SNAPP: Guidance on evidence based practices for improved sanitation, water security and ecological health, with a focus on nature-based solutions

There are 2.4 billion people without improved sanitation and another 2.1 billion with inadequate sanitation (i.e. wastewater drains directly into surface waters), and despite improvements over the past decades, the unsafe management of fecal waste and wastewater continues to present a major risk to public health and the environment (UN, 2016). To ensure that SDG 6, which focuses on water and sanitation, integrates the impacts and benefits to nature conservation, development and human well-being, the following key questions need to be considered: How can nature help achieve sanitation goals? 
How can achieving sanitation goals help nature? 
It is often difficult for wastewater utility managers to know whether to incorporate natural infrastructure into their planning, how best to find a suitable mix of grey and green infrastructure, and how to choose among the menu of possible types of green infrastructure. Many professionals, technicians and regulators, are hesitant to implement nature-based solutions, because the mechanisms at play are not well understood and controlled. This proposed working group aims to examine how wastewater utilities and their regulators can implement nature-based sanitation solutions into wastewater treatment facilities while also providing benefits to nature and encouraging biodiversity. Building on existing research and examples of good practice, a guidance document will be developed demonstrating how these solutions promote a healthy environment for nature and people. a policy brief to translate the science to decision makers and a communications strategy to guide implementation partners to take the guidance forward. Using the information collated in the development of the guidance, a scientific publication with GIS analysis of urban sewage run-off, will focus on how implementation of SDG 6 (with a focus on sanitation) impacts ecosystems downstream. 
The SNAPP working group will contribute to SDG 6, but also be positioned to influence sanitation providers and regulators to design and integrate wastewater treatment facilities with ecosystems in a way that benefits ecological and human health. The process will endeavor to inspire wastewater utilities and regulatory authorities to incorporate the guidance into their operation and planning.

The information here may be out of date, please refer to https://snappartnership.net/ for more current information.