Population connected to wastewater treatment facilities

Data source
1. EUROSTAT (1)
2. WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (2).

Description of data
The EUROSTAT data are derived from the dataset “National population connected to urban wastewater treatment plants” (Table IWQ4). The data include primary, secondary and tertiary wastewater treatment. They do not include connection to privately owned systems such as septic tanks because very few countries have reported this information to EUROSTAT. The Joint Monitoring Programme data are the datasets “san_urb_hc” and “san_rur_hc”, defined as “Percentage of population with house connections to sanitation facilities in urban and rural areas”. House connections take into account only domestic connections to a sewerage system and therefore exclude septic tanks and dry sanitation, even if privately owned. Additional information was extracted from the 2008 country reports, now available at the Joint Monitoring Programme web site (2).

Method of calculating the indicator
The indicator was computed as: connected population/total population × 100.

Geographical coverage
The EUROSTAT database covers the 27 EU Member States and Croatia.

The Joint Monitoring Programme database covers all Member States of the WHO European Region.
Period of coverage
The indicator uses EUROSTAT’s data for the period from 1998 to 2009.

Another source of data is the Joint Monitoring Programme’s data for 2006.
Frequency of update
The EUROSTAT database is updated every two years. The JMP database is updated when a new questionnaire is filled in.

Data quality
Owing to the voluntary nature of the data collection, the data sets obtained by EUROSTAT and by the Joint Monitoring Programme are not complete and do not relate to the child population.

EUROSTAT checks the data for plausibility, for example for logical consistency and for extraordinary changes in time series. The data are revised whenever a new questionnaire is filled in.
Because the data collected are useful in a policy context to identify areas with low sanitation coverage, there is a need for improvement in the collection, management and reporting of data. Mechanisms for regular reporting, as well as widening the data coverage and improving the estimates of sanitation and wastewater treatment, should be set under the WHO Protocol on Water and Health.
The Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) is a UN-Water pilot initiative, technically coordinated by WHO (16). GLAAS is seeking a new approach to reporting progress in the sanitation and drinking-water sectors in order to strengthen evidence-based policy-making towards and beyond the MDG.