Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Index: Development and Application to Measure WASH Service Levels in European Humanitarian Camps

The Humanitarian Agents (HAs), are among the first entities dealing with the impacts of natural and man-made disasters. This is more than essential in areas, where the National governments and associated economies are either overwhelmed to respond or unprepared to act. Under such pressing conditions...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water resources management 2020-06, Vol.34 (8), p.2449-2470
Main Authors: Tsesmelis, Demetrios E., Skondras, Nikolaos A., Khan, Syed Yasir Ahmad, Kolokytha, Elpida, Karavitis, Christos A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric Sciences
Civil Engineering
Communication
Disasters
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Environment
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Human settlements
Humanitarianism
Hydrogeology
Hydrology/Water Resources
Hygiene
Man made disasters
Refugees
Sanitation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The Humanitarian Agents (HAs), are among the first entities dealing with the impacts of natural and man-made disasters. This is more than essential in areas, where the National governments and associated economies are either overwhelmed to respond or unprepared to act. Under such pressing conditions, the agents, as any other similar entity, depend on a variety of monitoring and assessment tools in order to reach the most suitable decisions per case. These tools are mostly employed for the scope definition and the content of their responses, the communication of the information among the various agents, and the reporting to their donors and other beneficiaries. To this end, several field tools have been developed worldwide. Building on such a background, the present effort describes a new tool and it argues towards the development and implementation of a WASH related Composite Index. The purpose of the Index is to facilitate the WASH related assessments in refugee camps, by capturing and reflecting the actual WASH conditions and provide the necessary information for efficient program planning and implementation. Starting with Europe and specifically the humanitarian camps in Greece, the development of the Index may allow its worldwide application, while adhering to the necessary and essential standards that govern the work of all HAs operating in the sector.
ISSN:0920-4741
1573-1650
DOI:10.1007/s11269-020-02562-z