Urban water supply in India: status, reform options and possible lessons

Water Policy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 442-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McKenzie ◽  
Isha Ray
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Family Health ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Water Sector ◽  
Metropolitan Regions ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Large numbers of households in cities around the developing world do not have access to one of the most basic of human needs–a safe and reliable supply of drinking water. This paper uses the experience of India as a lens through which to view the problems of access to water in urban areas and the various options available for reform. Using two sets of data from the National Family Health Survey, as well as published and unpublished secondary sources, the paper presents the status of access to drinking water in urban India, the performance of India's urban water sector compared to other Asian metropolitan regions and the reform efforts that are under way in several Indian cities. A review of these ongoing reforms illustrates some of the political economy challenges involved in reforming the water sector. Based on this analysis, we draw out directions for more effective research, data collection and policy reform. While each country faces unique challenges and opportunities, the scope and range of the Indian experience provides insights and caveats for many low-income nations.

scholarly journals Towards eco-social housing in Vietnam: challenges and opportunities

2018 ◽  
Vol 193 ◽  
pp. 01001
Author(s):  
Van Thuong Le ◽  
Tuan Tran ◽  
Truc Truong
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Social Housing ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Housing Demand ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Government

Since Doi Moi (Reform) policy in 1986, Vietnam has experienced rapid urbanization and economic growth. Urbanization has resulted in increasingly high housing demand in the urban areas but this has largely unmet, especially housing for low-income people. Development of social housing for low-income and under-privileged people in cities has been seen as an urgent and important task of the government to pursue stable social and economic development. Low-income people are most vulnerable to environmental impacts and in need of energy-efficient houses to reduce their cost of living. Eco-social housing is seen as a solution to protect the natural environment as well as to boost local economy, improve living conditions particularly for low income people. Through preliminary assessments of three social buildings at three distinct regions of Vietnam, this paper found that despite many challenges, eco-social housing is a solution to Vietnam's needs in providing houses with adequate living conditions to low-income people while protecting the environment and achieving sustainable eco-social development in the long run.

scholarly journals Groundwater as a Source of Drinking Water in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: A Multi-Country Review of Current Reliance and Resource Concerns

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Carrard ◽  
Tim Foster ◽  
Juliet Willetts
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Water Source ◽  
Groundwater Resource ◽  
Drinking Water Source ◽  
Water Services ◽  
Sustainable Services

Groundwater is widely acknowledged to be an important source of drinking water in low-income regions, and it, therefore, plays a critical role in the realization of the human right to water. However, the proportion of households using groundwater compared with other sources is rarely quantified, with national and global datasets more focused on facilities—rather than resources—used. This is a significant gap in knowledge, particularly in light of efforts to expand water services in line with the inclusive and integrated agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals. Understanding the prevalence of groundwater reliance for drinking is critical for those involved in water services planning and management, so they can better monitor and advocate for management of water resources that supports sustainable services for households. This paper contributes data that can be used to strengthen the integration of resource considerations within water service delivery and inform the work of development partners supporting this area. We approach this issue from two perspectives. Firstly, we collate data on the proportion of households using groundwater as their primary drinking water source for 10 Southeast Asian and Pacific nations, finding an average of 66% (range of 17–93% for individual countries) of households in urban areas and 60% (range of 22–95%) of households in rural areas rely on groundwater for drinking. Together, these constitute 79% of the total population across the case study countries. Secondly, we review current and emerging groundwater resource concerns within each country, using a systems thinking approach to assess how groundwater resource issues influence household water services. Findings support the case for governments and development agencies to strengthen engagement with groundwater resource management as foundational for achieving sustainable water services for all.

