Welcome, bienvenue and bienvenido to Akvopedia! Welcome to Akvopedia, the open water and sanitation resource that anyone can edit. We strive to improve water and sanitation projects through knowledge exchange on smart and affordable technical solutions and effective approaches. Akvopedia now contains 2,211 articles primarily in English, including some in French and Spanish. Akvopedia is hosted and managed by Akvo Foundation. Water Portal The Water Portal contains information on water collection, pumping and transportation, storage, treatment, and use of water. Sanitation Portal The Sanitation Portal contains information on toilets, collection, transportation, treatment, use of products, hygiene, and training materials. Finance Portal The Finance Portal contains information on the costs needed to finance, how to finance these costs, and how to monitor finance. Sustainability Portal The Sustainability Portal contains information on numerous sustainability frameworks, tools, and methods, using the F.I.E.T.S approach. Decision & Assessment Tools - NEW! Decision & Assessment Tools contain several tools, assessments, or kits that aid in the implementation of water and sanitation projects in an easier way. What's happening now New pages: Accessible WASH Design Thanks to WaterAid and WEDC, we have put their entire water and sanitation disability document online. Check out our new pages! The Accessible WASH Design pages are useful for disabled, elderly, the sick, and children - all those who need special help with accessing and using sanitation facilities. It is made for use by staff, working directly with communities - e.g. health workers and community volunteers working with disabled and older people and their families in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond. Most of the ideas are suitable for disabled and older people, but are not only for them. As we get older, many of us find it increasingly difficult to squat and balance, or we might be injured or sick. More news Updated!! Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies, 2nd Edition: The entire Sanitation Portal is now updated with the most current information from the new compendium from Sandec/EAWAG. It contains several brand new topics such as Pre-treatment Technologies, Settler, and the Imhoff tank. Plus redefinitions for many sanitation products. Biomass is now included a lot as well. Plus some newer versions of treatment systems that mention biogas and blackwater more frequently than the 1st edition. 70 Sustainable Sanitation Documents from Pseau.org : We now have links in our Sustainability Portal, column 5 (Social Sustainability) for 70 new documents in both French and English. These colorfully illustrate a variety of handwashing and sanitation methods that include topics such as schools and gender. Great for teaching kids! All links go to the pseau.org site where you can search by topic, country, or target audience. NEW RWH TOOLS: Make a personalized GIS rainwater harvesting map - We have teamed up with RAIN to create three new rainwater harvesting (RWH) tools in Akvopedia. One of these is called the Rainwater Harvesting GIS Map. You can follow three steps to create a RWH map to see optimal places of rainwater collection in your area. The other tools, Rain is Gain Tool and WASH Environmental Sustainability Assessment, help you to both assess your water needs/supply and make sure your WASH project is environmentally sustainable, respectively. Translated pages We are proud to announce our new Akvopedia Translations program! We have started our language program with translators for French, Spanish, 3 Indian languages (Hindi, Malayalam, and Tamil), Korean, Chinese, and Japanese, with many more to come. See the upper right of each English page for the different language flags. Not all pages have been translated yet. New Translation: Our Multiple Use Services (MUS) page is in English, French, Spanish, Malayalam, Korean, and Chinese. New Translation: Our Surface water - general page is now in English, French, Spanish, and Malayalam. New Translation: Our Groundwater recharge - general page is now in English and French with more coming soon. Contributing to Akvopedia Share your news and knowledge on water and sanitation by contributing articles to the Akvopedia. We've used the same conventions as the well-known online resource Wikipedia, so adding and editing articles is quick and easy to learn. This graphical guide will get you started; more detailed information about editing wiki articles is available in the help pages: Help:Contents Editorial support Do you have quality content that you would like to contribute to Akvopedia, but lack the time or resources to upload it? Akvopedia offers free limited editorial services and always appreciates suggestions and links to expand our WASH wiki. Please contact our editor Winona Azure at winonaakvo.org. Thank you for visiting!