
Designing a standard sewage network for refugee camps - mhasbini
https://monacivilengineering.blogspot.com/2020/09/standard-sewage-network-for-refugee.html
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throw0101a
There seem to be ‘standards’ as to how to build out refugee camps and SOP for
various things:

* [https://emergency.unhcr.org/entry/45581](https://emergency.unhcr.org/entry/45581)

* [https://emergency.unhcr.org/about](https://emergency.unhcr.org/about)

* [https://spherestandards.org/handbook/](https://spherestandards.org/handbook/)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugee_camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugee_camp)

Even the humble tarp that meets these standards is more ‘advanced’ than it
appears:

* [https://www.wired.com/2016/01/tarpaulin/](https://www.wired.com/2016/01/tarpaulin/)

~~~
monaelkass
We used these camps standards to design the sewage system and of course to
draw and design the standard camps.

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Animats
For how the US Army does this, see Field Manual 3-34-471, "Plumbing, Pipe
Fitting, and Sewerage", especially the sections on "Field Expedient
Systems."[1] The Army has been building camps for a while.

[1]
[https://www.constructionknowledge.net/public_domain_document...](https://www.constructionknowledge.net/public_domain_documents/Div_15_Mechanical/Plumbing/Plumbing_Army_FM3-34-471.pdf)

~~~
monaelkass
Good information... But Our project is based on a sewage network for a
standard camp.

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rendall
If I read the pipe maps correctly, it seems that the focus of the camp layout
is on the sewage treatment facility, which is literally the center of the
camp.

In my opinion, the center of the camp has prominence of place, and should be
rather a social center of some kind: gathering place, daycare, school,
workshops, communal kitchen, sports facilities, something like that.

A camp that elevate sewage treatment above all other concerns could be a grim
place indeed. I imagine it should be possible to have an efficient,
standardized sewage system that locates the physical plant off in a more
discreet place

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monaelkass
Intelligent comment, the layout 2 has the problem that you are talking about
as the sewage is located in the center of the camp, but the layout 1 has a
better design as it is half a circle and the sewage could be treated away from
the tents accommodation and other activities.

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rendall
Yes... except that with the semi circular layout, the sewage treatment is
still in the only prominent place in the camp. All roads lead to the plant. If
the city were an auditorium, the plant is squarely on stage. That should still
be the place where people gather socially

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harlanji
I just recorded a voice memo this morning with an inspired idea related to
this. Water in a box, pee into the box, poop into compost bags, collect and
restock weekly. I’ve done manual labor digging trenches, working with
construction, all that. Also been homeless for 2 yrs in SF/SV for what it’s
worth, doing said work (do not have resources for coding interviews, trying to
save). With compostable or washable containers, I have no idea why one would
make a sewage system in a camp. Being a (former) engineer as well, I can
appreciate the thought put into it.

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mdifrgechd
For this kind of application, I'm a big fan of this idea [1] (there is a more
recent example of something similar out of the UK but I can't find it now). It
uses a mechanical "flush" mechanism that basically just individually bags the
waste and stashes it below the toilet. When full, the bags are pulled out
(themselves in a bigger bag) and just taken to the dump. A great alternative
to building custom sewer and treatment infrastructure. There are examples of
this kind of tech being used in places (e.g Antananarivo that has slaves that
flood regularly) that don't have or cannot easily get sewers installed.

[1]
[https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/2013/12/entreprene...](https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/2013/12/entrepreneur-
to-launch-waterless.html)

~~~
tenuousemphasis
From the article, it costs $1 per use. And ends with plastic bags full of
(maybe sterilized) human waste being thrown in the trash. This is a solution
to what exactly? A lack of Toilet as a Service products?

~~~
mdifrgechd
> A lack of Toilet as a Service products?

Exactly! What do you think a sewer system is? It it literally a subscription
to having your poo taken away, by a method requiring huge capital costs, major
maintenance, a monopoly operator, etc. It is a concept with lots of room for
exploring alternatives.

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dr_dshiv
Why not an elevated latrine over a wheeled removable storage tank that hooks
to a pickup truck?

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tomcott
Thanks for sharing this! I enjoyed reading about the different types of
campes.

I wonder how self-suistainble wrt to cost can it be? Similar to water
recycling in ths ISS

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monaelkass
In the camp, we can add a UDDT to reduce the amount of sewage and to help the
recycling process. This will not have a big cost. other recycling methods
could also be used.

