On 11/09/19 14:48, Nikhil VJ wrote:
Hi,
While I'm not directly working on this at present, I do have friends
who have been working on this issue a lot and have successfully moved
several urban slum communities from OD (short for Open Defecation in
this email) to using toilets. They too have been mapping ODAs in their
projects as a starting point.
I think marking ODAs on OpenStreetMap would be very useful. Here in
India while we've had governments announcing drives to make cities,
towns, villages open-defecation-free (ODF for short). We typically see
just press statements like "we did it!" released without data support,
and on ground there's still places where it's happening the next day.
Mapping would be a great way for civil society to hold the government
body accountable. Once you put a lat-long on an issue, objective
verification is a straightforward process : Go there and smell (and
watch your step!). And then once map locations are gathered, the
government officials then have the burden of proof of verifying on a
location to location basis.
I would suggest to mark places as vicinities were OD happens. This
could be as a polygon, or it could be as a point location and we
specify that OD is happening within a X meters radius. I don't think
precise spots (or "personal spots") are feasible.
In my city, the green areas esp the ones where you can't build because
it's a low-lying place that will flood in monsoons, are where OD
happens, and if you're walking by in evenings just after sunset or
early mornings you can easily tell from the smell. We generally do not
find OD happening in a place without greenery - where that happens
(like the infamous Mumbai train tracks) it's typically because there's
no green areas left to go into. Then, there's abandoned plots where
nature has taken over. Those could be marked with boundary.
Where the waste is left to 'naturally mature' is one thing, where the
waste is collected and taken away is a different thing. I think these
should have separate tags.
I liked Warin's inputs:
> .. 'abandoned:open_defecation_area=yes' may be appropriate. And it
would be of use to add the tag 'end_date=*' to signify the date of
last use.
----- Addendum -----
I'd like to bring in some ecology aspect to this as well, just to
explain how this is a complicated issue. All excreta on this planet is
recyclable and manure by nature. Insects and microbes are superbly
efficient at this job, as long as they have access to soil. Green
patches continue to be ODAs precisely because they're quite good at
recycling. I had mentioned about the smell at dawn/dusk : But it's not
so much at all the other times of day, and the same places remain
usable year after year - guess why? Because it's been "taken care of".
But contrast this with the fact that where I live, what we're flushing
through toilets into our sewage lines is typically mixing in with
drainage from kitchens and washing machines (aka, detergents!) which
then ensures that the stuff does not bio-degrade, and continues being
a problem, only transported "far far away" so it becomes somebody
else's problem. [Trigger warning] I think it's technically correct to
say that in many places of the world, the people using toilets are
causing more environmental damage (that includes me) than the people
defecating in the open, plus they are outsourcing the problem and
imposing it on people poorer than them.[/Trigger warning] I know
there's a lot of other things at play here and of course I want us all
to use toilets and I want these communities to move to using toilets,
but I want to acknowledge the reality and not shut my eyes to it. I'm
hopeful about solutions like eco-friendly toilets, compost toilets,
lattice-walled pits that mix the stuff with the soil, those fantastic
Australian reed beds, etc.
Water supply in London has recycled water water in it. In Australia
water water is not only recycled into good water (thought there is
stigma to adding it to the drinking water) but also used to make
fertiliser. So it is possible to process the waste water and obtain
worthwhile products from it and reduce the disposal problem a lot.
Also, at least in my country's common culture there is a stigma
attached to being seen defecating once you're grown up and so people
who have to OD, prefer green/wooded areas that give them visual cover.
Especially women. I'm sharing all this because there are crazy
activists in our civil society circles who jump and say "Let's wipe
out all the greenery, cement up the whole place and then there won't
be any OD problem here!". Can you understand my horror at the
prospect? That's only going to make the problem a lot worse.
Indeed.
Anyways, I have faith that accurately mapping these areas will help in
solving the issue holistically, because once it's brought up on a map,
all sides can engage constructively instead of abstractly.
Mapping it is a good step to seeing how big the problem is. Campaigns
like "Put your poo in the loo" go some ways to helping. Mapping the loos
(amenity=toilet) aids finding the nearest loo.
