Sanitation sustainability, seasonality and stacking: Improved facilities for how long, where and whom?

Despite laudable efforts by Sustainable Development Goal 6 to promote inclusiveness and sustainability, there is a danger that its global, target‐based focus may eclipse context‐specific sanitation priorities and constraints. Drawing primarily on qualitative village‐based research in Guwahati, India, this paper explores how specific geographical settings influence sanitation sustainability (“improved for where/when and how long?”) and user‐based priorities (“improved for whom?”). Emphasis is placed on sustainability concerns associated with pit emptying, poor construction and seasonal flooding. Shit flow diagrams are used to illustrate seasonal variations in estimates of safely managed sanitation. These estimates are compared with alternative criteria for monitoring access to “improved” or “safe” sanitation technologies. Our findings indicate that poor latrine construction and maintenance coupled with seasonal flooding cause frequent shifts between “improved and “unimproved” or “shared” systems along with significant changes in estimates of safely managed sanitation. Sanitation “stacking” (simultaneous use of a range of sanitation systems) also occurs due to preferences for open defecation coupled with high demand for existing latrines; especially during seasonal flooding. Arguments are made for the need to monitor seasonal variations in use, quality and continuity of access to sanitation facilities and capture data on sanitation “stacking” if “sanitation for all” is to be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]