The Importance Of Safe Drinking Water For A Post Disaster...

My interest in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) begun during my engagement with the Red Cross in a post disaster rehabilitation project in coastal areas of my home country, Bangladesh. I observed the importance of safe drinking water when the 2007 cyclone â€Å"SIDR† contaminated about seventy percent of water sources resulting an outbreak of waterborne diseases in affected communities. I saw the challenges of providing basic services to the victims which motivated me to pursue my career in this field. I am a Civil and Environmental Engineer by training with a MS in Water Resources Development (WRD). Currently pursuing my second master’s in Environmental Studies from Florida International University (FIU). I have worked in the WASH sector†¦show more content†¦I tested different parameters of wastewater in a bench scale reactor to determine the changes of effluent quality and compared the results with national standards to determine the treatment efficiency. The study showed a higher removal trend by the hyacinth basin. Afterward, during the WRD master’s I was trained on water management issues. For the thesis, I carried out an interdisciplinary research on the evaluation of different water supply options in cyclone storm surge prone areas applying participatory multi-criteria analysis method. I evaluated coastal water supply alternatives by assessing technical viability, economic efficiency, environmental sustainability and social equity criteria. The study demonstrated use of a participatory decision making framework – a rarely used but pivotal tool for sustainability – for selecting water supply options in Bangladesh. I co-authored a paper on this which is published in the Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development and a second paper where I compared different analysis methods is in the Water Policy journal’s press. For the current study, I am working on a project titled: South Florida Wat er Sustainability and Climate funded by NSF (http://sfwsc.fiu.edu/). My research focuses on mapping social perception about the Everglades restoration, considering climate change ramifications. Applying multi utility theory and Geographic