About Strategic initiatives Water 
| Accelerating global water solutions |
 Students, with community members from Ciudad de Dios, Peru, line pipe trenches with sand to protect the pipes in the water distribution system. Although unsafe water traditionally has been a problem in rural areas, the urban slums in which poor people increasingly dwell are now among the most underserved and unsanitary places on earth. The water crisis is growing despite the fact that water and sanitation represent extremely cost-effective public health investments. UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health has played a critical role in developing systems to supply, treat and distribute water, since the university started a sanitary engineering program in the 1920s. Since then, the impact of countless projects conducted by our faculty, students and staff have been felt, literally, from the Neuse River in North Carolina to the Nile River flowing across northern Africa. The School's Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, a leader in the field of water and sanitation for more than 50 years, consistently ranks in the top 10 environmental engineering programs in the nation. It is the only such program within a school of public health - bringing the disciplines of health and environmental engineering together under one roof. Our partners include U.S. government agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; international agencies, such as the World Bank and the World Health Organization; private industry; and a number of foreign governments.
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| Last updated November 21, 2011 |