What does behavioural science have to do with safe water interventions?

Over half of the world’s population lack safely managed sanitation services, while at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces (WHO, 2017). This causes diarrhoeal disease which is responsible for the death of around half a million children under the age of 5 each year (WHO, 2017). Without the adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) conditions in place, risks of contamination are everywhere, and practices that pose a risk to health become highly prevalent. Examples …

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Water charges to become an intractable feature of the Republic’s future landscape?

Post-election, Irish Water is playing something of a rearguard action. In its own legal advice was leaked to the Irish Times suggests that any wriggle room for getting rid of Water Charges has disappeared… “The benefit of the derogation has been lost for all time, and cannot be revived by seeking to reverse the decision to introduce charges. “A very limited derogation to this default position is allowed . . . if it is established practice not to recover the …

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Come on BBC NI give us the bad news on our beaches…?

So, here’s what the listeners to Radio 4 got this morning on the new Good Beach guide report, picking out Northern Ireland as a noteable weak point in the overall UK figures… .@mickfealty – @BBCr4today puts NI beach water quality stats in context wholly, sadly missing from @BBCNewsNI report pic.twitter.com/cW7nCFcSMR — Patrick Corrigan (@PatrickCorrigan) April 15, 2014 Then this from BBC NI… Northern Ireland beaches’ water quality ‘acceptable’… Clearly good news elsewhere has meant lots of detail on a general …

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POTD – Reflected

One of the best “to do’s” in Belfast is the Titanic tour around the docks. Moochin PhotomanPhotographer and visual artist based in Belfast. I have facilitated community based workshops with groups as diverse as visually impaired individuals in Dungannn, Travellers across Northern Ireland, Young Offenders and many community groups across Belfast. My work has exhibited extensively here in Northern Ireland in group and individual shows and has been shown in North America and i had my first solo international exhibition …

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“these could be the first known Martian locations with liquid water”

A BBC report notes the fascinating interpretation being made of some more wondrous images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.  MRO image gallery here.    From JPLnews Here’s an animated gif showing the features of interest. This series of images shows warm-season features that might be evidence of salty liquid water active on Mars today. Evidence for that possible interpretation is presented in a report by McEwen et al. in the Aug. 5, 2011, edition of Science. These images come …

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Not just Belfast without water

Seems to be a lot of news on the lack of water in the City but very little mention of rural problems.  Personally here in the backwaters outside Coagh in rural Tyrone (near  Cookstown), we have been without running water for over a week.  The problem seemingly being frozen underground pipes outside the property running through the garden. We have managed to get by – filling containers from our neighbours water supply (they had their own problems with frozen pipes …

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Water supplies cut due to shortages in Dublin and Cork

Unfortunate timing as the Irish government’s budget details are revealed, but as RTÉ reports Councils in the capital are making cuts to overnight supply for at least the next three nights. Fingal County Council has cut water supply from 7pm until 7am tomorrow. Dublin City Council has cut water supply during the same period – from 7pm to 7am. South Dublin saw cuts to supply or loss of pressure at 8pm until 6am. Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown has cut water supply in …

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