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SuSanA Themes - Climate Resilient Sanitation

Climate Resilient Sanitation Coalition (CRSC)


Sanitation and the climate crisis are intrinsically interlinked. Sanitation systems are vulnerable to climate events that damage infrastructure, disrupt services, and displace people. This results in increased health risks and pollution that impacts ecosystems, with low-income and marginalised populations disproportionately impacted. Additionally, poorly managed sanitation is a significant greenhouse gas emitter, particularly through methane emissions from latrines and septic tanks.

  • Health: Loss of sanitation service due to floods and droughts 1 disproportionately affects incidence of diarrheal disease – cholera countries, cases, frequency and size of outbreak have all increased dramatically in recent years 2. Change in temperature is also causing vector-borne diseases, such a dengue fever, to thrive especially where wastewater management and drainage are poor 3.
  • Institutions: Sanitation in schools and health care facilities is vulnerable to climate hazards such as flooding and sea level rise which damage infrastructure. This puts students, teachers, patients, family members, doctors, nurses, etc. at elevated risk of being exposed to diarrheal diseases. Climate events disrupt the education of 40 million children each year.
  • Marine Ecosystems: Damaged sanitation systems release sewage into marine ecosystems, damaging mangrove forests, coral reefs, and seagrass beds. These ecosystems sequester carbon at 35 times faster than terrestrial forests 4.
  • Emissions: Poorly managed sanitation is a significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter, primarily through methane from sludge. One assessment estimated that nearly 50% of a city’s GHG emissions came from sanitation 5.

Figure  1 Interrelationship of sanitation and the climate crisis.

Figure  1 Interrelationship of sanitation and the climate crisis.

To address this situation, in 2022 the Climate Resilient Sanitation Coalition was launched in response to the joint Call to Action launched at COP27. The Coalition was formalised under the vision of:

Integrating sanitation into global and national climate policy & practice; and integrating climate into global and national sanitation policy & practice.

The coalition is a growing collaboration of international organisations, research organisations and practitioners working collectively towards improved prioritisation, capacity and investment in climate resilient sanitation. Currently Coalition members represent almost 35 organisations implementing climate resilient sanitation (CRS) programs in almost 80 countries.


Figure 2 CRSC Member Activity Countries

Figure 2 CRSC Member Activity Countries

Activities 

Operating at a global level, the Coalition currently has five workstreams:

  1. Integrate sanitation into global and national climate policy and practice (e.g., development of a sanitation annex for the GCF Global Guidelines).
  2. Support national governments with tools, evidence, and expertise to incorporate CRS into government policies, plans, and strategies (e.g., National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions).
  3. Increase the prominence of sanitation in climate discussions through active dissemination of evidence and experiences.
  4. Attract finance to the climate resilient sanitation sector, including developing the relevant climate rationale.
  5. Build the evidence base for climate resilient sanitation, including in connection with adjacent sectors (e.g., water supply, solid waste management, agriculture, ecosystem management, education, health, environment, etc.).

Key Products

Coalition Members

Blogs

Contact 

Bisi Agberemi, UNICEF                    Juliet Willetts, UTS 
              

bagberemi@unicef.org                     juliet.willetts@uts.edu.au

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Resources and publications

Our library has more than 3,000 publications, factsheets, presentations, drawings etc. from many different organisations. It continues to grow thanks to the contributions from our partners.

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The three links below take you to special groups of items in the library for more convenient access:

Projects

The project database contains nearly 400 sanitation projects of many different organizations dealing with research, implementation, advocacy, capacity development etc. Advanced filtering functions and a global map are also available. Information on how and why this database was created is here.

People working for SuSanA partners can add their own projects through their partner profile page. You might need your SuSanA login upgraded for this purpose. Please contact us if you would like to add a project.


Trainings, conference and events materials

Missed important conferences or courses? Catch up by using their materials for self study. These materials have been kindly provided by SuSanA partners.

Shit flow diagrams, excreta flow diagrams (310 SFDs worldwide)

Shit flow diagrams (SFDs) help to visualize excreta management in urban settings. Access SFDs and more through the SFD Portal.

Emersan eCompendium

Humanitarian Sanitation Hub

Sanitation Workers Knowledge and Learning Hub

 


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Discussion forum

Share knowledge, exchange experiences, discuss challenges, make announcements, ask questions and more. Hint: Your discussion forum login is the same as your SuSanA login. More about the forum's philosophy »


Integrated content

We are hosting content from some other communities of practice and information-sharing portals. This section also provides a link to SuSanA's Sanitation Wikipedia initiative.

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SuSanA partners

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Register as an individual member of SuSanA free of charge. As a member you can interact with thousands of sanitation enthusiasts on the discussion forum.  You can also get engaged in one of our 13 working groups and our regional chapters. Our FAQs explain the benefits further.

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