[Editors] MIT engineer works toward clean water, more

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-2700
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www

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MIT engineer works toward clean water, more

--Global partnerships key to solving humanitarian problems
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For Immediate Release
MONDAY, MAR. 5, 2007
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
Phone: 617-258-5402
Email: thomson at mit.edu

PHOTOS AVAILABLE

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--An MIT engineer working toward clean drinking water 
in Nepal describes in a recent issue of the Journal of International 
Development how people from developed and developing countries can 
work together to solve key humanitarian problems, ultimately meeting 
the basic human needs for security, broadly defined.

Such a collaboration "begins with a relationship among partners in 
the global village, taking into consideration the specific conditions 
of the local culture, environment and location," said Susan Murcott, 
a senior lecturer in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental 
Engineering (CEE).

Murcott has personal experience of a global engineering partnership 
of this kind--she calls it "co-evolutionary engineering 
design"-through her work in developing countries.

She and students in MIT's CEE master of engineering program have 
worked for years with citizens of Nepal and, since 2005, of Ghana, to 
design, test and distribute inexpensive household water filters that 
simultaneously remove arsenic and microbial contamination from the 
available water supply. Murcott notes that some 150 million people 
worldwide are affected by arsenic-tainted water, while an estimated 1 
to 5 billion people worldwide lack access to microbially safe water.

As of December 2006, more than 5,000 such filters are operating 
across Nepal, serving some 40,000 people. An additional 5,000 filters 
are slated for sales and distribution in 2007 in Nepal, with further 
outreach into Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh underway.

"The students and I are trying to make a positive contribution to 
people's lives and to improve our collective chances of development 
and security," said Murcott.

With co-evolutionary design, technical designers from developed 
countries become partners with the user communities, who are experts 
in their local conditions. With the MIT Nepal Water Project, Murcott 
points out, "Our team's partners have included university-educated 
people and illiterate peasant farmers. We have identified a common 
need-safe, clean drinking water for all-and we have worked together 
successfully for seven years so far."

Any system to provide clean water should consider factors such as 
sustainability, green engineering and World Health Organization 
guidelines. In addition, the system must meet the requirements of the 
local women who typically haul and store water, as well as being 
affordable to people earning one dollar a day. The same general 
principles also apply to other co-evolutionary design projects.

Murcott is currently focusing her energies in the northern region of 
Ghana, thanks to a two-year grant from the Conrad N. Hilton 
Foundation. Here, a social enterprise-"Pure Home Water," initiated by 
Murcott with Ghanian partners-is marketing ceramic water filters in 
one of the poorest regions of Ghana, where cholera, typhoid, guinea 
worm and other waterborne diseases are rampant. Two Ghanaian social 
entrepreneurs, together with MIT engineering and Sloan School of 
Management students, hope to spread ceramic filters to reach more 
than a million people in northern Ghana in the coming years.

Murcott is also leading MIT teams to Nicaragua, Haiti, Peru and Kenya 
to address water and sanitation issues in those countries.

She concludes, "We hope to increase awareness of health and safe 
water issues among the least educated people in remote areas of Nepal 
and Ghana, subsidize filters for the very poorest people, insure that 
locally made units are built correctly, and make sure that future 
teams will effectively and passionately carry the work forward.

"We are confident that this work provides a model of engaged, 
cross-cultural cooperation that builds self-reliant solutions, at the 
same time providing a renewed understanding that security for most 
people in the world relates not to armed conflict but to 'common 
good' social, environmental and economic challenges, for example, the 
simple need for safe water."

The Murcott team's efforts have been honored with several awards, 
including a Wall Street Journal Innovation Technology Award 
(environment category) and the World Bank Development Marketplace 
Competition.

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