Human and embodied energy analysis applied to water source protection and household water treatment interventions used in Mali, West Africa

As water quality interventions are scaled up to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water by 2015 there has been much discussion on the merits of household- and source-level interventions. This study furthers the discussion by examining specific interventions through the use of embodied human and material energy. Embodied energy quantifies the total energy required to produce and use an intervention, including all upstream energy transactions. This model uses material quantities and prices to calculate embodied energy using national economic input/output-based models from China, the United States and Mali. Embodied energy is a measure of aggregate environmental impacts of the interventions. Human energy quantifies the caloric expenditure associated with the installation and operation of an intervention is calculated using the physical activity ratios (PARs) and basal metabolic rates (BMRs). Human energy is a measure of aggregate social impacts of an intervention. A total of four household treatment interventions – biosand filtration, chlorination, ceramic filtration and boiling – and four water source-level interventions – an improved well, a rope pump, a hand pump and a solar pump – are evaluated in the context of Mali, West Africa. Source-level interventions slightly out-perform household-level interventions in terms of having less total embodied energy. Human energy, typically assumed to be a negligible portion of total embodied energy, is shown to be significant to all eight interventions, and contributing over half of total embodied energy in four of the interventions. Traditional gender roles in Mali dictate the types of work performed by men and women. When the human energy is disaggregated by gender, it is seen that women perform over 99% of the work associated with seven of the eight interventions. This has profound implications for gender equality in the context of water quality interventions, and may justify investment in interventions that reduce human energy burdens.

Sound As Artifact

A distinguishing feature of the discipline of archaeology is its reliance upon sensory dependant investigation. As perceived by all of the senses, the felt environment is a unique area of archaeological knowledge. It is generally accepted that the emergence of industrial processes in the recent past has been accompanied by unprecedented sonic extremes. The work of environmental historians has provided ample evidence that the introduction of much of this unwanted sound, or "noise" was an area of contestation. More recent research in the history of sound has called for more nuanced distinctions than the noisy/quiet dichotomy. Acoustic archaeology tends to focus upon a reconstruction of sound producing instruments and spaces with a primary goal of ascertaining intentionality. Most archaeoacoustic research is focused on learning more about the sonic world of people within prehistoric timeframes while some research has been done on historic sites. In this thesis, by way of a meditation on industrial sound and the physical remains of the Quincy Mining Company blacksmith shop (Hancock, MI) in particular, I argue for an acceptance and inclusion of sound as artifact in and of itself. I am introducing the concept of an individual sound-form, or sonifact, as a reproducible, repeatable, representable physical entity, created by tangible, perhaps even visible, host-artifacts. A sonifact is a sound that endures through time, with negligible variability. Through the piecing together of historical and archaeological evidence, in this thesis I present a plausible sonifactual assemblage at the blacksmith shop in April 1916 as it may have been experienced by an individual traversing the vicinity on foot: an 'historic soundwalk.' The sensory apprehension of abandoned industrial sites is multi-faceted. In this thesis I hope to make the case for an acceptance of sound as a primary heritage value when thinking about the industrial past, and also for an increased awareness and acceptance of sound and listening as a primary mode of perception.