Civil and Environmental Engineering
Nathaniel Collingwood, Gooch Paynter, Ba English, American Literature, Nathaniel Collingwood Gooch Paynter, Susan Murcott, Oral Buyukozturk · Civil and environmental engineering · 2010
Nepal suffers from severe microbial contamination of its water supplies.Because of its relative poverty and large rural population, Nepal cannot afford to install centralized water treatment systems to serve the majority of its population in the near future, and therefore treatment must be on a household point-of-use scale.For the past two years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nepal Water Project Master of Engineering teams have traveled to Nepal to research the water situation and try to devise a water treatment solution.In January 2001, I traveled to Nepal as part of this year's Nepal Water Project to study the pilot project implementation of a water treatment system, the BioSand Water Filter (BSF).The purpose of my thesis has been to evaluate the water needs and supplies, sanitation, contaminated water -health connection, and local attitudes towards filtration.I found that while there was widespread use and acceptance of the BSF, there was not a corresponding improvement in health.Additionally, there did not appear to be a complete understanding of water contamination and its various pathways.However, with a basic education and technical monitoring program accompanying the BSF distribution, health improvements should become more pronounced.