monahan - perception & interaction with environmental resources
TRANSCRIPT
Perception & Interaction with Environmental Resources
What is clean?
Kyle Monahan, Tufts University
Green Exchange | 4-15-2015
One River’s Story – Thames
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Humanity relies on rivers• Drinking water
• Transport
• Waste removal
• Ecosystem services
• Floodplains Agri etc.Karr et al 2000
• River Thames is no
different• Largest river in England
• Transport (ship & travel)
• Waste removal
View From Charing Cross, 1800
River Thames, 2008
One River’s Story – Thames
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Humans have used rivers for waste
disposal and drinking water• Preferably not concurrently
• Pre-automobile
• Pre-industrial
• Populations?
• Dilution originally was protective• For people, drastic biological Δ
• Trash and sewage water inputs into
rivers are still a problem globally• But the Thames was especially bad
Manila, Philippines, 2009
One River’s Story – Thames
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• 1851 – The Great Exhibition
• Water closets (for the wealthy)
• Population rise (+2M people in 1851)
• 100 additional gallons of waste/household(Halliday, 2013)
• Industrial processes • Tanneries, butcheries
• Paper mills
• Overall – influx of waste
where to River Thames 1876
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
“The Great Stink”
“Sir I traversed this day, by steam boat, the space
between London and Hungerford Bridge, between
half past one and two o’clock; it was low water and
I think the tide must have been near the turn… The
whole of the river was an opaque, pale brown
fluid…near the bridges, the feculence rolled up in
clouds so dense that they were visible as the surface,
even in water of this kind.” ~ Michael Faraday,
1855 (Halliday, 2010)
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• 1858, summer - Thought about
moving Parliament! (Law, 2010)
• Sir Joe Bazalgette – Thames
Embankment “Main Drain”
“The Great Stink”
1865
“From inhaling the
odour of beef the
butcher's wife obtains
her obesity.”
~Professor H
Booth, Builder, July
1844
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Smell and taste were used as methods
to detect extreme water impurities &
pollution
• Reigning belief at the time was in
miasma theory • Gr:Μίασμα; for pollution
• Especially for cholera in London• Interesting to note the Chinese theory of 瘴氣
(Zhàngqì) is similar, but much older
• Sensory information has always been
important for water quality assessments
Why do we care about this?
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• Eventually the “The Great Stink”
forced Parliament to implement
changes
• Proper waste disposal (for the time)• decrease in cholera cases
• John Snow; public health intervention
• Final large outbreak in 1866 – in non-
served area – “proven” (Halliday, 2001)
• Eventually replaced by germ theory
Why do we care about this?
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
How do we perceive clean water?
Objective Subjective
ChemicalBiological
/Physical
EconomicCultural
Knowledge
& History
Removal
Methods Among other influences, see the social
learning theory for interpersonal
impacts (Bandura, 1997)
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
Objectively “clean”
• Actually fairly important
• 2010 - UN Right to [Clean] Water
(link)
• Clean means free from “micro-
organisms, chemical substances and
radiological hazards that constitute a
threat to a person's health.”
• Must also have “acceptable
colour, odour and taste for each
personal or domestic use”…
• Unclean water & sanitation still 2nd
largest global mortality in children
Of 783 Million…
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
Subjectively “clean”
• Actually clean water only matters to
scientists and doctors, it’s perception
that drives action
• We don’t (all) have access to labs with
MS and GC machines
• People use their eyes, nose and taste
buds as approximate sensing tools
• f(education, SES, access to tools)
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
Subjectively “clean”
• In fact, our tongues can detect
chemicals through taste
• e.g. NaCl makes water taste
somewhat “salty” or “bitter”
• Flavors are actually
chemicals• E.g. capsaicin “spicy”
• Water can modify “taste” through
altered H ion channels (Bartoshuk, 2012)
• Summary: water is a great solvent
and can carry many tastes
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
Side note – Perception Matters
• Some people (water scientists) might
be annoyed that I’m downplaying the
role of objectivity
• The role of perception and social
conformity influences action more than
we might like to believe
• Unless we’re psycho(logists)
• See the Asch Line Conformity study
(1951)
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• How to model perception: Decision models – called binary probit
– multimodel regression that predicts the outcome (Y/N)
How to we define clean?
• This model
predicts
water use
decisions
in rural
Kenya
• How far
from the
water?
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Practical &
interpersonal comm.
impact decisions
• Viral fear “going
viral”
• E.g. ebola in US
(risk low, media
high)
• Dihydrogen
monoxide poisoning
is a real risk!
How to we define clean?
• Currently +35 operational ceramic filter factories worldwide (CDC, 2011).
– POU water filter for unimproved water supplies
• Ceramic filters are one option for objectively clean water
– SODIS, slow sand filters, chlorination
– All have benefits and risks
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Pore size of a regular clay pot ~0.6 to 3.0 microns
• Provides too slow flow rates
– Humans need 2-4 L/day (Rayner, 2009)
• Fix: adding “burn out material”
– E.g. sawdust, rice husk, soybean husk
– Any organic material that will burn out, increasing porosity
Source for photo and info: (Hagan, 2011)Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• These filters have a long
lifespan (1 to 2 years) (Rayner,
2009)
• This provides a low-cost
“point of use” water filter (Brown and Sobsey, 2009)
• Full disclosure: this is what I do all
day at Tufts
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• With this pore size, we can remove:– Macroscopic contaminants
– Helminth eggs (pluricellularworms which infect mammals)
– Bacteria (99.9% removal)
– Viruses
• This can provide clean water – If used at all; 32%
compliance (Clasen, 2015)
– If used correctly Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
But what is clean water for
people living here?
