PhD positions available at UNESCO-IHE in collaboration with MakerereUniversity and the Kampala City Council in Uganda
An interdisciplinary research program entitled "*Integrated approaches and
strategies to address the Sanitation Crisis in Unsewered Slum Areas in
African mega-cities (SCUSA)*", funded by the UNESCO-IHE Partnership Research
Fund (UPaRF), will be carried out by UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water
Education (Delft, The Netherlands), Makerere University, and the Kampala
City Council, both in Uganda.
The SCUSA research program addresses one of the most relevant developmental
issues worldwide: a reduction of under-5 child mortality rates due to
water-borne diseases, and malnutrition in low-income unplanned urban
settlements. As such, the project will contribute to the realization of
Millenium Development Goal 7, Target 10 (i.e. to halve, by 2015, the
proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water). The
SCUSA research program has identified three projects, centered around a slum
area of Kampala. To carry out these research projects, three strongly
interdisciplinary PhD positions are vacant.
Project description
The development and expansion of informal settlements in the peri-urban
areas of African cities is widespread, while these cities harbour the
majority of the urban population. Peri-urban areas, or slums, are
characterized by, among other things, poorly constructed houses, poor water
supply and sanitary conditions, and lack or inadequate support services.
Besides the spreading of diseases related to surface water (e.g. malaria),
one of the main problems associated with sanitation and water in peri-urban
areas is related to the pollutant load entering and leaving the peri-urban
catchment, either as surface water or groundwater. This water is polluting
drinking water (with increased incidence of cholera and diarrhoea) or
eutrophying surface water, due to extremely high nutrient fluxes discharged
from the surrounding catchments. As a result, the main research question of
the SCUSA research program is: *How to improve sanitation in peri-urban
urban slum areas?
Ph.D. project 1: Wastewater and solid waste treatment and reusePh.D. project
2: The socio-economic aspects of improving sanitation Ph.D. project 3:
Hydrology and contaminant transport*The following applies to all 3 Ph.D.
positions:
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