D-Lab: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Focuses on disseminating Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) innovations in low-income countries and underserved communities worldwide. Structured around project-based learning, lectures, discussions, and student-led tutorials. Emphasizes core WASH principles, appropriate and sustainable technologies at household and community scales, urban challenges worldwide, culture-specific solutions, lessons from start-ups, collaborative partnerships, and social marketing. Mentored term project entails finding and implementing a viable solution focused on education/training; a technology, policy or plan; a marketing approach; and/or behavior change. Guest lecturers present case studies, emphasizing those developed and disseminated by MIT faculty, practitioners, students, and alumni. Field trips scheduled during class time, with optional field trips on weekends. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments. Limited to 20.
Fall 2019 · D-Lab: Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene
Topics
- Intro
- Water Use and Access, Sustainable Development Goals
- WASH and “One Health”
- Decentralized Sanitation
- Wastewater Treatment
- History of Boston’s Water Supply
- Water Quality, Water Diseases, Storage, and Treatment
- Participation and Solid Waste Management
- Community Water Treatment
- WASH, Disasters, and Refugees
- Centralized Water Treatment
- Hygiene and Menstrual Hygiene
- Final Projects
- Final Projects and Cool Careers
Readings
- [FG] Mihelcic, James, Lauren Fry, et al. Field Guide to Environmental Engineering for Development Workers: Water, Sanitation, and Indoor Air . American Society of Civil Engineers Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780784409855.
- Week: 1 · Required readings: No assigned readings · additional readings: Kanbur, Ravi, and Andy Sumner. “Poor countries or poor people? Development assistance and the new geography of global poverty.” Journal of International Development 24, no. 6 (2012): 686-695.
- [FG] Chapters 1, 2 and 9
- World Health Organization and UNICEF. “Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and SDG baselines.” (2017).
- Week: 3 · Required readings: Barrett, M. A., and Steven A. Osofsky. “One Health: Interdependence of people, other species, and the planet.” In Jekel’s Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Preventive Medicine, and Public Health, 4th edition (Katz DL, et al., eds.). Saunders, 2013. ISBN: 9781455706587.
- Week: 4 · Required readings: [FG] Chapters 6, 19, and 20
- Pickford, John. Low-Cost Sanitation: A Survey of Practical Experience . Intermediate Technology Publications Ltd (ITP), 1995. ISBN: 9781853392337.
- Week: 5 · Required readings: [FG] Chapters 22 and 23
- Swallow, Pamela C. The Remarkable Life and Career of Ellen Swallow Richards: Pioneer in Science and Technology . John Wiley & Sons, 2014. ISBN: 9781118923832.
- Vesilind, P. Aarne and Susan Murcott. “Ellen Swallow Richards.” Environmental Engineer 32, no. 4 (1996): 13–18.
- [FG] Chapters 14 and 17
- Week: 8 · Required readings: [FG] Chapter 24
- Week: 9 · Required readings: [FG] Chapter 18
- Clasen, T. “Household water treatment and safe storage in low-income countries.” In Water and Sanitation-Related Diseases and the Environment: Challenges, Interventions, and Preventive Measures . Selendy, Janine MH (ed). Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. ISBN: 9780470527856.
- Sima, Laura, and Menachem Elimelech. “Informal small-scale water services in developing countries: The business of water for those without formal municipal connections.” In Water and Sanitation-Related Diseases and the Environment: Challenges, Interventions, and Preventive Measures . Selendy, Janine MH (ed). Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. ISBN: 9780470527856.
- Clopeck, Kate. “Ghana’s water women.” Technology Review (November/December 2013): 20–21.
- Week: 10 · Required readings: [FG] Chapter 3
- Parr, Jeremy, Michael Smith, and Rod Shaw. “Chlorination.” Chapter 46 in UNICEF Cholera toolkit . UNICEF, 2017.
- Week: 13 · Required readings: No assigned readings
- Week: 14 · Required readings: No assigned readings
- Mihelcic, James, Lauren Fry, et al. Field Guide to Environmental Engineering for Development Workers: Water, Sanitation, and Indoor Air . American Society of Civil Engineers Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780784409855.
- Recommended:
- Bartram, Jamie. Routledge Handbook of Water and Health . Routledge, 2018. ISBN: 9781138495302.
Prerequisites & course information
Subject meets with EC.715[J] , MAD.715[J] Prereq: None G (Spring) 3-0-9 units
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2019
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.