Principal Investigator: Stephanie Lansing Proposal No: 1034836
This work takes advantage of pre-earthquake data, collected in 2008 by Dr. Lansing of the University of Maryland, on the wastewater treatment needs and energy infrastructure of the Partners in Health (PIH) medical complex in Cange, Haiti. The PIH hospital is one of the most well equipped hospitals in Haiti and has received a rapid influx of internal refugees. Using the 2008 data as a control, the post-earthquake change in water, wastewater, and energy needs will be quantified and a flexible and sustainable system for rapid expansion of the waste treatment and energy production capacity will be developed. Specifically, this project will (1) assess the wastewater and energy needs of critical medical infrastructure in a post earthquake environment through a follow-up survey and compare this data to pre-earthquake data in order to quantify the impact of internal refuges on wastewater and energy infrastructure, (2) create a sustainable design for meeting wastewater and energy demands in planned refugees communities by incorporating biodigesters for wastewater treatment, energy production, and liquid fertilizer creation and couple this appropriate treatment technology with agriculture and hydroponic systems, and (3) implement a flexible and adaptable biodigestion system for meeting increased energy and water demand in a surviving medical complex. The work will be done in consultation with a team of engineers, scientists, and students from the Univ. of Maryland, Clemson Univ., and private practice that have previous experience in Haiti and have developed an excellent rapport with the Haitian engineering, agriculturalist, and community outreach counterparts at the PIH facility. The funds requested will be used to pay salary and research assistants to collect and analyze hydrologic data, purchase metering equipment to quantify water and biogas flows, and international travel to and from Haiti.
Literature has stressed the importance of assessing and prioritizing the immediate potable water and wastewater needs for maintaining the short-term public health of the post-disaster population, but despite the academic consensus for these types of assessments, the literature rarely quantifies the degree to which components of a country?s health infrastructure is stressed. Similarly, there is a paucity of research on how this infrastructure can be rebuilt quickly, affordably, and sustainably. This proposed research seeks to fill this need by quantifying the change in energy demand and wastewater quantity on the existing health care infrastructure in Haiti?s immediate post-earthquake environment and use this data to inform the design of an innovative biodigestion system that incorporates energy production, crop development, and water reuse in its treatment model.
By designing for water treatment and energy production using an appropriate technology, a sustainable model for rebuilding Haitian communities devastated by the recent earthquake will be produced. The lessons learned from the design and implementation of this biodigester design in the Summer of 2010 can be used by NGOs and Haitian governmental agencies for designing refugee camps with landscapes that incorporate waste treatment through biodigesters, have hydroponic gardens connected to the effluent from water distribution points, and contain sustainable cropping areas near the biodigester facility to receive the fertilizer-rich effluent. In this model, waste is used as a resource for energy production, irrigation and fertilizer. Agriculture in Haiti has been devastated by soil erosion caused by the need for cooking charcoal. By taking a waste and creating energy in the form of biogas while providing nutrients and water for crop production, the designs presented will have a large impact on a country that has a unique opportunity to design the landscape in a way that integrates humans and the environment in a sustainable manner.
This award is co-funded by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE).
Many communities in the developing world have inadequate waste treatment due to lack of infrastructure, limited access to energy, and inability to remove and properly dispose of septic sludge from decentralized systems. The country of Haiti serves as an example where the sanitation and energy needs are some of the most evident and pressing in the developing world. Methods of human waste treatment are needed that exploit the large nutrient and energy content of human excreta. The lack of infrastructure in Haiti presents an opportunity for a paradigm shift to low-cost anaerobic digestion facilities. These facilities allow communities to reap benefits from their waste, including renewable energy through the production of methane-enriched biogas, treatment of the organics in the wastewater and creation of a nutrient-rich fertilizer source that has a 99% reductions in pathogens, thus providing an economic incentive for the collection and treatment of domestic waste. There were three major research activities and four major education activities as part of this one-year NSF RAPID grant. Research Activities: (1) Assess the wastewater and energy needs of critical medical infrastructure in a post-earthquake environment, compare this data to pre-earthquake data, and determine the resiliency of the existing system in responding to natural disasters. (2) Determine the biogas potential of source-separated wastewater in order to inform anaerobic digestion design. (3) Design a sustainable anaerobic digestion system to meet increased Educational Activities: (1) Led a group of six senior Capstone design students in designing an anaerobic digestion system for Cange, Haiti. (2): Incorporate five sustainable technologies appropriate for Haiti into teaching curriculum in the newly created ENST 481/691 Ecological Design class. (3) Development and teaching of a new class entitled: ENST 689b Sustainable Technologies for Haiti. (4) Anaerobic digestion presentations to school groups, farmers, and professional societies. Findings: Our work shows that the PIH complex displayed a high level of resiliency with regard to increased demands for natural gas and drinking water, "system inflows," but less resiliency with regard to managing wastewater, "outflows." As the PIH complex’s patient population returned to pre-earthquake levels, the energy needs of the hospital remained at its elevated, post-earthquake levels due to the increased staffing infrastructure created to deal with the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, a socio-ecological change that seems to mimic changes in steady states found elsewhere in purely ecological systems. These findings are significant because we were able to quantify specific points of institutional resiliency and fragility in response to a natural disaster. Few studies of disaster management or vulnerability studies have shown the specific points at which key services (in this case, a hospital) are vulnerable to rapid system shocks brought on by natural disasters. An anaerobic digestion system that treats and produces energy from latrine and black water was designed for a Partners in Health (PIH) hospital in Cange, Haiti. Wastewater samples from various sources, including latrines, black water and grey water were collected, characterized and biochemical methane potential (BMP) testing was preformed. Based on the BMP results for the source-separated wastewater, an anaerobic digestion treatment system was designed that uses black water from the external clinic to fill a tipping bucket, which flushes a latrine raceway into a three-cell digestion system with wetland/trickling filter post-treatment system. The estimated methane gas production for the feedstocks entering the digester was calculated to be 28 L per day. The BMP results showed that the grey water had a much lower organic content and methane potential than the latrine wastes, and is thus directed directly to the post-treatment system. The black water, which needs further treatment due to pathogen risk but has a low solids content, is used to convey the high methane potential latrine solids into the digester. This design allows the high solids latrine wastes to be digested without the use of pumps and with a lower risk for clogging. Construction documents were prepared for a new latrine building based on International Building Codes for seismic activity and hurricane force winds. The latrine building and anaerobic digestion system will be constructed in Summer 2011. A post-treatment system composed of wetlands and trickling filters was designed for the digester effluent and the grey water sources. Further studies are needed to determine the safety of the digester effluent for agriculture purposes due to the recent outbreak of v. cholera.