----- Apologies for the Addendum -----
--
Cheers,
Nikhil VJ, Pune, India
https://nikhilvj.co.in
On Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 4:33 PM <hot-requ...@openstreetmap.org
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Open Defecation Area proposal (Warin)
2. Re: Open Defecation Area proposal (Bob Kerr)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Warin <61sundow...@gmail.com <mailto:61sundow...@gmail.com>>
To: hot@openstreetmap.org <mailto:hot@openstreetmap.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2019 10:49:11 +1000
Subject: Re: [HOT] Open Defecation Area proposal
I have raise this on the OSM tagging list. I have summarised the
responses below.
On 08/09/19 21:04, Bob Kerr via HOT wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It has been a very long time since I have posted to the mailing
list.
> So please bear with me if I have landed in the wrong place.
>
> I was recently at a WASH conference (Water,Sanitation,hygiene). We
> were discussing Open Defecation, people going to the toilet in the
> open, specially in dense urban areas. Open defecation areas ODA are
> use by about 850 million people. If they each use 10 different
areas a
> year then that is 8.5 billion areas.
This logic appears flawed.
Does each person have their own individual ODA? In a dense urban
environment I would expect there to be a lack of space for this.
However,if there are individual ODAs, are they to be mapped as a
collective rather than each individual one?
Past ODAs would need to remain mapped .. but not as ODAs as that
implies
present use.
Not certain what to use here but the OSM life cycle tags may be of
use.
'abandoned:open_defecation_area=yes' may be appropriate.
And it would be of use to add the tag 'end_date=*' to signify the
date
of last use.
The above would reduce the number of areas to be mapped.
>
> The only way that this problem can start to be addressed is if
we have
> a map of the areas. A paper map made by MapOSmatic with theses
areas
> marked would be an excellent inspiration for local communities
to deal
> with the problem and would act as competition between local
towns and
> cities to be the cleanest
>
> I have checked with taginfo and there are a few examples on
defecation
> but nothing officially proposed.
Taginfo indicates 53 uses of 'watsan:open_defecation_area=yes', no
wiki.
Most use in Africa. just east nor east of Nairobi.
>
> My questions are. Do you think there would be support for this
on the
> humanitarian tile map render and who should I talk to about
adding it
> to the humanitarian style sheet if the proposal is accepted.
The 'watsan' appears to be irrelevant information. Possibly a
source? Or
an operator?
In any case the tag would be better as 'open_defecation_area=yes'. If
required other information can be added as subtags, such as a
comment, a
note etc.
>
> I believe I could get a lot of enthusiasm from WASH communities,
they
> would also become enthusiastic mappers because their first ever map
> was the broad street pump
>
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak
>
> Where they used a map to stop cholera
>
> The proposal would be simple node and area with picture of a person
> squatting. I would appreciate guidance as I create this.
>
> Many thanks for your time
>
> Bob
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bob Kerr <lendin...@yahoo.co.uk <mailto:lendin...@yahoo.co.uk>>
To: hot@openstreetmap.org <mailto:hot@openstreetmap.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2019 10:32:30 +0100
Subject: Re: [HOT] Open Defecation Area proposal
Thank you for posting to the tagging list, I have now joined that
list too
To clarify Open Defecation Areas ODA are usually piles of rubbish
in unused spaces, they can be very large like a rubbish pit or
small like an abandoned doorway. They regularly get cleared but
start up again. Women are particularly vulnerable and sometimes
use plastic bags to go in then throw the bags in an ODA. ODAs are
an indication that a proper dry toilet is needed.
A map would allow local communities to understand the problem in
their area. The inspiration from the 1854 broad street pump
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak
Is one of mappings greatest successes.
WatSan probably stands for Water/Sanitation
I also stated 850 million practice Open Defication in 10 different
locations, but that was my guesstimate.
I hope we can do this I think it will have a strong impact.
Read details of ODA from unicef
https://www.unicef.org/wash/files/UNICEF_Game_plan_to_end_open_defecation_2018.pdf
Thanks
Bob
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