Abstract
The Humanitarian Agents (HAs), are among the first entities dealing with the impacts of natural and man-made disasters. This is more than essential in areas, where the National governments and associated economies are either overwhelmed to respond or unprepared to act. Under such pressing conditions, the agents, as any other similar entity, depend on a variety of monitoring and assessment tools in order to reach the most suitable decisions per case. These tools are mostly employed for the scope definition and the content of their responses, the communication of the information among the various agents, and the reporting to their donors and other beneficiaries. To this end, several field tools have been developed worldwide. Building on such a background, the present effort describes a new tool and it argues towards the development and implementation of a WASH related Composite Index. The purpose of the Index is to facilitate the WASH related assessments in refugee camps, by capturing and reflecting the actual WASH conditions and provide the necessary information for efficient program planning and implementation. Starting with Europe and specifically the humanitarian camps in Greece, the development of the Index may allow its worldwide application, while adhering to the necessary and essential standards that govern the work of all HAs operating in the sector.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adam F (2008) Encyclopedia of decision making and decision support technologies. Information Science Reference, Hershey
Akpabio EM, Takara K (2014) Understanding and confronting cultural complexities characterizing water, sanitation and hygiene in sub-Saharan Africa. Water Int 39:921–932. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2015.981782
Bandura R (2005) Measuring country performance and state behavior: a survey of composite indices. Prepared for the book project: the new public finance: responding to global challenges. Office of Development Studies United Nations Development Programme
Bandura R (2008) A survey of composite indices measuring country performance: 2008 update. Office of Development Studies United Nations Development Programme
Baquero OF, Gallego-Ayala J, Giné-Garriga R et al (2017) The influence of the human rights to water and sanitation normative content in measuring the level of service. Soc Indic Res 133:763–786. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1374-6
Christen P, Pudjijono A (2009) Accurate synthetic generation of realistic personal information. In: Theeramunkong T, Kijsirikul B, Cercone N, Ho T-B (eds) Advances in knowledge discovery and data mining. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, pp 507–514
Cohen A, Sullivan C (2010) Water and poverty in rural China: developing an instrument to assess the multiple dimensions of water and poverty. Ecol Econ 69:999–1009
Davies T, Isakjee A (2015) Geography, migration and abandonment in the Calais refugee camp. Polit Geogr 49:93–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2015.08.003
De Martino B, Kumaran D, Seymour B, Dolan RJ (2006) Frames, biases, and rational decision-making in the human brain. Science 313:684–687. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1128356
Deen S (2015) Pakistan 2010 floods. Policy gaps in disaster preparedness and response. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 12:341–349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.03.007
European Environment Agency (2005) EEA core set of indicators: guide. Publications Office, Luxembourg
Finnveden G, Moberg Å (2005) Environmental systems analysis tools: an overview. J Clean Prod 13:1165–1173
Giné Garriga R, Pérez Foguet A (2013a) Water, sanitation, hygiene and rural poverty: issues of sector monitoring and the role of aggregated indicators. Water Policy 15:1018–1045. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2013.037
Giné Garriga R, Pérez Foguet A (2013b) Unravelling the linkages between water, sanitation, hygiene and rural poverty: the WASH poverty index. Water Resour Manag 27:1501–1515. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-012-0251-6
Haines-Young R, Potschin M, Kienast F (2012) Indicators of ecosystem service potential at European scales: mapping marginal changes and trade-offs. Ecol Indic 21:39–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.09.004
Hutton G (2015) Benefits and costs of the water sanitation and hygiene targets for the Post-2015 development agenda. World Bank
Johannessen Å, Rosemarin A, Thomalla F, Gerger Swartling Å, Axel Stenström T, Vulturius G (2014) Strategies for building resilience to hazards in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) systems: the role of public private partnerships. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 10:102–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2014.07.002
Karavitis CA, Tsesmelis DE, Skondras NA, Stamatakos D, Alexandris S, Fassouli V, Vasilakou CG, Oikonomou PD, Gregorič G, Grigg NS, Vlachos EC (2014) Linking drought characteristics to impacts on a spatial and temporal scale. Water Policy 16:1172–1197. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2014.205
Karon AJ, Cronin AA, Cronk R, Hendrawan R (2017) Improving water, sanitation, and hygiene in schools in Indonesia: a cross-sectional assessment on sustaining infrastructural and behavioral interventions. Int J Hyg Environ Health 220:539–550. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheh.2017.02.001
Mills JE, Cumming O (2016) the impact of water, sanitation and hygiene on key health and social outcomes: UNICEF/SHARE
Morcol G (ed) (2006) Handbook of decision making, 1st edn. Boca Raton, Routledge
