Climate Change Impacts on Urban Sanitation: A Systematic Review and Failure Mode Analysis

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Urban Planning
• Climate Change Adaptation

Background:

• Urban sanitation systems face increasing stress from climate change.
• Current research on climate impacts is heavily biased towards centralized sewerage in high-income countries.
• A comprehensive understanding of climate change effects across diverse urban sanitation infrastructures is lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and critically appraise existing evidence on climate change impacts on all types of urban sanitation systems.
• To identify research gaps concerning non-sewered, decentralized, and fragmented sanitation systems.
• To assess the comprehensiveness of current research in considering city-wide interdependencies and combined climate effects.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature review of studies assessing climate change impacts on urban sanitation.
• Inclusion of road-based transport networks critical for fecal sludge management.
• Synthesis of climate impact evidence with knowledge of urban sanitation failure modes.

Main Results:

• A predominance of studies focuses on centralized sewerage systems in high-income settings.
• Climate change implications for non-sewered, fragmented, and decentralized urban sanitation remain significantly under-researched.
• Current research lacks a city-wide perspective, failing to account for intersectoral interdependencies and combined climate effects.

Conclusions:

• The evidence base for climate change impacts on urban sanitation systems is currently weak.
• Research inadequately represents the diversity of urban sanitation infrastructure and service provision.
• Existing studies do not fully capture the operational and management challenges faced by stressed urban sanitation systems.