Assessment of water and sanitation infrastructure at primary schools in Rakai District, Uganda

“Addressing water problems will help improve sanitation.” This relationship identified by a primary school teacher in Rakai District, Uganda, was a key component in understanding how water and sanitation technologies interact and how identified successes, challenges, and improvements would enhance schools’ water and sanitation condition. In this study, researchers and Ugandan counterparts visited 49 primary schools in Rakai District to assess the existing water and sanitation infrastructure of government and private schools. Researchers were specifically interested in learning which technologies were being used and why they were working or not. Through the development of a unique water and sanitation assessment tool, schools have been placed in to four relationship quadrants to rate existing water and latrine use standards. Recommendations including improved rainwater use and sanitation through composting have been offered to schools sampled.

Water and sanitation accessibility and the health of rural Ugandans

The lack of access to sufficient water and sanitation facilities is one of the largest hindrances towards the sustainable development of the poorest 2.2 billion people in the world. Rural Uganda is one of the areas where such inaccessibility is seriously hampering their efforts at development. Many rural Ugandans must travel several kilometers to fetch adequate water and many still do not have adequate sanitation facilities. Such poor access to clean water forces Ugandans to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy collecting water - time and energy that could be used for more useful endeavors. Furthermore, the difficulty in getting water means that people use less water than they need to for optimal health and well-being. Access to other sanitation facilities can also have a large impact, particularly on the health of young children and the elderly whose immune systems are less than optimal. Hand-washing, presence of a sanitary latrine, general household cleanliness, maintenance of the safe water chain and the households’ knowledge about and adherence to sound sanitation practices may be as important as access to clean water sources. This report investigates these problems using the results from two different studies. It first looks into how access to water affects peoples’ use of it. In particular it investigates how much water households use as a function of perceived effort to fetch it. Operationally, this was accomplished by surveying nearly 1,500 residents in three different districts around Uganda about their water usage and the time and distance they must travel to fetch it. The study found that there is no statistically significant correlation between a family’s water usage and the perceived effort they must put forth to have to fetch it. On average, people use around 15 liters per person per day. Rural Ugandan residents apparently require a certain amount of water and will travel as far or as long as necessary to collect it. Secondly, a study entitled “What Works Best in Diarrheal Disease Prevention?” was carried out to study the effectiveness of five different water and sanitation facilities in reducing diarrheal disease incidences amongst children under five. It did this by surveying five different communities before and after the implementation of improvements to find changes in diarrheal disease incidences amongst children under five years of age. It found that household water treatment devices provide the best means of preventing diarrheal diseases. This is likely because water often becomes contaminated before it is consumed even if it was collected from a protected source.

Community managed rural water supply systems in the Dominican Republic : assessment of sustainability of systems built by the National Institute of Potable Water and Peace Corps, Dominican Republic

In the Dominican Republic economic growth in the past twenty years has not yielded sufficient improvement in access to drinking water services, especially in rural areas where 1.5 million people do not have access to an improved water source (WHO, 2006). Worldwide, strategic development planning in the rural water sector has focused on participatory processes and the use of demand filters to ensure that service levels match community commitment to post-project operation and maintenance. However studies have concluded that an alarmingly high percentage of drinking water systems (20-50%) do not provide service at the design levels and/or fail altogether (up to 90%): BNWP (2009), Annis (2006), and Reents (2003). World Bank, USAID, NGOs, and private consultants have invested significant resources in an effort to determine what components make up an “enabling environment” for sustainable community management of rural water systems (RWS). Research has identified an array of critical factors, internal and external to the community, which affect long term sustainability of water services. Different frameworks have been proposed in order to better understand the linkages between individual factors and sustainability of service. This research proposes a Sustainability Analysis Tool to evaluate the sustainability of RWS, adapted from previous relevant work in the field to reflect the realities in the Dominican Republic. It can be used as a diagnostic tool for government entities and development organizations to characterize the needs of specific communities and identify weaknesses in existing training regimes or support mechanisms. The framework utilizes eight indicators in three categories (Organization/Management, Financial Administration, and Technical Service). Nineteen independent variables are measured resulting in a score of sustainability likely (SL), possible (SP), or unlikely (SU) for each of the eight indicators. Thresholds are based upon benchmarks from the DR and around the world, primary data collected during the research, and the author’s 32 months of field experience. A final sustainability score is calculated using weighting factors for each indicator, derived from Lockwood (2003). The framework was tested using a statistically representative geographically stratified random sample of 61 water systems built in the DR by initiatives of the National Institute of Potable Water (INAPA) and Peace Corps. The results concluded that 23% of sample systems are likely to be sustainable in the long term, 59% are possibly sustainable, and for 18% it is unlikely that the community will be able to overcome any significant challenge. Communities that were scored as unlikely sustainable perform poorly in participation, financial durability, and governance while the highest scores were for system function and repair service. The Sustainability Analysis Tool results are verified by INAPA and PC reports, evaluations, and database information, as well as, field observations and primary data collected during the surveys. Future research will analyze the nature and magnitude of relationships between key factors and the sustainability score defined by the tool. Factors include: gender participation, legal status of water committees, plumber/operator remuneration, demand responsiveness, post construction support methodologies, and project design criteria.

