Integrated Urban WASH Planning: Bridging Informal Settlements and Formal Infrastructure

Abstract

This study presents an operational conceptual model for integrated urban Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) planning that links informal-settlement context to portfolio decisions under resource, affordability, and governance constraints. Current practice often relies on fragmented decision logics and incomplete data, leaving limited basis for comparing sewer-first masterplans, water-only expansion, and data-driven ranking under identical conditions. The proposed framework specifies core constructs and mechanisms, then translates them into evaluable propositions using a programmatic cohort grounded in public aggregate WASH statistics and utility key performance indicators (KPIs). Validation is specified through grouped holdouts and external holdouts, baseline comparisons, and uncertainty reporting using BCa bootstrap with 2000 resamples and 10 seeds, with multiple testing controlled using FDR at alpha 0.05; rubric labels are planned from two annotators on a 15% sample with adjudication. Primary decision outcomes are operationalized as equity adjusted coverage (percent), affordability stress index (dimensionless), and cost per new household USD (USD), with acceptance criteria including equity adjusted coverage meets >=70 with 95% CI and affordability stress index meets <=1.0 with 95% CI, while empirical performance results are not reported here. The framework provides a practical basis for utilities, municipalities, and settlement leaders to select and audit WASH upgrading pathways when household-level targeting and site-specific engineering detail are out of scope.