[Kumi, Uganda]
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• What defines “clean” generally?
• Taste
• Color
• Odor
• Source
• “Age” Storage
• Not all variables matter to all people survey
at the personal level (perception is at individual
level) “cup of water for your child”
Case Study: Ceramic Water Filter
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Ceramic filters can both remove
and induce production of
organoleptics
• “sensory information from
taste, odor, color and
turbidity” Doria et al, 2010
• Ceramic filters can remove
bacteria and viruses, but they
may leave a “clay taste”
• How do we perceive clean?
Case Study: Ceramic Water Filter
organoleptics
French organoleptique, from organ- + Greek lēptikos disposed to take
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• On the social level, many
engineers and scientists don’t
think about one thing:
marketing!
• Especially in POU
• Need household-level buy in
• Marketing can be word of
mouth, or traditional
• E.g. PUR and other companies
Case Study: Ceramic Water Filter
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
THE FIVE “P”s (Heierli, 2008):
1. Products must be well designed
2. The pricing of POUs is must be
attractive for the buyer and for the
seller
3. Must find a place to sell them
(beyond factory)
4. Must promote the product AND
correct behavior
5. People: Must convince people the
product is good OR choose another
technology plus sustainable?
Case Study: Ceramic Water Filter
$10 USD on soda $10 USD on filter
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• China has the sixth greatest
water resources
• Per capita water access in
China is in lowest third
• Uneven distribution of
water resources • North China has 20% of
water resources but 64% of
area (Blanke et al, 2007)
• Led to water shortages & need
for behavior change
Case Study: Water Use in China
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• First from geologists, cartographers & farmers – making maps!
Case Study: Water Use in China
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Adoption is highly dependent on
local identity and social value
orientation (SVO) (Bonaituo et al,
2008), increased cooperation
• Traditional technologies were
consistent with village leaders
uses since 1980’s. • Though they have helped reduce
water use (Du et al, 2013).
• Household (personal behavior
changes) increased in 1990’s with
scarcity. plastic sheeting
Case Study: Water Use in China
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Increased community involvement (China
case) & allowing for personal choice
(CWF case) CLTS
• CLTS was a great idea:
• Subsidy to reduce cost of building a
toilet (Robinson et al, 2006)
• Installation of toilet
• Social “shaming” of open defecation
• But use is still very low?
• Why? • scale of the problems
• community input w/o buy in
Similarities – Community Led
Total Sanitation (CLTS)
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Impacts are hard to cognitively “grapple with”• Temporal scale
• easier with remote sensing & GIS
• Spatial scale
• do I care if it’s not my water
• Impersonal nature of mechanisms
• But this psychology isn’t all bad – cooperation actually
dominates over conflicts over water (link)• Though conflicts over resources have occurred historically
(Gleick et al, 2015) and there is active debate
• May be because war in general is less common
But it’s not all bad …
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• This lighthearted (profit-driven) commercial highlights
capacity for cooperation
• Understanding perception of risks and water
safety is important for providing access to clean
water resources
• No health implementation will be successful
without assessing the sociology/psychology of the
technology and culture. Plus practical context!
Conclusions
Green Exchange | Harvard Extension School | 4-15-2015
• Similarly, to change any
behavior, we need to
understand the motivations
behind it • These are social problems
w/engineering components
• Only a short review – please
feel free to contact me for
more literature on the topic!
Conclusions
Discussion Questions
• What about developing world vs developed world
definitions of clean? Is water ever really clean?
• Is there bias in assuming that everyone perceives
water resources similarly? Can we make such wide-
reaching claims?
• Are there ethical implications from assuming that
objective clean is less imporant than subjective
clean? E.g. childhood mortality rates
Sources
• Halliday, Stephen. The great stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the cleansing of the Victorian metropolis. The
History Press, 2013.
• Karr, James R., and Ellen W. Chu. Introduction: Sustaining living rivers. Springer Netherlands, 2000.
• Law, Jules David. The Social Life of Fluids: Blood, Milk, and Water in the Victorian Novel. Cornell University Press,
2010.
• Onjala, Joseph, Simon Wagura Ndiritu, and Jesper Stage. "Risk perception, choice of drinking water and water
treatment: evidence from Kenyan towns." Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development 4.2 (2014): 268-
280.
• Bartoshuk, Linda M. "History of taste research." HANDBOOK OF PERCEPTION VOL 6A (2012): 1.
• Cain, William S. "History of research on smell." In Handbook of perception 6 (2012): 197-229.
• Blanke, Amelia, et al. "Water saving technology and saving water in China." Agricultural Water Management 87.2
(2007): 139-150.
• DU, Tai-sheng, et al. "Alternate furrow irrigation: A practical way to improve grape quality and water use efficiency in arid northwest China." Journal of Integrative Agriculture 12.3 (2013): 509-519.
• Robinson, Andy. "Community-led total sanitation." British Travel Health Association Journal 7 (2006): 18.
• Kar, Kamal, and Robert Chambers. Handbook on community-led total sanitation. London: Plan UK, 2008.
• Also see within slide notes for websites & other sources
• Contact kyle.monahan(at)fas.harvard.edu with questions or kyle.monahan (at) tufts.edu