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

Abstract

Rural water systems in low-income countries often fail to deliver potable water sustainably. Reasons include socio-economic, financial, and technical challenges that are specific to the community. Improved assessment methods are critical if decision makers want to provide sustainable solutions; however, to be useful, such methods require substantial data about the complex interaction between people, water, and infrastructure. Such interaction is affected by, and in turn, affects the behavior of community members regarding water usage, resources for infrastructure maintenance, and choice of assets. Unfortunately, much of these data are not readily available, in a large part because of the site-specific context associated with each rural community. Because of the difficulty and expense in obtaining site-specific data, it is important to identify the most critical needs for field studies versus the data that can be obtained from sources such as non-governmental organizations and the general literature. We examine this issue by first using an extensive data set from Malawi to identify the critical data needs. We then present several examples of field studies in Honduras and Uganda where we collected some of that critical data. Throughout, we discuss best practices for conducting and using focused field studies versus the general literature.

Assessing Sustainability in Rural Water Supply Systems in Developing Countries Using a Novel Tool Based on Multi-Criteria Analysis

“…Indicators related to population characteristics have been proposed in the literature such as population growth [35], knowledge of users related to water, health, and hygiene [3], the understanding of the system operation and management by those tasked with this responsibility [4], and user capacity to pay for water [35]. For this study, the population attribute included seven indicators that consider aspects that influence water demand and the local capacities to run the system: Percentage (%) of people that have completed high school (1.1); Population growth rate (1.2); Per capita water demand/WHO standard [36] (1.3); Percentage (%) of users who have been trained in water, sanitation, and hygiene issues (1.4); Percentage (%) of users who understand how the system is managed (1.5); Percentage (%) of users who understand how the system is operated and maintained (1.6); and Percentage (%) of users who believe they are able to pay for the water service (1.7).…”

“…Improved water supply has among its main benefits the reduction of time and effort to obtain water, which is associated with other factors such as increased health, education, productivity, and leisure time [35]. Access to water is highly context-dependent and is related to factors such as water service coverage [3,35], distance from the household to the water source or point [3,53], connections to a particular type of source (e.g., improved, unimproved, piped) [3]; and fetching time [46]. In this study, the access attribute consisted of two indicators: (Households provided/Total households in the village) × 100 (9.1); and (Household connections/Households provided) × 100 (9.2).…”

“…Water committee members should have the knowledge and skills to budget for system needs [35], understand expenses [9], and manage a bank account [8,22]. This attribute was characterized by four indicators associated with the knowledge and practices of those in charge of system management: Existence of an annual budget for the system (14.1); Number of financial training sessions received in the last five years (14.2); Existence of a fund with enough resources to carry out operation and maintenance activities (14.3); and Existence of a fund with enough resources for investments in system improvements (14.4).…”

Project Implementation Management Modalities and Their Implications on Sustainability of Water Services in Rural Areas in Ethiopia: Are Community-Managed Projects More Effective?

“…Due to the multidimensional relations between user communities and the water systems [39], measuring sustainability outcomes of water services in a particular community requires data about user's preference and decision-making behavior related to water, and the operation and maintenance management of the system. Multiple characteristics of sustainability make it tough to quantify, due to the fact that available data on the traits and sustainability indicators vary when examined in light of types of technology and countries [40].…”

Evaluation and Clustering Maps of Groundwater Wells in the Red Beds of Chengdu, Sichuan, China

“…Because farmland crops are somewhat replaceable and farmland must meet the living requirements of the residents, the areas that were irrigated in this paper are referred to as irrigation insurance areas. Thus, when some patches of farmland require irrigating, related water resource facilities (including natural water areas and artificial facilities [31]) must meet the irrigation requirements.…”