Reducing health risks from wastewater use in urban and peri-urban Sub-Saharan Africa: applying the 2006 WHO guidelines

dc.creatorDrechsel, Pay
dc.creatorKeraita, Bernard N.
dc.creatorAmoah, Philip
dc.creatorAbaidoo, Robert C.
dc.creatorRaschid-Sally, Liqa
dc.creatorBahri, Akissa
dc.date2008
dc.date2014-06-13T14:48:14Z
dc.date2014-06-13T14:48:14Z
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-27T18:28:42Z
dc.descriptionWhere rapid urbanization is outpacing urban capacities to provide sound sanitation and wastewater treatment, most water sources in city vicinity are heavily polluted. This is of great concern as many of the leafy vegetables eaten raw in the cities are produced in these areas. Following the new WHO guidelines, different non-treatment options at farm, market, and kitchen level were field tested for health risk reduction with special consideration to efficiency and adoption potential. As most households are used to vegetable washing (although ineffectively), an important entry point for risk reduction is the increased emphasis of the new guidelines on food preparation measures. A combination of safer irrigation practices (water fetching, on-farm treatment, and application), the allocation of farmland with better water sources, and improved vegetable washing in kitchens appear to be able to reduce the potential risk of infections significantly, although it might not be possible to reach the ideal threshold without some kind of wastewater treatment. The on-farm trials carried out in Ghana also explored the limitation of other risk reduction measures, such as drip irrigation, crop restrictions and cessation of irrigation under local circumstances considering possible incentives for behaviour change.
dc.identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/40706
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/157079
dc.languageen
dc.rightsLimited Access
dc.sourceDrechsel, Pay; Keraita, Bernard; Amoah, Philip; Abaidoo, R. C.; Raschid-Sally, Liqa; Bahri, Akissa. 2008. Reducing health risks from wastewater use in urban and peri-urban Sub-Saharan Africa: applying the 2006 WHO guidelines. Water Science and Technology, 57(9): 1461-1466.
dc.subjectwater reuse
dc.subjectwastewater
dc.subjecturban agriculture
dc.subjectvegetables
dc.subjecthealth hazards
dc.subjectirrigation practices
dc.titleReducing health risks from wastewater use in urban and peri-urban Sub-Saharan Africa: applying the 2006 WHO guidelines
dc.typeJournal Article

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