Sensors for clean water: a participatory approach for technology innovation

Access to clean water is fundamental for life.

It is estimated that more than 1.5 million children under five years old die every year from diarrhoeal diseases due to unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation. Ensuring the provision of clean water is thus a crucial challenge in low income countries. Yet access to safe drinking water continues to be a challenge globally. For example, in Vanuatu, five thousand households depend on unimproved river, lake or spring water. A consequence of this is a high rate of diarrhoea. Providing clean water across Vanuatu is particularly challenging. This is partly due to the geographical isolation of the many rural communities spread across Vanuatu's 80 islands. Vanuatu is also the most disaster prone country in the world, with a high susceptibility to natural disasters and a low coping capacity. For example, following Tropical Cyclone Pam (March 2015) half the population was without clean drinking water for one month after two thirds of water and sanitation infrastructure was destroyed.

The aim of our research is to work with poor communities in Vanuatu most affected by this problem, in order to develop water monitoring technologies that will provide assurance about the safety of their drinking water. Traditional approaches for technology development, where technologies are developed on behalf people, rather than with and by communities, tend to have limited impact. We plan to take a different approach, an approach we call Integrated Participatory Technology Development (iPTD). iPTD embeds communities at every phase of the technology innovation process, from defining the initial technology specification, through to design, testing, and optimization. By working with communities from the outset, we will ensure sensing technology that is designed precisely to meet the needs, skills and environment in which the community live.

This programme will co-develop water monitoring technology to improve the health and well-being of poor and marginalised communities. There is a clear and significant correlation between health and wealth. Our proposal thus also contributes to the economic growth of ODA countries. The technologies we develop have the potential to be extended beyond water monitoring. For example, microarrays of our innovative photonic biosensors could be applied to susceptibility phenotyping of pathogens; a critical challenge in the global battle against antimicrobial resistance. Our impact strategy engages actors at different scales, including:

1) Individual community members in ODA counties and their representatives.
2) Business/ industry including: manufacturers and suppliers of medical devices and analytical instruments; diagnostics companies; research equipment manufacturers; water service providers.
3) Policymakers and decision makers within regional and national government.
4) National and international NGOs; donors and civil society bodies.
5) Representatives from the global academic community with an interest in applying science and technology in developing country contexts.

Likely stakeholder benefits include:

Communities in Vanuatu and beyond: Individuals and communities will benefit through capacity building, education, awareness raising and relationship building with key national and international stakeholders. For example, the multi-stakeholder meetings run through our iPTD process will empower communities, enabling them to build strong relationships with provincial and national government and to influence key decision makers by highlighting challenges and constraints to water access. While we focus here on communities in Vanuatu, our technologies and iPTD approach are applicable across ODA countries. Wide adoption of iPTD will thus impact marginalised communities globally.

Healthcare impact: Our co-developed sensor technologies will enable communities to better assess, preserve and manage their water supplies. This will protect the health of communities by: enabling routine, community-led assessment of water sources; providing tools to assess the cleanliness of water storage tanks and rainwater cisterns; identifying sources of contamination to empower communities to take remedial action; enabling rapid monitoring of local water quality following emergencies and natural disasters; determining the efficacy of water treatment processes. Critically, our technology will be co-developed with communities most affected by the challenges of clean water access. This not only ensures technology and associated institutions that are designed specifically to meet community needs, skills and environment, but also promotes community buy-in and long term sustainability and access.

Commercial and Economic impact: Manufacturers of diagnostic, medical and analytical technologies and Water service providers will benefit through access to prototype technology that has been co-designed, tested and validated in and by communities; the ultimate end user of the technology. Our explicit goal is to make technology accessible to vulnerable communities. We will thus establish a multi-stakeholder network, including academics, economists, community representatives, NGOs, national government, and industry to establish pathways for translation. In the longer term, the technology has the potential to be extended beyond water monitoring to address a range of healthcare challenges. For example, our innovative photonic sensors can be fabricated in array-format for multiplexed detection of disease biomarkers; a critical capability underpinning personalized/ stratified medicine. Similarly, our focus on rapid detection of bacteria could also be applied to diagnostics that inform the better use of antimicrobial therapies.