Mental Model Approach to Wastewater Treatment Plant Project Delivery during Emergency Response
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 144, Issue 6
Abstract
The proper management of water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services is critical in serving displaced populations. In 2015, the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan serving the displaced Syrian populations became one of the first in the world to have an on-site advanced wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). Although there exist guidelines and best practices on the proper WWTP incident management, evidence suggests that they are largely ineffective in providing substantial benefits to active incident management. This study applied a mental model approach to investigate the Azraq WWTP project stakeholder decision practices during an active incident management phase and to initiate work to identify the factors that influence the WWTP project delivery during a disaster response. These findings showed that improving the practitioners’ ability to recognize and address the nontechnical internal concepts that impact their decision processes could positively influence the wastewater treatment plant construction and operation in new and challenging project conditions. The implementable recommendations include flat communication structures, training for locating knowledge within new disaster response project groups, and increasing the stakeholders’ ability to create improvised solutions on the basis of their existing professional knowledge.
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Data Availability Statement
Data generated or analyzed during the study are available from the corresponding author by request or from the project PIs of NSF grant CBET-1539775. Information about the Journal’s data sharing policy can be found here: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29CO.1943-7862.0001263.
Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the NSF grant CBET-1539775 and AWWA Al Alsing scholarship. The research group would like to thank Dr. Heidi L. Gough (UW), Dr. Ann Bostrom (UW), Dr. Jamal Abu-Ashour (JUST), Dr. Muna Abu-Dalo (JUST), graduate students Abdallah Awawdeh (JUST) and Chris Callahan (UW), and undergraduate student Keenan Ferar (UW), who helped with developing the interview questionnaire and with collecting, translating, and organizing the interview data.
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Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 144 • Issue 6 • June 2018
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©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 22, 2016
Accepted: Nov 27, 2017
Published online: Mar 28, 2018
Published in print: Jun 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Aug 28, 2018
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