Integration water, energy and sanitation solution for stand-alone settlements J.O. Odhiambo a à , E. Martinsson b , S. Soren b , P. Mboya a , J. Onyango a a Department of Environmental and Biosystems Engineering, University of Nairobi, Box 300197, Nairobi 00100, Kenya email: orodijo@uonbi.ac.ke b School of Technology and Society, University of Sko¨vde, Sweden Received 31 January 2008; revised accepted 15 May 2008 Abstract Lake Victoria basin has a large rural and rapidly growing peri-urban population that lacks sustainable solutions to safe and adequate water supply, energy and sanitation. Access to safe water and sanitation was 60% and 53%, respectively, by 2006. An Integrated Water, Energy and Sanitation Solution (IWESS) has been muted as a sustainable way of utilising the natural resources through a concept that turns waste into a resource thereby taking advantage of what is currently considered as problem sources and converting them into useful inputs. Tests from the Pilot sites developed show that grey and black water, kitchen and solid human waste can be used as separate inputs into an integrated waste management technological chain system that incorporates a constructed wetland-biogas-sand filter system to purify water and biodegrade solid waste to provide water for non-potable uses, biomass and biogas for energy and timber supply and manure for soil nutrient enrichment. Keywords: Water; Sanitation; Integrated; Waste; Energy; Biogas 1. Introduction Lake Victoria basin has one of the world’s poor- est and densest populations [1] living in the back- drop of the second largest freshwater lake on the earth [2]. The large rural and rapidly growing peri- urban population lacks sustainable solutions to safe and adequate water supply, energy and sanitation with access to safe water and sanitation assessed at below 60% and 53% respectively by 2006 [3,4]. The populace depends heavily on biomass resource to supply energy [5,6] with the dense population overstretching the land resource base. This has led to massive degradation of the environment through deforestation, erosion and soil nutrient depletion [7]. The cumulative effects are heralded by the high eutrophication and sedimentation (Fig. 1) of the sur- face water resources [8]. These provide a suitable habitat for the invasive water hyacinth (Fig. 1) and the hippo grass. à Corresponding author. Presented at the Water and Sanitation in International Development and Disaster Relief (WSIDDR) International Workshop Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, 28–30 May 2008. Desalination 248 (2009) 570–577 0011-9164/09/$– See front matter © 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.desal.2008.05.103