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ed25519FUUU
It seems outhouses every block would be a much more simple and economical
design. They just require vertical excavation, which can be done by hand if
space is constrained but labor is available. When the camp is dismantled
(hopefully everyone is resettled quickly) then you just fill it in with dirt.

~~~
wolfram74
The durability of the infrastructure should be informed by how long the camps
tend to exist. My first result is a world bank[1] blog that says it's about 17
years. So a more automated system like plumbing would probably save resources
over the long term, but who ever thinks about long term costs of
infrastructure for refugees?

[1] [https://blogs.worldbank.org/dev4peace/2019-update-how-
long-d...](https://blogs.worldbank.org/dev4peace/2019-update-how-long-do-
refugees-stay-exile-find-out-beware-averages)

~~~
ed25519FUUU
17 years is much longer than I would have expected. Long term thinking is a
good point.

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Hokusai
> In the design, the slopes of the drainage pipes and the velocity constraints
> are selected in a way to have minimum excavation depths, and to have the
> flow velocity within its design ranges.

I guess that the goal is to make it cost effective. To dig deeper that the
strictly necessary would add durability that a temporary camp does not need
and a lot of extra cost.

It would have been nice to know the advantages and disadvantages of each camp
design. But, I guess that it was not inside the scope of designing the sewage.

~~~
monaelkass
Yes of course! It is found out that the circular design layout would be more
economic than the hexagon design layout. Although, the circular design has
less accommodation area than the latter one. On the other hand, if there is
enough land to set up these camps, it would be better to choose the Hexagon
design layout as it is more spacious and allow the use of more service
facilities.

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engineer_22
Nice documentation of your use of standards and industry tools. In that way
you're ready for professional practice.

Collection design appears appropriate, however an outfall location was not
selected?

Collection system design is dependent on topography, do you have elevation
data for proposed camp sites? Topography can inform your treatment site and
outfall selection.

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monaelkass
We have chosen the outfall to be in the middle of the circle and hexagonal
sewage network. Yes of course, the topography should be first of all
determined, this is what we did in the Zaatari camp design. We used Global
Mapper to find the elevations, then we determined the outlet (lowest point).

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mschuster91
One might think that the UNHCR should have experts on hand who have ready made
designs for sewage, water and electricity in refugee camps, but then one looks
at the horrors of Moria and the other "camps" in Greece.

It is utterly shameful that people in need depend on volunteers taking care of
such basic needs. Thanks, OP.

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paleotrope
The UNHCR wants to move the refugees to destination countries and the local
(and national) politicians want the camps gone. The inhabitants of these camps
don't want to be there either. None of these groups want the camps to be
permanent, so you can see that this type of solution is not wanted or desired.
There is a perverse incentive to make the camps "bad" but not "too bad."

~~~
monaelkass
Original author here: Yes of course, no one wants that the refugee camps be
permanent, but as we can see, the camps are used at least for 5 to 10 years,
and this is a long period so the sewage network is one of the most important
needs to have in these camps that the people could have a safe life there.

In addition, this project could be also used for any type of camp.

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nednar
Who knows more about the tent design shown in figure 15. This looks super
versatile, but also hard to repair, build in a factory setting and maybe also
unintuitive to set up. I hope this is more useful than it looks. Then it would
be great to have such a tent with built in AC and water management.

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a5withtrrs
Very interesting.

I wonder if it then makes sense to run additional services such as power and
drinking water parallel to those pipes for similar efficiency?

I wonder if camping festivals and conferences such as CCC camp would benefit
from this at all?

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monaelkass
Original author here: yes of course, this project should be improved and many
other additional services wil be added. I will also study a camp with UDDT to
have a less amount of sewage. The camps in my project contain free areas for
agriculture, in addition to a school , a police station, and markets so the
camp could be 90% independent.

This project could be applied for any camp. It is basically studied to be
applied for refugees camps as they most need it, but it could be used for any
camp that has a big amount of sewage.

~~~
a5withtrrs
You should see if you can reach out to the Chaos Computer Club for their Camp
conference (in theory, running next in 2023). The distribution of utilities
throughout their campsite is quite a logistical challenge. I think your work
also assumes a nice flat wide open space that you can work with, whereas in
that specific scenario there's other obstacles in the way.

Anyway, really cool. Thanks! :)

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lima
CCC Camp infrastructure is special, and fun, and definitely a great source of
real-world experience. The various infra teams now have a decades of
experience scaling it up - water, power, waste, internet, each coming with its
own set of challenges. The event is full of engineers, such that the level of
overengineering increases year by year - last camp, one team even brought and
manned industrial dishwashers as a public service! Same goes for similar non-
profit events that build their own infra rather than contracting it out to an
expensive events company.

Constraints are very different, obviously - the ground can't be dug up, public
toilets and washing stations are sufficient, there's some existing
infrastructure to partially rely on, and it only has to work for at most ~2
weeks or so. Still, many of the "lessons learned" could be applicable
elsewhere and I wish there was time to document more of it.

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aya_mouhtadi
Very Nice project and a very smart engineer, good luck!

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monaelkass
Thank you dear Aya :).

