This course will examine current conditions and trends in water and sanitation services in low and middle income countries. Within it we will take a critical look at the underlying political, economic, social, and technical reasons why almost a billion people lack access to improved water supplies and almost 2 billion still do not have improved sanitation services.
Video 6.2: Changing Knowledge, Practices and Perceptions
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Do curso por University of Manchester
As Políticas de Água e Saneamento Básico em Países em Desenvolvimento
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University of Manchester
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Development Paths for Water and Sanitation Services
Conheça os instrutores
Prof Dale WhittingtonProfessor
Manchester Business School
Dr Duncan ThomasLecturer
Alliance Manchester Business School
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In this video we're going to continue
looking at the UK's water development path.
We're going to go a little bit beyond the simple
science, politics, implementation framing we used in the previous video.
We're going to look at changing knowledge, practices, and perceptions.
This is going to involve looking at the historical emergence of some
institutions, laws, and regulations for water supply and sanitation in the UK.
We'll also look at how some long standing features
of the UK provided a foundation for the later changes.
To pick up on our story we'll return to our non linear graph from
the previous video that shows the populations
of inner and outer London over time.
I've marked here a recap of the periods and developments we've already
discussed, so that we can position what we're going to talk about next.
One of the sources of revenue I mentioned in
the previous video that helped to fund the massive
piped sewer system investment of the 19th century in
the UK was a rateable value charge on households.
This is a property based tax that requires payments from
householders based on some measure of the value of their property.
This property value-based system of charging for water and sanitation services
has remained in use in the UK right until the present time.
On average, across England and Wales, only 40% of households have a water meter.
The metering penetration rates do vary from
region to region, depending on how much the
private water company in that region has
pursued a water meter installation program or not.
But at any rate there are still many households
in this country charged on the basis of unmetered usage.
And for this a property value proxy is used to calculate the water bills.
This kind of property based charging for water is
not possible in some other parts of the wold.
Its presence in the UK itself is a bit of an oddity.
It's another one of the outlier features of the
UK that are referred to in the previous video.
In the UK this property-based tax link to water
and sanitation dates back to around the 16th century.
This is according to research done
by University of Manchester professor Jean Shaoul.
In 1555 a Highways Act legislation taxed local parishees to
pay for the clearance of poorly drained highways in their area.
Water-logged highways were seen to hinder
transport and [UNKNOWN], so properties along
highways were taxed to pay for draining the roads to make them clear.
This reform also has its roots in Henry VIII issues with the church, and how
he dissolved monasteries and transferred land to
the gentry that become beholden to the crown.
This was from about 1536 to 1541, before the Highways Act.
Another early foundation in the UK that helped later water supply
and sanitation planning was the early practice of rainfall data collection.
From about the 1700s this was done in a non-systematic way,
mainly by enthusiasts such as invid, individual members of the clergy.
From about 1800 this became more standardized, with proper
records being kept by both clergy and some amateur scientists.
Later, in 1919, a national rainfall monitoring service was
begun as a spin-off of the Air Ministry's meteorological office.
And this is the precursor to our modern day Met Office in the
UK that's now heavily involved in weather and de, climate data collection matters.
Similarly, the UK has had a census to provide population
data for a variety of uses, including later water resource planning.
This is from about 1801.
The UK has also had early water quality regulation.
A royal commission in 1827 had looked at water quality complaints.
This was part of the background to the UK's first ever
minimum water quality standards in the 1852 Metropolis Water Act covering London.
This required the water supply companies in
London to provide, quote, pure and wholesome water.
This was the act in fact that banned extraction of water for drinking from
the river Thames for, around about 1855 that I mentioned in the previous video.
And interestingly, this restriction on water supply sources into London remained
in force for about 150 years, until the 2003 Water Act.
A series of supplementary legi, legislation came with
later acts in 1871, 1897, 1899 and 1902.
Another development that underpinned water supply and sanitation planning of the
19th century in the UK was consolidation in the water utility system.
From about the 16th century onwards private water companies operated in
London authorized by various licences,
charters, and sometimes acts of Parliament.
There had been some consolidation of these private companies
so that there were about six major ones by 1830.
From 1903, under the 1902 Metropolis Water
Act, the existing private water utility undertakings were
compulsorily purchased by the state and brought
under the control of a city-wide public board.
