Sanitation in Urban India and Brazil

TOSSIB (Towards Sustainable Sanitation in India and Brazil) studies sustainability outcomes across different sanitation systems, geographical contexts (India, Brazil) and temporal scales using multiple analytical approaches and state-of-the-art modelling. Scenario building  will support decision makers in uncovering plausible futures.

The project will enhance our understanding of complex human-environment interactions and their sustainability outcomes. It hopes to enable change in addressing multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 

• reducing inequalities in promoting sustainable sanitation for low-income areas (SDG10, SDG12); 
• supporting the development of sanitation infrastructures that are culturally appropriate, more inclusive, economically viable and less wasteful (SDG6, SDG11); 
• helping to reduce common health risks associated with the lack of sanitation (SDG3); and progressing the improvement of living standards for the poor (SDG11).

 The project focus is on the watershed region containing Greater Mumbai (India) and on the Rio das Velhas Watershed (Brazil), which is home to Belo Horizonte. Beyond densely populated urban centres, these watershed regions contain formal and informal communities of different sizes, villages, as well as swaths of sparsely populated agricultural land, forests and mangroves. 

The municipalities and communities in these regions face fundamental sanitation challenges (such as the universal collection and treatment of sewage). They offer unique opportunities to study the entanglement of co-evolving urban, peri-urban and rural systems at varying stages of infrastructural development.  

The main question framing this project is: 

How can sanitation be planned, designed, implemented, maintained and used in ways that improve human well-being and minimise negative sustainability trade-offs in the short- and long-term? 

We adopt a transdisciplinary, multi-layered and multi-study comparative approach. The project has four interlinked objectives:

• (Obj1) to understand the components of different types of interlinked sanitation systems and their interactions with other social, technical and environmental systems
• (Obj2) to reveal the interactions between different sanitation systems and the Sustainable Development agenda, SDGs and their targets
• (Obj3) to co-develop models and tools with stakeholders that support informed decision making in sanitation towards sustainable development
• (Obj4) to build transdisciplinary capacity in sanitation research, design, planning, implementation, management and maintenance

UK Team

Prof Deljana Iossifova, University of Manchester, Architecture (International Lead and PI UK)

Dr Eric Cheung, University of Manchester (Research Associate)

Elsa Holm, University of Manchester (Research Associate)

India Team

Prof Amita Bhide, TATA Institute of Social Sciences (PI India)

Richa Bhardwaj, TATA  Institute of Social Sciences (Research Associate)

Purva Dewoolkar, TATA  Institute of Social Sciences (Research Associate)

Brazil Team

Prof Norma Valencio (Federal University of São Carlos  (PI Brazil)

Advisory Board/Consultancy

Dr Ana Paula  Baltazar, Federal University of Minas Gerais

Dr Murilo da Silva Baptista, University of Aberdeen, Complex Systems and Mathematical Biology 

Dr Alexandros Gasparatos, University of Tokyo, Sustainability Science

Prof Em Clara Greed, University of the West of England

Prof Nir Oren, University of Aberdeen, Computer Science 

Dr Ana Auguast Rezende, Federal University of Vicosa

Ulysses Sengupta, Machester Metropolitan University, Architecture

Dr Jose Siri , Wellcome Trust

TOSSIB is funded by the Royal Society’s Challenge-Led Grants scheme.  

Duration: 03/2019 – 03/2023

Funding:  £499,993 (FEC)