WATER RESOURCES, HEALTH, AND THE SUSTAINABILITY OF INTERVENTIONS TO ACHIEVE WATER AND SANITATION TARGETS OF THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN A CHANGING WORLD

This dissertation addresses sustainability of rapid provision of safe water and sanitation required to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Review of health-related literature and global statistics demonstrates engineers' role in achieving the MDGs. This review is followed by analyses relating to social, environmental, and health aspects of meeting MDG targets. Analysis of national indicators showed that inadequate investment, poor or nonexistent policies and governance are challenges to global sanitation coverage in addition to lack of financial resources and gender disparity. Although water availability was not found to be a challenge globally, geospatial analysis demonstrated that water availability is a potentially significant barrier for up to 46 million people living in urban areas and relying on already degraded water resources for environmental income. A daily water balance model incorporating the National Resources Conservation Services curve number method in Bolivian watersheds showed that local water stress is linked to climate change because of reduced recharge. Agricultural expansion in the region slightly exacerbates recharge reductions. Although runoff changes will range from -17% to 14%, recharge rates will decrease under all climate scenarios evaluated (-14% to -27%). Increasing sewer coverage may place stress on the readily accessible natural springs, but increased demand can be sustained if other sources of water supply are developed. This analysis provides a method for hydrological analysis in data scarce regions. Data required for the model were either obtained from publicly available data products or by conducting field work using low-cost methods feasible for local participants. Lastly, a methodology was developed to evaluate public health impacts of increased household water access resulting from domestic rainwater harvesting, incorporating knowledge of water requirements of sanitation and hygiene technologies. In 37 West African cities, domestic rainwater harvesting has the potential to reduce diarrheal disease burden by 9%, if implemented alone with 400 L storage. If implemented in conjunction with point of use treatment, this reduction could increase to 16%. The methodology will contribute to cost-effectiveness evaluations of interventions as well as evaluations of potential disease burden resulting from reduced water supply, such as reductions observed in the Bolivian communities.

WATER ACCESS AND MAINTENANCE IN KARONGA, MALAWI

This report is a case study of how Mwangalala community accesses water and how that access is maintained. Mwangalala community is located in the northern tip of Karonga district in Malawi, Africa. The case study evaluates how close the community is to meeting target 10 of the Millennium Development Goals, sustainable access to safe drinking water, and evaluates the current water system through Human Centered Design’s criteria of desirability, feasibility, and viability. It also makes recommendations to improve water security in Mwangalala community. Data was collected through two years of immersive observation, interviews with 30 families, and observing two wells on three separate occasions. The 30 interviews provided a sample size of over 10% of the community’s population. Participants were initially self-selected and then invited to participate in the research. I walked along community pathways and accepted invitations to join casual conversations in family compounds. After conversing I asked the family members if they would be willing to participate in my research by talking with me about water. Data collected from the interviews and the observations of two wells were compared and analyzed for common themes. Shallow wells or open wells represented the primary water source for 93% of interview participants. Boreholes were also present in the community, but produced unpalatable water due to high concentrations of dissolved iron and were not used as primary water sources. During observations 75% of community members who used the shallow well, primarily used for consumptive uses like cooking or dinking, were females. Boreholes were primarily used for non-consumptive uses such as watering crops or bathing and 77% of the users were male. Shallow wells could remain in disrepair for two months because the repairman was a volunteer, who was not compensated for the skilled labor required to repair the wells. Community members thought the maintenance fee went towards his salary, so did not compensate the repairman when he performed work. This miscommunication provided no incentive for the repairman to make well repairs a priority, and left community members frustrated with untimely repairs. Shallow wells with functional pumps failed to provide water when the water table levels drop during dry season, forcing community members to seek secondary or tertiary water sources. Open wells, converted from shallow wells after community members did not pay for repairs to the pump, represented 44% of the wells originally installed with Mark V hand pumps. These wells whose pumps were not repaired were located in fields and one beside a church. The functional wells were all located on school grounds or in family compounds, where responsibility for the well’s maintenance is clearly defined. Mwangalala community fails to meet Millennium Development goals because the wells used by the community do not provide sustainable access to safe drinking water. Open wells, used by half the participants in the study, lack a top covering to prevent contamination from debris and wildlife. Shallow well repair times are unsustainable, taking longer than two weeks to be repaired, primarily because the repair persons are expected to provide skilled labor to repair the wells without compensation. Improving water security for Mwangalala can be achieved by improving repair times on shallow wells and making water from boreholes palatable. There are no incentives for a volunteer repair person to fix wells in a timely manner. Repair times can be improved by reducing the number of wells a repair person is responsible for and compensating the person for the skilled labor provided. Water security would be further improved by removing iron particulates from borehole water, thus rendering it palatable. This is possible through point of use filtration utilizing ceramic candles; this would make pumped water available year-round.