Reconsidering Urban Sewer and Treatment Facilities in East Africa as Interplay of Flows, Networks and Spaces

Urbanization has brought about concentrations of people in densely populated settlements, resulting in the generation of waste water that needs to be disposed off in a hygienic way to avoid the outbreak of diseases. Decisions on what area to sewer, the nature of sewer schemes and treatment works to be used, and the kind of collection and transport system to adopt is often complex and difficult to make. This chapter (re)considers urban sewers and treatment works as the interplay of flows, networks and spaces, and puts forward a conceptual framework for decision-making. It examines current and future sanitation structures in Kampala and Kisumu in terms of sanitation flows, sanitary networks and demands for space. Knowledge of such sanitation structures serves as an input to the assessment of opportunities for so-called Modernized Mixtures of sanitation systems in cities around Lake Victoria.