In 2011, Caroline D’Angelo and Dakota Dobyns, at the time students in the Master of Environmental Studies (MES) program, traveled to Sri Lanka and India with Stan Laskowski, their instructor in a course on global water issues. It was an opportunity to witness firsthand how a person’s gender can affect access to water and proper sanitation. 

“Caroline and I were really struck by the lack of easily accessible information and research on the role of gender in water and sanitation issues,” says Dobyns, who, along with D’Angelo, graduated from the MES program in 2012 and is now a consultant for the social impact advisory firm Geneva Global. “We saw how women weren’t necessarily having a seat at the table in making decisions about projects that affected them.”

When they looked for more information, they found no centralized repository, but rather bits of research and policy that were outdated or scattered in hard-to-find chapters of reports or in project write-ups of small nonprofits.  

Upon returning to Penn, they decided to do something about it. Working with faculty and their fellow students, they launched wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water, an open-access, student-led publication intended to draw attention to and share research about how gender and water issues can intersect. That effort has endured. The fifth issue of wH2O is available online and in print, and students are busy working on getting the sixth edition to press this spring.

Sally Cardy, administrative director of professional master’s programs in the School of Arts and Sciences, serves as the publication’s managing editor, helping provide continuity and structure to the editorial process as students come and go.

“The journal is a learning tool for the students who choose to work on it,” Cardy says. “They learn how to edit, how to solicit articles, how to take part in peer-review, and how to promote the journal once it’s out.”

In the developing world, women and girls are often charged with providing clean water for their families, a chore that may entail walking miles to and from a well or pump, carrying heavy loads, and putting themselves at risk of violence on the way. The chore may also mean that girls are unable to attend school. In the most recent issue of wH2O, an article by Jeff La Frenierre, an assistant professor at Gustavus Adolphus College, presented data from Laos about the caloric cost of water access, finding that individuals—more often females—may expend nearly a third of their energy in a day fetching water, a burden that calls into question what it means to have “access” to water.

Studying such issues is critical to ensure global health and meet the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. But looking ahead, Cardy hopes to expand the journal’s scope to encompass challenges that go beyond water access and sanitation in developing nations.

“I think it would be interesting to extend the focus to include body image, water quality, and other issues that affect the developed world as well as the developing world,” she says. “I would love to see an interview with a person who highlighted the Flint water crisis and talk about how the Girl Scouts became involved with water testing.”

In addition, the journal board and staff would like to use the publication as a forum for discussing what the future research agenda for gender and water should be.

“Global non-governmental organizations like the UN and academic researchers are trying to find ways to collect gender-specific [water, sanitation, and hygiene] data to better inform future decision-making,” Cardy says. “However, what are the most critical issues for which additional research should be conducted? What are the policies and technologies that provide sustainable access?”

D’Angelo and Dobyns, for their part, are both pleased to see their creation being sustained—and evolving.

“Going forward, we hope the journal will keep growing and changing to address the most pressing challenges in water and gender,” says D’Angelo, who works on global sustainability issues for the U.S. Department of State. “The important and exciting thing is that students have a platform to use all the assets that Penn has—the research, the bright and talented students that go there, professors like Stan, staff like Sally—to make something that helps the world.”

The journal has a presence on Twitter and Facebook. Those interested in submitting an idea or article, or getting involved in the production of wH2O, can contact the journal staff at wh2ojournal@sas.upenn.edu.