Can numerical computer modelling aid innovation, efficiency and cost reduction in sanitation provision?

Numerical computer modelling techniques have proven to be an invaluable tool in the assessment of water supply and drainage for buildings in a northern, industrialised context, allowing new devices and techniques to be developed leading to improvements in efficiency and reductions in costs. Thesemethods can also be applied to sanitation systems in less developed countries so that similar benefits in both efficiency and cost reductions can be achieved. Analysis of a simplified sewerage installation using the building drainage numerical model ‘DRAINET’ confirms that this sanitation option is best suited to densely populated areas, while it is also shown that its implementationmay be expanded to less densely populated areas by a reduction in pipe diameter from 100 mm to 75 mm set at a shallow slope characteristic of simplified sewerage installations.