OECD (2008) Handbook on constructing composite indicators: methodology and user guide. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Pérez-Foguet A, Giné Garriga R (2011) Analyzing water poverty in basins. Water Resour Manag 25:3595–3612. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-011-9872-4
Rebizant W, Szafran J, Wiszniewski A (2011) Digital signal processing in power system protection and control. Springer-Verlag, London
Requejo-Castro D, Giné-Garriga R, Flores-Baquero Ó, Martínez G, Rodríguez A, de Palencia AJF, Pérez-Foguet A (2017) SIASAR: a country-led indicator framework for monitoring the rural water and sanitation sector in Latin America and the Caribbean. Water Pract Technol 12:372–385. https://doi.org/10.2166/wpt.2017.041
Rogge N (2012) Undesirable specialization in the construction of composite policy indicators: the environmental performance index. Ecol Indic 23:143–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.03.020
Segnestam L (2002) Indicators of environment and sustainable development. Int Bank Reconstr Dev World Bank 66
Sharif Ahmadian A (2016) Chapter 7 - numerical modeling and simulation. In: Sharif Ahmadian A (ed) Numerical models for submerged breakwaters. Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston, pp 109–126
Sibanda W, Pretorius P (2012) Artificial neural networks- a review of applications of neural networks in the modeling of HIV epidemic. Int J Comput Appl 44:9
Skondras NA, Karavitis CA, Gkotsis II, Scott PJB, Kaly UL, Alexandris SG (2011) Application and assessment of the environmental vulnerability index in Greece. Ecol Indic 11:1699–1706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.04.010
Sphere Project (ed) (2018) The sphere handbook: humanitarian charter and minimum standards in humanitarian response, Fourth edn. Switzerland, Sphere Association, Geneva
Sullivan C (2002) Calculating a water poverty index. World Dev 30:1195–1210
Surendra H, Mohan HS (2017) A review of synthetic data generation methods for privacy preserving data publishing. IJSTR 6 (3): 95–101
ten Brink P (2012) The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity in national and international policy making. Routledge
Tsesmelis DE, Karavitis CA, Oikonomou PD, Alexandris S, Kosmas C (2019a) Assessment of the vulnerability to drought and desertification characteristics using the standardized drought vulnerability index (SDVI) and the environmentally sensitive areas index (ESAI). Resources 8:6. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources8010006
Tsesmelis DE, Oikonomou PD, Vasilakou CG, Skondras NA, Fassouli V, Alexandris SG, Grigg NS, Karavitis CA (2019b) Assessing structural uncertainty caused by different weighting methods on the standardized drought vulnerability index (SDVI). Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 33:515–533. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-019-01648-4
Tu B, Zhang Z, Wang S, Qian H (2014) Making fisher discriminant analysis scalable. In: International Conference on Machine Learning, pp 964–972
UNHCR (2017a) Site profiles – Greece. UNHCR, Athens
UNHCR (2017b) Regional refugee responses plan. UNHCR, regional representation for West Africa (RRWA), Dakar, Senegal, Nigeria
UNHCR Situation Mediterranean Situation (n.d.) In: Mediterr. Refug. Data Portal Hosted UNHCR. https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterranean. Accessed 17 Sep 2019
UNICEF (2016) Water, Sanitation and Hygiene 2016–2030. UNICEF, New York
Webb AL, Stein AD, Ramakrishnan U, Hertzberg VS, Urizar M, Martorell R (2006) A simple index to measure hygiene behaviours. Int J Epidemiol 35:1469–1477. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl165
WHO, UNICEF (2006) Core questions on drinking-water and sanitation for household surveys. WHO/UNICEF, Geneva
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
None.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Appendices
Appendix 1 - Generic description of the selected camps
-
1.
Kara Tepe (Prefecture of North Aegean) – Date: 07/11/2016
Kara Tepe camp is located in Mytilene City and is managed by the Municipality of Lesvos Island. It is considered to be among the best camps in Greece. At the time of the data collection, the camp was undergoing shelter replacement from Refugee Housing Units (RHU) to prefabricated units (containers). In terms of WASH:
It is connected to the municipal water supply and sewage networks;
Hot water is always available – olive kernel burner;
Gender segregated semi-permanent showers and latrines;
Hygiene promotion activities and daily distribution of hygiene items;
Relatively good drainage conditions;
Cleaning, maintenance and pest control services are provided;
- 2.
Skaramagkas (Prefecture of Attica) – Date: 16/05/2016
Skaramagkas is an official camp populated by 3118 people. Camp management is delivered by the Hellenic War Navy in collaboration with the Municipality of Chaidarion and the Hellenic Army regarding to infrastructure issues. In terms of WASH:
It is equipped with 400 prefabricated housing containers. Each hosts two families with common showers – bath;
Connected to the municipal water supply network and the sewage system is connected to septic tanks;
Desludging, garbage collection and cleaning services are provided;
- 3.
SK Market (Prefecture of Macedonia) – Date: 17/04/2016
SK Market site is located at the prefecture of Macedonia and is managed by the Hellenic army. It was opened as an emergency reception site at the end of May 2016 to host refugees from unofficial camps like Eidomeni and has a capacity of 500 persons. In terms of WASH:
Connected to the municipal water supply and sewage networks;
The water availability is less than 15lt/person/day;
No Hygiene promotion activities or garbage collection services;
Adequate number of chemical toilets and portable showers – all gender segregated.
- 4.
