Reliable planning of water supply solutions in emergencies
The eCompendium is a comprehensive and structured online capacity development and decision support tool that allows real time filtering and configuration of water supply solutions in emergency settings. It provides detailed information on key decision criteria for all tried and tested emergency water supply technologies, information on cross-cutting issues, relevant to come up with informed water supply technology decisions in emergencies.
Decision Support Tool
The eCompendium is a systematic compilation of all relevant emergency water supply technologies. It disaggregates technologies into their functional components, defines key terminology and provides concise information on key decision criteria for a wide range of emergency water supply technologies and related cross-cutting issues. It facilitates informed decision-making by providing the necessary framework for identifying appropriate technology combinations in a given context and for configuring entire water supply service solutions: from the source, via the intake, abstraction and treatment to the final distribution and household water treatment and safe storage options.
Real-Time Configuration and Sharing
The eCompendium allows for a targeted and context-specific filtering of technologies and the real time configuration of entire water supply service solutions. All individual configurations made when using the available filter options and the configurator tool can be easily shared with interested colleagues and other water supply practitioners. Relevant technology information and cross-cutting issues can be pre-selected and shared or further discussed with an online-community of water supply experts and practitioners.
From Relief to Development
The eCompendium addresses a broad spectrum of scenarios that humanitarian WASH practitioners may encounter when planning, implementing and operating appropriate water supply services, covering technologies suitable from the acute response over the stabilisation up to the recovery phase. This is seen crucial as the humanitarian community has been increasingly confronted with longer-term and protracted crises, with an increased need to also take sustainability aspects into account and to contribute to the complementarity between the humanitarian and development realms.
Target Audience
The eCompendium mainly targets humanitarian field workers, local first responders, engineers, planners, relevant government representatives, academic institutions, capacity building agencies and WASH professionals involved in humanitarian WASH response and subsequent stabilisation and recovery activities.
Open-Source Tool
All provided information and graphics are open-source and free of charge. Permission is granted for sharing and reproduction, in whole or part, for education, scientific, humanitarian or development related purposes except those involving commercial sale, and provided that full citation of the source is made.
Collaboration
The eCompendium is a collaborative effort of Global WASH Cluster partners, the German WASH Network, the University of Applied Science and Arts Northwestern Switzerland and SuSanA with contributions from a wide range of international sector experts and organisations. It will be constantly updated and users are encouraged to provide direct feedback in order to ensure the quality and to further improve the platform.
X-Cutting Issues
The selection of an appropriate combination of water supply technologies does not obey to technical considerations only. It is influenced by a multitude of surrounding factors and cross-cutting issues. This section presents cross-cutting issues and background information that should be considered when making technology and design decisions.
Glossary
A separate glossary section has been added that allows getting familiar with some of the key terms and vocabulary used for water supply technologies and the functional groups they belong.
Help Section
This section provides helpful information regarding structure and use of the eCompendium, details on all available tools and functionalities of the website and a lot more information in order to get better acquainted with the eCompendium.
