Research

Job market paper

Is urban wastewater treatment effective in India? Evidence from water quality and infant mortality

Abstract: In developing countries, untreated sewage exposes people to alarming water pollution levels, yet there is limited knowledge about the effectiveness of wastewater treatment investments. I leverage the national inventory of sewage treatment plants in India and various granular datasets on river water quality measures, as well as geo-localized information on child births and deaths, to identify robust effects of wastewater treatment installations. To do so, I use estimators robust to staggered adoption within a difference-in-differences design and compare urban areas that started wastewater treatment from 2010 onwards and urban areas where such treatment was planned or under construction in 2020. I show that after starting wastewater treatment, levels of fecal coliforms decreased by 50%, and downstream mortality under the age of six months declined by 20%. A back-of the-envelope calculation suggests that starting wastewater treatment earlier – from 2010 onwards – in urban areas later selected into treatment – after 2020 – would have prevented over 40,000 child deaths in downstream sub-basins.
ENPC blog post

Working paper

Heat stress, hydraulic conditions and health in India with Philippe Quirion and Pierre Uginet

Abstract: Heat waves, exacerbated by global warming, have increasingly negative health effects, particularly in relatively poor and hot countries such as India. These impacts are partly direct, caused by hyperthermia, and partly due to reduced food availability. While numerous harmful health effects of hot temperatures have been established, little is known about the links between heat waves and anemia, a medical condition affecting one-quarter of people worldwide and 43% of India’s population. Using health, nutritional and climate data, we analyze the relationship between heat stress and anemia in India over the past decade. We examine both dry heat waves (high temperatures) and humid heat waves (combination of high temperatures and humidity). We find preliminary evidence indicating that heat waves worsen anemia in children and women. Moreover, the mechanism responsible does not seem to be related to reduced food availability.
Draft coming soon

Work in progress

Fertilizers, water quality and perinatal health in India with Eléonore Rouault

Publication

Mapping forward-looking mitigation studies at country level, Claire Lepault and Franck Lecocq, Environmental Research Letters, Volume 16.8, July 2021
link to open access article | code

Other contributions