Local authorities nominated members to go on this board, up to about 60 people.
This board actually remained in force until it was
turned into the regional Thames Water Authority in 1974,
which later became the London private water company that
we know now, Thames Water, after privatization in 1989.
In addition to these changing conditions that
specifically relate to water and sanitation in
the dynamic baseline in the UK's water
development path, there were other developments underway.
This is a photo of a slum tenement in Glasgow, Scotland in 1868.
You'll recall from Dale's discussion in last week's
materials how in the United States slums were
demolished and housing rebuilt when water and sanitation
infrastructure was provided there in the 19th century.
The same happened in the UK.
This Glasgow slum was regarded as one of the worst in Britain at the time.
Rapid population growth and industrialization had led to overcrowding.
This photograph was taken just before these tenements were demolished.
It's now history, part of the Welcome Library's collection in London.
But it shows that housing reform was part
of the ongoing transformation in the UK's development path.
Expectations and provision of housing conditions had changed.
Next we'll see how views on hygiene and cleanliness changed too.
The illustration here shows a several stories high so
called Great Dust Heap at King's Cross, London in 1837.
It's fascinating to think that this was only a 20 or so minute
walk north from the Houses of Parliament, right in the center of London.
And this dust heap was an economic activity.
People were making a living off this waste recycling.
It was estimated to be worth thousands of British pounds at the time.
That's over 100,000 pounds in British current money.
This was before it was removed in 1848
to assist in the rebuilding of Moscow, Russia.
This is according to an account published in
1850, traced by the Welcome Library's recent dirt exhibition.
An unprotected accumulation of dirt, waste, and rubble
like this right in the center of a heavily
populated urban area was acceptable in the mid-19th
century, but became unthinkable only a few decades later.
Why is that?
Well, views about dirt, hygiene and cleanliness had
undergone a major and most likely irreversible transformation.
Again, Professor Frank Geels traces this change from urban filth being seen as a
nuisance that had to be tolerated to
being understood to be a significant health hazard.
So what had changed?
Well there was a new ideology of sorts about cleanliness.
It was associated with respectability and civilization.
Throughout both the United States and the UK in the 19th century there
was a kind of ideology of progress, and cleanliness became part of that.
There was also an established hygiene movement.
This saw the emergence of sanitarians and
engineers directly, professionally concerned with health, as we've
touched upon in the last video with people like John Snow and Sir Edwin Chadwick.
There were also new medical theories about microbes,
and a shift towards washing and washing with soap.
These new ideas had the support of the
middle classes in the UK, and there was pressure
for change reflected in popular journals, newspapers, product
adverts for soap and the like, and so on.
There were also, of course, changes in voting rights over this period in the
19th century that enabled people to make
a little bit more influence over political projects.
And there was significant political interest in, and publications about,
the conditions of the poor, again according to Frank Geels' work.
So how was this new knowledge and new attitude reflected in practice?
Well, the images here show new practices.
Public streets were disinfected and cleaned from hand or horse drawn tanks.
The image on the left shows London, with two disinfectors dressed in white clothes
pulling a tank from which disinfectant would
have been pumped onto the streets of London.
But notice the well dressed supervisor watching on.
The picture on the right show St Louis in the United States.
And here the streets are being flushed just with water.
This is similar to photos I've seen of horse drawn water
tanks being used to wash streets around Manchester around this time.
A new pride in cleanliness and hygiene was also seen, I
think, in the grandeur of the sewage pumping stations that were
built to help carry the waste away from the new late
19th century interceptor sewers that we've talked about in the previous video.
Here's an illustration of the sewage pumping station that was
built in Abbey Mills, east of the center of London.
It was part of Joseph Bazalgette's sewers program,
and it was built from around 1865 to 1868.
Abbey Mills took the sewage that ran from the interceptor
that was along the North side of the river Thames.
And this illustration here is from 1868.
Abbey Mills became known as a cathedral of sewage.
It's quite grand, isn't it?
And here's an illustration of the inside of Abbey Mills.
Notice the well dressed gentry taking a tour.
Here's how Abbey Mills looks today from the outside.
And here's how it looks on the inside nowadays.
These photos in fact where taken by
one of our University Manchester colleagues, Paul Dobraszczyk.
