WASH (or WatSan, WaSH; stemming from the first letters of "water, sanitation and hygiene") is a sector in development cooperation, or within local governments, that provides water, sanitation, and hygiene services to communities. The main purposes of providing access to WASH services are to achieve public health gains, implement the human right to water and sanitation, reduce the burden of collecting drinking water for women, and improve education and health outcomes at schools and healthcare facilities. Access to WASH services is an important component of water security. Universal, affordable, and sustainable access to WASH is a key issue within international development, and is the focus of the first two targets of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6). Targets 6.1 and 6.2 aim for equitable and accessible water and sanitation for all. In 2017, it was estimated that 2.3 billion people live without basic sanitation facilities, and 844 million people live without access to safe and clean drinking water. The acronym WASH is used widely by non-governmental organizations and aid agencies in developing countries. The WASH-attributable burden of disease and injuries has been studied in depth. Typical diseases and conditions associated with a lack of WASH include diarrhea, malnutrition, and stunting, in addition to neglected tropical diseases. There are additional health risks for women, for example, during pregnancy and birth, or in connection with menstrual hygiene management. Chronic diarrhea can have long-term negative effects on children in terms of both physical and cognitive development. Still, collecting precise scientific evidence regarding health outcomes that result from improved access to WASH is difficult due to a range of complicating factors. Scholars suggest a need for longer-term studies of technological efficiency, greater analysis of sanitation interventions, and studies of the combined effects of multiple interventions to better analyze WASH health outcomes. Access to WASH is required not only at the household level but also in non-household settings like schools, healthcare facilities, workplaces, prisons, temporary use settings and for dislocated populations. In schools, group handwashing facilities can improve hygiene. Lack of WASH facilities at schools often causes female students to not attend school, thus reducing their educational achievements.
It is difficult to provide safely managed WASH services in urban slums. WASH systems can also fail quite soon after installation (e.g., leaking water distribution systems). Further challenges include polluted water sources and the impacts of climate change on water security. Planning approaches for more reliable and equitable access to WASH include, for example, national WASH plans and monitoring, women's empowerment, and improving the climate resilience of WASH services. Adaptive capacity in water management systems can help to absorb some of the impacts of climate-related events and increase climate resilience. Stakeholders at various scales, for example, from small urban utilities to national governments, need to have access to reliable information about the regional climate and any expected changes due to climate change.
Components The WASH concept groups together the various aspects of water supply, including access to drinking water services, sanitation, and hygiene because the impact of deficiencies in each area overlap strongly.
Drinking water services
WHO and UNICEF state that a safe drinking water service is one that is located in an accessible location, available when needed, and uncontaminated. Additionally, WHO and UNICEF use the terms improved water source and unimproved water source as a water quality monitoring tool. The term "improved water source" refers to piped water on premises. Examples include a piped household water connection located inside the user's dwelling plot or yard, and other improved drinking water sources such as public taps or standpipes, tube wells or boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs, and rainwater collection. Access to drinking water is included in Target 6.1 of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), which states: "By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all." This target's single indicator, Indicator 6.1.1, which states "Proportion of population using safely managed drinking water services." In 2017, 844 million people still lacked even a basic drinking water service. In 2019, it was reported that 435 million people used unimproved sources for their drinking water, and 144 million still used surface water, such as lakes and streams. Drinking water can be sourced from the following water sources: surface water, groundwater, or rainwater, in each case after collection, treatment, and distribution. Desalinated seawater is another potential source for drinking water.
People without access to safe, reliable, domestic water supplies face lower water security at specific times throughout the year due to cyclical changes in water quantity or quality. For example, where access to water on-premises is not available, drinking water quality at the point of use (PoU) can be much worse compared to the quality at the point of collection (PoC). Correct household practices around hygiene, storage, and treatment are therefore important. There are interactions between weather, water source, and management, and these in turn impact drinking water safety.
Groundwater
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