What impacts water services in rural Alaska? Identifying vulnerabilities at the intersection of technical, natural, human, and financial systems

Abstract

Thousands of homes in rural Alaska do not have access to in-home water services and those that are served often experience disruptions. Such gaps in service lead to extreme water conservation and water quality issues, causing health disparities in Native communities that have been historically disenfranchised. Water sector challenges in rural Alaska stem from a variety of conditions that create a complicated operating context, such as the extreme climate, limited funding, small workforce, and remote settings of the communities. It is imperative to holistically understand the nature of water sector challenges in Alaska, bringing together proxy views to gain an understanding of overall system operations. In turn, our research objectives are to 1) identify challenges within the financial, human, natural, and technical systems involved in the provision of water services in rural Alaska, and 2) use a systems thinking approach to identify interdependencies between systems. Specifically, we identify the cascading impacts caused by the arctic environment and by climate change, and the factors contributing to the increase of unserved communities and system failures. To do so, we performed a deductive-inductive qualitative content analysis on semi-structured interviews with 19 stakeholders that work with water infrastructure in Alaska. Findings show that climate change exacerbates the Arctic operating context, straining financial and technical systems (e.g., flooding impacts source water quality). Additionally, we found that service disruptions are often caused by a lack of operations and maintenance funding; communities are only able to pay for repairs using emergency funds that become available after system failures. Here, we outline policy, engineering, and management leverage points that can be used to improve water services in rural Alaska. For instance, we recommend auditing funding systems to ensure equitable allocations and further exploring the water-energy nexus in arctic communities.