Modern day Abbey Mills, now abandoned and no longer in use, has
actually also been used as a film location for various Hollywood productions.
Batman Begins from 2005 used the Abbey Mills interior
as the setting for part of its fictional Arkham Asylum.
Across the south side of the river Thames,
another sewage pumping station was built at Crossness.
Crossness took the sewage from the new counterpart interceptor sewer
that ran along the south side of the river Thames.
And there was also a third pumping station
built closer to the center of London, at Deptford.
This helped pump the sewage onwards to Crossness that's further out to the east.
But the Deptford pumping station no longer exists.
After being abandoned around the mid-1950s, Crossness has
actually since been part of a restoration effort.
Since 1987 the Crossness Engines Trust has organized many volunteers and one
public grant funding to restore the
building and make it available for visitors.
And it's quite remarkable but Peter Bazalgette, the great, great
grandson of Sir Joseph Bazalgette who led London's sewer system
building program, is actually the president of this Crossness Engines
Trust that is working to restore the Crossness pumping station.
Here's an illustration of the inside of Crossness.
It's being opened by, in 1865 by the Prince of Wales.
I wonder, would UK royalty open a modern sewage facility in the UK?
Perhaps.
But at Crossness, the large and powerful
Joseph Bazalgette designed steam engines that lifted
and pumped the sewage on to sea
outfalls from Crossness were even named after royalty.
The four steam engines were named Victoria,
Prince Consort, Albert Edward, that's the name of
Prince of Wales in this photo, and
Alexandra, the Princess of Wales at the time.
I'd say this was a pretty good sign of
the perceived significance of London's 19th century sewer building program.
Here are some current shots of the interior of Crossness,
with visitors taking a tour now that it's undergone restoration.
Nowadays I'm sure the kind of external and internal ornamentation we see at both of
these 19th century sites, Abbey Mills and Crossness,
will be thought of as gold-plating your assets.
And remember, these were both just sewage pumping stations.
They lifted and pumped the sewage out for discharge
to sea via outfalls east of the center of London.
They didn't actually treat sewage.
The technology to do that only came decades later, and
we'll hear about that in a later video this week.
I think it's interesting that we can actually put this idea about a new pride
in water and sanitation related cleanliness and
hygiene in the 19th century to the test.
And show that in some ways it was a passing set of attitudes.
That's because if we jump ahead in our UK water development path for just a moment,
we can look at the modern day incarnations
of Abbey Mills and Crossness to test our point.
So here is modern day Abbey Mills pumping station, built some years ago
to replace the abandoned cathedral of sewage as part of Thames Water's network.
It's not half as grand, is it?
And here is modern day Crossness Sewage Pumping Station.
Again, like the new Abbey Mills, no longer overtly grand or ornate.
Interestingly, reflecting further changes to knowledge, attitudes and practices,
at Crossness the water utility Thames Water now burns
sludge generated from treatment processes to create enough renewable
energy to power this site so that it's self sufficient.
Taking another quick example from outside London, we can in fact suggest just how
far attitudes and practices have changed about
the public prominence of water and sanitation infrastructure.
The photos here show a clean water membrane treatment plant.
This is part of the infrastructure of
northwest of England private water utility, United Utilities.
Well, where is the plant, you might well ask.
It's actually inside these buildings, and it's been designed to look like a
typical farmhouse building from the rural location
of the north of England Lake District.
This is an area with heritage-related and planning permission issues of course.
But to make this water treatment plant blend
into the landscape in this way would have
had quite a significant additional cost over the
price of a typical works of this kind.
Through our historical UK water development path
story so far, in this video and
the last video, we've seen a public
pride and celebration of water and sanitation infrastructure.
We've seen that the Great Conduit in London was made to flow with wine.
We've seen a cathedral of sewage at Abbey Mills.
And the plant at Crossness was opened by royalty.
Looking now at their current day counterparts, what do you think
this says about how much knowledge, attitudes and practices have changed?
In the next video we're going to look at another aspect
of the historical UK water development path that we've been following.
This is path dependency, or in other
words, the current consequences and constraints from past
decisions that in a way embedded certain parameters
and priorities into the water and sanitation infrastructure.
And these are no easy matter to reconsider or redirect to get the
system to meet new society expectations that
have emerged at national and global levels.
Thanks for watching this video.
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