Advancing integrity in urban water and sanitation: WIGO report 2021

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Webb
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Regulatory Bodies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Global Population

As the proportion of the global population living in urban areas increases, major challenges in providing safe drinking water and sanitation services need to be overcome, particularly in marginalised communities and informal settlements where services are already deficient. Strategies to provide water and sanitation are often undermined by corruption and integrity failures in the management of public resources, ‘petty corruption’ at the interface between individuals and institutions, and issues of inequitable and discriminatory planning and pricing. In the Water Integrity Global Outlook (WIGO 2021), WIN outlines successful strategies, tools and processes to reduce corruption and improve integrity by governments, utilities, the private sector, regulatory bodies, the media, NGOs and ultimately citizens, to drive improvements in the provision of reliable water and sanitation services.

scholarly journals Inequalities in microbial contamination of drinking water supplies in urban areas: the case of Lilongwe, Malawi

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 851-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akosua Sarpong Boakye-Ansah ◽  
Giuliana Ferrero ◽  
Maria Rusca ◽  
Pieter van der Zaag
Keyword(s):  
Escherichia Coli ◽  
Water Quality ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Microbial Contamination ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Faecal Contamination ◽  
Household Level

Over past decades strategies for improving access to drinking water in cities of the Global South have mainly focused on increasing coverage, while water quality has often been overlooked. This paper focuses on drinking water quality in the centralized water supply network of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. It shows how microbial contamination of drinking water is unequally distributed to consumers in low-income (unplanned areas) and higher-income neighbourhoods (planned areas). Microbial contamination and residual disinfectant concentration were measured in 170 water samples collected from in-house taps in high-income areas and from kiosks and water storage facilities in low-income areas between November 2014 and January 2015. Faecal contamination (Escherichia coli) was detected in 10% of the 40 samples collected from planned areas, in 59% of the 64 samples collected from kiosks in the unplanned areas and in 75% of the 32 samples of water stored at household level. Differences in water quality in planned and unplanned areas were found to be statistically significant at p < 0.05. Finally, the paper shows how the inequalities in microbial contamination of drinking water are produced by decisions both on the development of the water supply infrastructure and on how this is operated and maintained.

scholarly journals The Development of a Framework for Assessing the Energy Efficiency in Urban Water Systems and Its Demonstration in the Portuguese Water Sector

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
Dália Loureiro ◽  
Catarina Silva ◽  
Maria Adriana Cardoso ◽  
Aisha Mamade ◽  
Helena Alegre ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Water Sector ◽  
Component Level ◽  
Water Utility ◽  
Improve Energy Efficiency ◽  
Urban Water Systems ◽  
Portuguese Water

Urban water systems (UWSs) are energy-intensive worldwide, particularly for drinking-water pumping and aeration in wastewater treatment. Usual approaches to improve energy efficiency focus only on equipment and disregard the UWS as a continuum of stages from source-to-tap-to-source (abstraction/transport—treatment—drinking water transport/distribution—wastewater and stormwater collection/transport—treatment—discharge/reuse). We propose a framework for a comprehensive assessment of UWS energy efficiency and a four-level approach to enforce it: overall UWS (level 1), stage (level 2), infrastructure component (level 3) and processes/equipment (level 4). The framework is structured by efficiency and effectiveness criteria (an efficient but ineffective infrastructure is useless), earlier and newly developed performance indicators and reference values. The framework and the approach are the basis for a sound diagnosis and intervention prioritising, and are being tested in a peer-to-peer innovation project involving 13 water utilities (representing 17% of the energy consumption by the Portuguese water sector in 2017). Results of levels 1–3 of analysis herein illustrated for a water utility demonstrate the framework and approach potential to assess UWS effectiveness and energy efficiency, and to select the stages and infrastructures for improvement and deeper diagnosis.

scholarly journals Towards A Situated Urban Political Ecology Analysis of Packaged Drinking Water Supply

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Kooy ◽  
Carolin Walter
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Water Access ◽  
Urban Political Ecology ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Choices