Frakapor (Prefecture of Macedonia) – Date: 17/04/2016
Frakapor site is located in the prefecture of Macedonia and is managed by the Hellenic Air Force. It was opened as an emergency reception site at the end of May 2016 to host refugees from unofficial camps like Eidomeni and has a capacity of 600 persons. In terms of WASH:
It is not connected to the municipality network. 25m3 of water is trucked in the camp on a daily basis;
Hot water is only available via electric boilers;
Disludging and cleaning services are provided and 20 garbage bins are allocated around the camp;
Hygiene promotion activities and regular hygiene kits distributions are taking place;
The camp is equipped with chemical toilets and portable showers.
- 5.
Vasilika (Prefecture of Macedonia) – Date: 20/04/2016
Vasilika (Radestos) camp is located in the prefecture of Macedonia and is managed by the Hellenic Air Force. It was opened as an emergency reception camp middle of June 2016 to host refugees from unofficial camps and has a capacity of 1500 persons. In terms of WASH:
Water supply comes from municipal network;
Availability of hot water via electric boilers spread across the camp;
4 water points with each of one having 10 tabs with adequate pressure;
The camp is connected to the municipal sewage system and is also equipped with septic tanks;
The camp is equipped with chemical toilets and portable showers;
Desludging and cleaning services are provided;
Hygiene promotion activities and regular hygiene kits distributions are taking place;
- 6.
EKO Gas Station (Prefecture of Macedonia) – Date: 21/04/2016
The camp was prepared as a temporary solution to the crisis and it was managed by the Hellenic Police. It reached a capacity of 1237 persons. In terms of WASH:
It was connected to the municipal water supply network;
No connection to the sewage system;
It was equipped with chemical toilets and portable showers – gender segregated;
No hygiene promotion and messaging;
No pest control services were provided;
Cleaning and maintenance services were provided;
- 7.
Chara Hotel (Prefecture of Macedonia) – Date:26/04/2016
The hotel was occupied by almost 1300 refugees from Eidomeni without prior approval from the local or national authorities or the owner of the hotel. For this reason, the owner cut the water supply of the hotel. However:
Chemical toilets and portable showers had been installed;
Water was being transported on a daily basis;
Due to the lack of water, the sewage system was not operational;
Poor hygiene conditions despite the frequent cleaning of the hotel;
- 8.
Eidomeni (Prefecture of Macedonia) – 28/04/2016
Eidomeni was developed immediately after the decision of the neighbor countries to close their borders and cut the refugees’ route to the rest of Europe. Eidomeni was the largest camp in the country reaching a population of approximately 10,000 people. It served as a temporary camp before the people were relocated to other camps. The camp caused many problems for both the local population and the refugees. Specifically, the extended accommodation of the refugees got them into a position of constant unrest, which came to affect the locals due to raids and other related activities. Not all the refugees participated in those actions. Just a small number of them, but that was enough for the national media to misuse the occasions. In terms of WASH:
Chemical toilets and portable showers had been installed;
There was no connection to municipal water supply or sewage networks;
Very poor hygiene conditions;
No drainage system;
- 9.
Malakasa (Prefecture of Attica) – Date: 17/05/2016
Malakasa camp has a designed capacity of 1500 people and is managed by the Greek Ministry of Migration and the Greek Army in terms of infrastructure. In terms of WASH:
The camp is connected to the municipal water supply;
Containers are being used for showers and latrines – gender segregated;
No adequate hygiene messaging and promotion;
Pest control and cleaning services are provided;
- 10.
Petra Olympou (Prefecture of Macedonia) – Date: 27/04/2016
Petra camp is in Pieria (30 km near Katerini) and the Hellenic Army manages it. The population of this camp is around 1000. The camp is separate in three sectors due to its anaglyph. The camp closed due to the heavy winter in the region and the lack of heating. In terms of WASH:
The camp water supply comes from the municipal network;
Hygiene promotion activities regarding environment-cleaning practices (garbage collection, food waste treatment, etc.);
The camp is equipped with sex segregated chemical toilets but not similarly segregated showers;
No drainage system is available.
- 11.
Serres (Prefecture of Serres) – Date: 20/06/2016
The camp has a population of 420 people and is managed by the Ministry of Migration. In terms of WASH:
The camp is connected to the municipal water supply and sewage network;
It is equipped with chemical toilets and portable showers – gender segregated;
No hygiene messaging and promotion;
No distribution of hygiene items;
Very poor hygiene conditions;
No pest control services are provided;
- 12.
Pikpa (Prefecture of North Aegean) – 07/11/2016
Pikpa camp is located in Mytilene, Lesvos Island and is managed by a self-organized group of local and international volunteers under the name of “The Village of All Together.” The camp was a former summer camp for the children for summer vacations. In terms of WASH:
The camp is connected to the municipal network but the sewage network is connected to septic tanks;
There is a building for gender segregated showers and latrines. Additionally, there are six rooms with individual bathrooms for extremely vulnerable people;
Desludging services are provided;
The cleaning and the maintenance of the camp is under the responsibilities of the volunteers;
Appendix 2
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tsesmelis, D.E., Skondras, N.A., Khan, S.Y.A. et al. Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Index: Development and Application to Measure WASH Service Levels in European Humanitarian Camps. Water Resour Manage 34, 2449–2470 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-020-02562-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-020-02562-z