Research (Wiki)

A working summary of our research goes here:

Project-specific

Blogs/After-Action Reports From Projects: I think that, in order to be effective as we try to implement our own projects, it would be valuable for us to read about the projects others have undertaken that are similar to ours. With that in mind, my next research goal is to find a list of blogs and papers from similar projects.

EWB-SFP (Engineers Without Borders - San Francisco Professionals) Tanzania Project: EWB has been working since 2004 in Tanzania to provide safe drinking water, improved irrigation, and a health dispensary. On this page, you will find many detailed papers about every step of their process, from the pre-assessment stage to the implementation stages.

Topical

Reforestation/Aquifer Recharge

Sources regarding sustainable development utilizing either reforestation, aquifer recharge, or both:

The Watershed Organization Trust is a group working in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India to provide sustainable development. Though they don't seem to do much with aquifer recharge, they do work to increase the quality of the local watershed through reforestation and education. Here is a link to a detailed paper on their work.
Here is a paper published by the University of the Andes, regarding a sustainable development project they did that utilized reforestation. Unfortunately, everything but the abstract is in Spanish and so I can't read it very well, but I believe it would be valuable if we could find someone who could. The paper can be found as an attachment at the bottom of the page

Public Health Assessments Following Water Projects

Interventions to improve water quality for preventing diarrhoea: systematic review and meta-analysis - This article examines data from various studies and looks at the effectiveness of various water projects in reducing diarrhoea.
REDUCING DIARRHEA THROUGH THE USE OF HOUSEHOLD-BASED CERAMIC WATER FILTERS: A RANDOMIZED, CONTROLLED TRIAL IN RURAL BOLIVIA - This article describes a study in which half of the households in a rural community in Bolivia receive ceramic water filters. The result is a marked decrease in the occurrence of diarrhoea.

Global Health Brigades has created and utilizes a software called the "GWB Data Informatics System" that it installs in the clinics of areas where it does health projects. It allows local clinicians to better help their patients by keeping track of their health records, but it also collects data on health trends.

Promising abstracts for articles that require payment: Many published articles on this subject require payment. If they contain promising information, then perhaps they are worth the cost, and so their abstracts are posted here so that someone can look at them and decide whether or not these are worth the cost.

What Works in Fighting Diarrheal Diseases in Developing Countries? A Critical Review - This article makes the claim that community level water infrastructure (ie. wells) are not effective at improving the health of people in rural villages.
Attitudinal and Relational Factors Predicting the Use of Solar Water Disinfection: A Field Study in Nicaragua - This article interviews people in Nicaragua, half of whom use SODIS and half of whom do not, about why they use or do not use this technology. "The resultsshowed that intention to use and actual use are mainly relatedto an overall positive attitude, intention to use is relatedto the use of SODIS by neighbors, and actual use is relatedto knowledge about SODIS; SODIS users reported a significantlylower incidence in diarrhea than SODIS nonusers. These resultssuggest that promotion activities should aim at creating a positiveattitude, for example, by choosing a promoter that is able toinspire confidence in the new technology."

General

Sustainable Development

The United Nations Division on Sustainable Development published a report of case studies on sustainable development in Africa. None of them directly pertain to other topics, so they are being posted here. Here is the site for the report.

Sustainable Development Venezuela (Spanish).PDF - on Jul 17, 2008 11:59 AM by Daniel Bachhuber (version 2 / earlier versions)
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