Implementation of a water safety strategy

Implementation of a water safety strategy

Section: SIE

Location : Dübendorf, Switzerland and Birendranagar, Nepal. 

Duration : 4 months 

Availability : not recruiting 

Hosting structure: Sandec, the Department of Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development of Eawag which is the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, an internationally networked aquatic research institute within the ETH Domain (Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology). Eawag conducts research, education and expert consulting to achieve the dual goals of meeting direct human needs for water and maintaining the function and integrity of aquatic ecosystems.

Project description: Internship to support research activities on the implementation of a water safety strategy in rural Nepal (REACH-Nepal). Eawag’s past research in rural areas in Mid-Western Nepal revealed inconsistent water quality across the piped schemes, high rates of recontamination of stored drinking water, and low perceived risk perception among water users. Spatial and temporal dynamics of water quality also revealed inadequate protection of spring sources supplying the system. REACH-Nepal is the current collaborative project with HELVETAS and focuses on installing solar-powered field laboratories across the HELVETAS’ Water Resource Management Program (WARM-P) service region and training local technicians to monitor and mitigate drinking water supplies.

REACH-Nepal was launched in January 2017 and the pilot phase ran from June to December 2017 in the district of Dailekh. The second phase of the project started in January 2018, expanding the study scope in new districts. To assess the impact of the REACH project, data is collected at different time points. The responsibility of the intern is to conduct baseline data collection in the field using mobile data collection tools, including the training of local enumerators. The intern will also be responsible for conducting water sampling to assess the microbial water quality using the membrane filtration method, and a solar-powered laboratory setup in the field. The amount spent in the field in Nepal will be of about 3 months.

Required skills: 

• Student of a postgraduate degree in environmental engineering, or related field (individuals which are not enrolled at a University cannot be employed as interns)
• Fundamental knowledge on drinking water quality
• Fluency in English (spoken and written)
• Passionate about field-based research
• Capability to collaborate with research partners and stakeholders
• Experience with laboratory analysis and excel database management

Contact : Ariane Schertenleib, ariane.schertenleib@eawag.ch

Note: Intern salary and travel expenses covered by the hosting structure but no Ingénieurs du Monde travel grant