Lay out the camp
Place shelters, water, latrines and paths on the first day so that fire, flood and faecal disease cannot sweep the camp.
Everything for this step
- Field guide
- Planning a settlement → 12 sections
- Builds
- None yet.
- Reference sheets
- None.
- Sciences it rests on
- Mathematics · Earth sciences
- Track
- Settlement and planning, level 1 of 7 · next: Choose the ground
Why this matters
The layout of a camp is decided in its first hours and outlives every plan to replace it. Fire runs through shelters closer than 2 m: on 22 March 2021 one fire in the Kutupalong–Balukhali camps at Cox's Bazar killed 15 people, destroyed more than 9,500 shelters and left about 45,000 homeless (UNHCR). Faecal disease follows latrines that are too far away to use at night, or too close to the water. The numbers here are the humanitarian minimums in the UNHCR Emergency Handbook, which follows the Sphere standards. Each is a floor, not a target.
The shape of it
- Allow 45 m² of ground per person: 30 m² for plots, paths, latrines, water points, firebreaks and services, and 15 m² for a household garden. Never plan below 30 m².
- Build in modules: a family plot, 16 families to a community around a shared latrine block and water point, 16 communities to a block of about 1,250 people.
- Space against fire: at least 2 m between shelters, ideally twice their height, and a 30 m firebreak every 300 m of shelters.
- Latrines within 50 m of every shelter and at least 30 m downhill of any water; water within 500 m of every household.
- Drain before the first rain: ground falling 1–5 %, drains cut along the fall at about 2 %, and an outfall below the water supply.
Doing it, step by step
The summary above says what has to happen. This says how, with the numbers that decide whether it works.
1 · Choose ground that drains and does not flood
Slope 1–5 %, ideally 2–4 %, and never over 10 %: flatter ground ponds, steeper ground erodes until every path is a gully. Keep off river flats, dry stream beds and hollows. Ask anyone local where water stood in the last big rain, and look for silt lines on trees and walls.
The water table must be deep: at the end of the wet season it should lie at least 3 m below the surface, because latrine pits need 1.5 m of dry soil beneath them. For a site meant to last years, go on to choosing the ground.
2 · Work out how much ground you need
People × 45 m² is the planning area: 500 people need 22,500 m², a square about 150 m on a side. Of each person's 45 m², 30 m² carries shelters, paths, latrines, water points, firebreaks, stores and services, and 15 m² is kitchen garden. Below about 30 m² per person a camp cannot fit its own latrines and firebreaks, and disease and fire follow. Grazing and fields are extra.
Measure the site with a cord knotted every metre, and pace-check it so anyone can re-measure a plot without the cord.
3 · Lay it out in modules
Plan the smallest unit first and repeat it:
- Family: 4 to 6 people, one plot.
- Community: 16 families, about 80 people, around a shared latrine block and water point.
- Block: 16 communities, about 1,250 people.
- Sector: 4 blocks, about 5,000; a settlement of 4 sectors, 20,000 at most.
Run straight paths between every row of plots, wide enough for a stretcher and a water cart, and number every plot on the plan and on a stake. Services then sit at a walking distance by design, and anyone can be found.
4 · Space the shelters against fire
At least 2 m between any two shelters, ideally twice the shelter's height: a shelter 2.5 m tall wants 5 m. Leave a firebreak 30 m wide for every 300 m of shelters and keep it bare, with no shelters, stores, fuel piles or cooking. Firebreaks double as roads, markets and assembly points, which is also where people run.
Cook outside the shelter or in a separate kitchen, and keep a bucket of water or sand at every cooking place.
5 · Put latrines where people will use them and water cannot reach them
- Within 50 m of every shelter. Further, and people use the ground near home, especially at night. Light the path if you can.
- At least 30 m from any well, spring or water point, and downhill of it.
- Pit bottoms at least 1.5 m above the highest groundwater.
- One latrine per 50 people in the first weeks, then one per family for a camp that stays.
Build each one as in separating waste from water.
6 · Bring water within 500 m
Every household within 500 m of a water point, with one tap for every 500 people in the first days, falling to one per 250 as the camp settles. Plan on 15 litres per person per day; see find and hold water. Put the water point uphill of the latrines, on hard standing that drains away: spilled water around a tap turns to mud and breeds mosquitoes.
7 · Dig the drains before the first rain
Mark where rain runs before anything is built, and keep shelters out of every natural channel. Cut drains along the fall at about 2 %, a drop of 2 cm per metre, beside the paths, joining into larger drains that leave the camp below the water supply. Line the outlet with stones so it does not cut a gully. Clear the drains after every storm.
8 · Keep the empty land empty
Reserve plots for a health post, a school, a distribution point and a market. UNHCR plans one health facility for every 10,000 people and one school for every 5,000. Keep room to grow on the uphill or drier side. Write the reservations down and stake them: unguarded space is built on within weeks, and the firebreaks go first.