The inclusion of packaged drinking water (PDW) as a potentially improved source of safe drinking water under Goal 6.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) reflects its growing significance in cities where piped water has never been universal or safe for drinking. Using the case of PDW in Jakarta, Indonesia, we call for theorizing the politics of PDW through a situated Urban Political Ecology (UPE) analysis of the wider urban water distributions in which it is inserted. We do so in order to interrogate the unevenness of individual “choices” for securing safe drinking water, and highlight the ambiguity of PDW’s impact on inequalities in access. We first review research on PDW supply to specify how dominant theoretical approaches used for understanding PDW supply through analyses of the individual making “choices” for drinking water are power neutral, and why this matters for achieving equitable water access. We illustrate these points through a case study of PDW consumption by low income residents in Jakarta, and then identify how a situated UPE framework can help attend to the uneven societal relations shaping different socio-material conditions, within which individual “choices” for PDW are made. For Jakarta, connecting choices of the individual to power relations shaping geographies of urban water access and risk explains the rise in PDW consumption by low income residents as a situated response to the uneven exposure of poorer residents to environmental hazards. We conclude with reflections on how this can inform interventions towards more just distributions of safe drinking water.

scholarly journals Environmental Factors and the Microbial Quality of Urban Drinking Water in a Low-Income Country: The Case of Madagascar

Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Bastaraud ◽  
Jean Rakotondramanga ◽  
Jackson Mahazosaotra ◽  
Noror Ravaonindrina ◽  
Ronan Jambou
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Microbiological Quality ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Climatic Data ◽  
Microbial Quality

Access to piped water is often limited to urban areas in low-income countries, and the microbiological quality of drinking water varies due to technical and environmental constraints. To analyse the parameters that modulate the contamination of these systems, this study examines 16 years of microbial quality data for water supplied in 32 urban areas of Madagascar. A discriminant statistical approach and agglomerative hierarchical clusters were applied to environmental and climatic data. The microbial contamination varied between sites from 3.3 to 17.5%, and 78% of the supply systems showed large variations between years or months. Agglomerative hierarchical clusters (AHCs) revealed four supply system profiles that share a similar bacteriological evolution. Heavy rainfall and dry periods sustained increasing contamination, as reflected in levels of spores of sulphite-reducing clostridia (SSRC) and/or total coliforms (TC). SSRC were dominant in three profiles, with faecal indicator bacteria (FIB) dominant in the other. Principal component analysis demonstrated the main drivers of contamination: type of water source, implemented treatment, location of the site, population growth, lack of protection, agriculture, urbanization/sanitation, and flooding threats. Contamination increased over the 16-year period, reaching alarming levels. The protection of water sources should be a concern for public authorities.

Quality of Drinking Water and Sanitation in India

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-152
Author(s):  
Aneesh M.R.
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Lower Probability ◽  
General Category ◽  
Rural And Urban Areas ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Predicted Probability ◽  
Poor Access ◽  
Scheduled Castes

Wide disparity exists in access to drinking water across social groups in rural and urban India. This article shows that the economically weaker sections or the lower quintile class does not have access to water within the premises both in rural and urban areas. This indicates that low income or wealth would mean poor access to basic amenities for households. Similarly, access to toilets and incidence of open defaecation reflect social disparities. The regression results show that an increase in the household income increases the predicted probability of maintaining an exclusive latrine. Further, compared to the ‘General Category’, the ‘Scheduled Castes’ and ‘Other Backward Classes’ have a lower probability of constructing an exclusive latrine facility, in the rural and urban areas.

scholarly journals Consumption of safe drinking water in Pakistan: its dimensions and determinants

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-50
Author(s):  
Naeem Akram
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Family ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Waterborne Diseases ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Household Water Treatment ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Piped Water

Abstract. Safe drinking water is one of the basic human needs. Poor quality of drinking water is directly associated with various waterborne diseases. The present study has attempted to analyze the household preferences for drinking water sources and the adoption of household water treatment (HWT) in Pakistan by using the household data of Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017–2018 (PDHS, 2018). This study found that people living in rural areas, those with older heads of household and those with large family sizes are significantly less likely to use water from bottled or filtered water. Households with media exposure, education, women's empowerment in household purchases and high incomes are more likely to use bottled or filtered water. Similarly, households are more likely to adopt HWT in urban areas, when there is a higher level of awareness (through education and media), higher incomes, women enjoy a higher level of empowerment, and piped water is already used. However, households that use water from wells and have higher family sizes are less likely to adopt water purifying methods at home.

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