A Life-cycle Approach to Improve the Sustainability of Rural Water Systems in Resource-Limited Countries

Abstract

A WHO and UNICEF joint report states that in 2008, 884 million people lacked access to potable drinking water. A life-cycle approach to develop potable water systems may improve the sustainability for such systems, however, a review of the literature shows that such an approach has primarily been used for urban systems located in resourced countries. Although urbanization is increasing globally, over 40 percent of the world’s population is currently rural with many considered poor. In this paper, we present a first step towards using life-cycle assessment to develop sustainable rural water systems in resource-limited countries while pointing out the needs. For example, while there are few differences in costs and environmental impacts for many improved rural water system options, a system that uses groundwater with community standpipes is substantially lower in cost that other alternatives with a somewhat lower environmental inventory. However, a LCA approach shows that from institutional as well as community and managerial perspectives, sustainability includes many other factors besides cost and environment that are a function of the interdependent decision process used across the life cycle of a water system by aid organizations, water user committees, and household users. These factors often present the biggest challenge to designing sustainable rural water systems for resource-limited countries

Collecting Critical Data to Assess the Sustainability of Rural Infrastructure in Low-Income Countries

“…Using this hypothetical community, the authors are able to demonstrate that there are few differences in costs and environmental impacts for many improved rural water system alternatives with one exception [2]. If the hydrogeology allows, they show that an improved water system that uses groundwater with community standpipes is substantially lower in cost with a low environmental inventory [2]. They also show that the O&M phase has the biggest sustainability impact over the life cycle of these rural water systems [2].…”

“…Unfortunately, the sustainability outcomes collected in the surveys are limited to these technical characteristics and do not include factors for human health and environmental impact given the nature of the dataset. The independent variables are various characteristics about the three stakeholders chosen from the institutional, community/managerial, and financial sustainability characteristics identified by Weir and Jones [2,6].…”

“…As an example, Jones et al [2] demonstrate how published data from suppliers and case studies can be used to extrapolate the life-cycle impacts for a variety of potable water scenarios for a hypothetical community of 65 homes and 256 inhabitants, in a one km 2 community area. Using this hypothetical community, the authors are able to demonstrate that there are few differences in costs and environmental impacts for many improved rural water system alternatives with one exception [2]. If the hydrogeology allows, they show that an improved water system that uses groundwater with community standpipes is substantially lower in cost with a low environmental inventory [2].…”

“…If the hydrogeology allows, they show that an improved water system that uses groundwater with community standpipes is substantially lower in cost with a low environmental inventory [2]. They also show that the O&M phase has the biggest sustainability impact over the life cycle of these rural water systems [2]. As such, the O&M phase can be used as a proxy for total life-cycle financial and environmental costs for rural water systems.…”

“…Jones et al also show that manual collection systems (unimproved) with point-of-use treatment to provide potable water have the lowest life-cycle costs (economic and environmental) when the intangible cost (and social cost) of water collection time is not accounted for [2]. Of course, such social costs are a critical factor in the overall sustainability of rural water systems in low-income communities and in fact can be used as proxies for several of the outputs of a sustainability assessment shown in Table 2.…”