Success and Success Factors of Domestic Rainwater Harvesting Projects in the Caribbean

Abstract

In the Caribbean, domestic rainwater harvesting (DRWH) projects are being implemented to augment water supplies in water scarce islands and as a no-regret approach to adaptation to climate change. The evaluation of these projects is usually limited to the implementation process i.e. measuring the ability of the project to meet the set deliverables. Factors that are considered are the cost and time specified for the installation of the DRWH systems and the quality of the harvested water. There is seldom a post-project evaluation to determine whether the beneficiaries are able to properly maintain the system and or to improve on it, or whether the project is leading to increased household collection and use of rainwater in the project location and its environs. This paper is based on a survey of key stakeholders actively involved in the promotion of DRWH over a number of years. Active involvement was the basis of accepting the information on their perception as adequate in providing a reliable measure of the level of success of DRWH projects. The metrics for success were based on stakeholders' perspective of the success of DRWH projects as determined by community involvement, rate of uptake of DRWH, increased awareness, impact of training on maintenance of systems, appropriate use of the systems, increased use of rainwater, increased capacity of community leaders to train and improved support by local private sector. It was found that there was willingness to invest in DRWH particularly among the stakeholders who have regularly used rainwater. The stakeholders were also asked to corroborate a set of pre-selected factors that were considered important for the successful development of DRWH projects. A ranking of these factors indicated that although the cost of the DRWH systems was the most important factor for success, technical issues were imperceptibly more important than economic and social issues.Keywords: success factors, domestic rainwater harvesting, Caribbean Background"Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarcely anything; scarcely anything can be had in exchange for it" (Smith, 1776). In 1992, the Dublin Statement of the International Conference on Water and the Environment recognised that water should be considered an economic good, giving credence to Smith's statement. Today, dwindling freshwater resources threatens the availability of conventional water supplies in several parts of the world and as such, greater emphasis is being placed on harnessing alternative sources. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is a broad term for small-scale, collection, storage and use of rainfall runoff for productive purposes. In this context, RWH is a simple low-cost technique that requires minimum specific expertise or knowledge. Through the ages, RWH, has been an important source of fresh water for agriculture and domestic use.Harvested rainwater is used for both domestic and commercial purposes. Domestic rainwater harvesting (DRWH), that is, collecting rainwater from roofs and storing it in conta...

Financing and design innovation in rural domestic rainwater harvesting in Madagascar

“…rWh is a broad term that can be used to describe the practice of collecting and storing rainfall runoff. it has been used across a variety of low-, middle-, and highincome settings as well as in a range of varying climates as a solution to issues of water scarcity and inadequate drinking water quality (Gould and Nissen-petersen, 1999;saladin and bohara, 2016;peters, 2016). previous studies have shown that the use of rWh systems as primary sources of drinking water is associated with a reduced risk of diarrhoeal disease in children under five years of age when compared with the use of unimproved sources (Garrett et al, 2008).…”

Participatory Evaluation of Development Projects Contribution to Poverty Reduction in Northern Benin

“…The project evaluations generally look at the extent to which planned activities have been carried out and the extent to which intended objectives have been achieved. They often provide a lot of information on the direct results of the project, but relatively little on the effects of these actions and the resulting impact (Limousin, 2015;Peters, 2016). Thus, despite the billions of dollars injected into development aid each year, there is very little research on the actual impact of projects on the poor (World Bank, 2018).…”

Financing Domestic Rainwater Harvesting in the Caribbean

“…In some of the small islands in the Caribbean where there is a long history of DRWH, self-supply financing was utilised. DRWH that were developed through self-supply, as observed in some Caribbean islands (Peters 2016), encouraged the incremental improvement of household and community DRWH supply through user investment in steps, which are easily replicable and with technologies which are affordable. In these islands people have responded naturally to the need to improve water supply, in the absence of private sector involvement and government advice and services, and with limited commercial financial resources (Peters, 2016).…”

“…In analyzing the success of DRWH projects in the Caribbean, Peters (2016) identified the economic factors, particularly, the capital costs of DRWH systems as of highest importance. In Australia, DBais et al (2007) reported that the capital cost of DRWH was 66.27% of the life cycle costs (LCC) at an interest rate of 5%.…”