Published: March 25, 2023

Small blue building with white storage tank behind a wire fence in a semi-informal settlement

A water vending kiosk (blue building) installed in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Mortenson Center student Matthew Falcone, a doctoral candidate in Environmental Engineering, is the lead author of “Effectiveness of a water-vending kiosk intervention toward household water quality and surveyed water security in Freetown, Sierra Leone” recently published in Science of The Total Environment. Mortenson Center Teaching Assistant Professor Carlo Salvinelli and Director Evan Thomas are also among the authors on the paper.

Low-income urban residents of Freetown, Sierra Leone, have limited access to safely managed piped drinking water services. The government of Sierra Leone, in partnership with the United States Millennium Challenge Corporation, implemented a demonstration project of ten water kiosks providing distributed, stored, treated water to two neighborhoods in Freetown.

The study showed that water kiosk intervention had lackluster impacts on household water security and household water quality. Furthermore, there was low functionality and adoption and low levels of impact on kiosk users.

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