The importance of user acceptance, support, and behaviour change for the implementation of decentralized water technologies

Abstract

Decentralized water treatment technologies could help in addressing global key water issues. Their successful implementation, however, depends on users' positive valuation and, depending on the technology, 'passive' use (rooted in acceptance), 'engaged' use (rooted in support) or 'active' use (rooted in behaviour change). Although users' valuation of a technology is contingent on its characteristics, positive valuation and use usually also require supporting promotion activities. Here we review the literature on psychological determinants of use as well as change techniques to promote use, and propose a user-focused theory of change to guide promotions. Our review highlights a lack of (conclusive) evidence on both psychological determinants and effective change techniques. We call on environmental and health psychologists to intensify their research on 'passive', 'engaged' and 'active' use of decentralized water treatment technologies and encourage engineers, practitioners and psychologists to intensify collaboration to ensure that technologies, implementation and promotions are optimally integrated.

Water Supply Interruptions Are Associated with More Frequent Stressful Behaviors and Emotions but Mitigated by Predictability: A Multisite Study

“…Households who know of interruptions in advance may have a much better experience than those who do not, and household storage may be the key to intermittent water being “available when needed” within the home. If an IWS continues to qualify as a high-quality water service in the post-SDG era, then global monitoring regimes will need to account for different experiences of intermittency and household adaptation strategies to accurately quantify “available when needed.” In contexts where decentralized solutions are cost-effective approaches to clean water provision, user acceptance of these systems may also depend on passive approaches to managing intermittency that do not burden users with stressful water management or infrastructure maintenance tasks. , …”

“…In contexts where decentralized solutions are cost-effective approaches to clean water provision, user acceptance of these systems may also depend on passive approaches to managing intermittency that do not burden users with stressful water management or infrastructure maintenance tasks. 58,59 4.3. Limitations and Future Research.…”

Psychosocial and context factors associated with breastfeeding and complementary feeding changes in Belize: a mixed methods approach

“…The data collection phase included semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 45 caretakers of children under two years of age (38 of whom were currently mothers of under two-year-old's); 11 Key Informant Interviews (KII), from which the majority were conducted in person; some were lled in online; 7 Focus Group Discussions (FGD's) with an average of 7 participants (N = 49). The questionnaires and FGD discussion protocols were based on psychological Risks-, Attitudes-, Norms-, Abilities-, and Self-Regulation (RANAS; Mosler, 2012;Contzen & Mosler, 2016) model. The model includes four components: Psychosocial factors that are grouped into ve blocks, behaviour change techniques (BCTs) that correspond to the factor blocks, behavioural outcomes, and context.…”

“…secondary data analysis used only demographics and context factors to identify key factors associated with EBF, continued BF and complementary feeding practices. Our previous research with UNICEF Guinea Bissau suggests(Gamma et al, 2017), that additional to demographics and contextual factors, psychosocial factors should be identi ed for a better explanation of behavioural outcomes und for the development of effective and sustainable behaviour change interventions (e.g., using the RANAS behaviour change approach;Mosler, 2012;Mosler & Contzen, 2016). A Baby WaSH and Nutrition approach could be useful to implement more holistic interventions aiming to increase EBF and hygiene practices, as our research with the World Bank in Lao PDR shows (Slekiene et al, submitted for publication in 2022).…”

MAD water: Integrating modular, adaptive, and decentralized approaches for water security in the climate change era

“…Water governance structures generally aim to ensure that the water remains affordable for users, and to ensure ongoing financial viability of the system. One of the biggest challenges of MAD water systems is to make them easy for households to use to ensure user acceptance (Contzen et al, 2023), while allowing for appropriate levels of local engagement for system governance and the protection of human and environmental health. Here, we position justice as a primary goal and highlight issues in the key domains of economics, governance, human health, and environmental sustainability that must be approached differently under the MAD water paradigm.…”