SODIS

At least one third of the population in developing countries has no access to safe drinking water. The lack of adequate water supply and sanitation facilities causes a serious health hazard and exposes many to the risk of water-borne diseases:

There are about 4 billion cases of diarrhoea each year, out of which 2.5 million cases end in death. Every day about 6000 children die of dehydration due to diarrhoea.

The Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS) process is a simple technology used to improve the microbiological quality of drinking water. SODIS uses solar radiation to destroy pathogenic microorganisms which cause water borne diseases.

SODIS is ideal to treat small quantities of water. Contaminated water is filled into transparent plastic bottles and exposed to full sunlight for six hours.

Sunlight is treating the contaminated water through two synergetic mechanisms: Radiation in the spectrum of UV-A (wavelength 320-400nm) and increased water temperature. If the water temperatures raises above 50°C, the disinfection process is three times faster.

An agreement between EAWAG (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology) and COSI to promote and disseminate SODIS in Sri Lanka was signed in April 2002; with a detailed Project Preparation Report was submitted by COSI.

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Project activities with partner organizations began in August 2002. COSI worked together with 9 partner organizations, local and international, and 9 schools in Batticaloa district for this project. This report will give the detailed information on how the project progressed in the first year of its implementation, from August 2002 to September 2003.

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