The use of a risk assessment tool based on the Sanitation Safety Planning approach for the improvement of O&M procedures of a wastewater treatment plant in Tanzania

The treatment of wastewater and excreta is one of the major challenges
in low-income contexts. The urgency of recovery and reuse of nutrients
for agriculture come into contrast with the risks for workers, farmers, and
communities. This article presents the development of a risk-based
methodology adapted from the Sanitation Safety Planning (SSP) and
NaWaTech Safety and operation and management (O&M) planning
approaches aimed at improving the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP)
of the Municipality of Iringa, Tanzania, selected as case study. The
proposed approach is an innovative tool to identify and quantify the risk
connected to hazardous events: the methodology was applied at the
WWTP in order to identify and assess the risks related to the
malfunctioning or to some exceptional events that could pose health
risks to workers and nearby communities. The process permitted to
identify the risk connected to the hazardous events in order to propose
additional control measures for events having medium, high, or very
high risk level. These additional control measures were aimed at
improving current O&M procedures of the WWTP by the use of simple
enhancements requiring low investments, as a first step toward the
safeguard of the health of workers, farmers, and nearby communities.