacement into outside communities with existing but maybe also effected sanitation infrastructure in private homes.
Existing infrastructure in such settings is usually quickly overloaded due to the increase in population density and improvements/repair is often hindered by access- and space-limitations. Intra-community conflicts over the sanitation waste management are thus fairly common.

Mass shelter

Mass shelter settings where the displaced population is housed in existing but often re-purposed building-complexes such as schools, community centres, places of worship, malls, warehouses and sport stadiums. Jurisdictional governments are primarily responsible for ensuring that people are directed to clear evacuation routes and zones. In some disaster prone countries, dedicated large emergency shelters are built for this purpose.
Existing sanitation facilities are usually inadequate for full-time stay of a high number of people, and the non-emergency management structures are typically unable or unwilling to continue their services. Legal issues over the re-purposing are also fairly common, especially if occupation continues for a longer time.
Due to usually cramped living conditions there is a high risk of conflict and often also cases of sexual violence, both of which often are in some relation to the sanitation facilities. Mortality rates are high among large groups of internally displaced people.

Emergency settlements

Emergency settlements where previously sparsely populated areas are newly occupied by the displaced population in large numbers. Refugee camps fall into this category. Typically these are set up by governments, the UN and humanitarian aid organizations.
Due to the typically short time frame of arrivals and the non-existing infrastructure, these kind of encampments pose maybe the greatest challenge in regards to providing adequate emergency sanitation facilities. The immediate demand for basic supplies and health services, having to account for the injured, dead, and survivors of man-made and/or natural disasters also aggravates these issues.

Challenges

The provision of sanitation programmes is usually more challenging than water supply as it provides a limited choice of technologies. This is exacerbated by the overwhelming and diverse needs of WASH.
Challenges with excreta disposal in emergencies include: