Water Millennium Development Goals Research Articles

Defining and measuring water access: lessons from Tanzania for moving forward in the post-Millennium Development Goal era

The Millennium Development Goal for water sought to halve the number of people without access to an improved source of water. The world officially achieved this goal in 2010, but a significant body of literature critiques the definition and measurement of access. This paper provides an overview of this criticism and uses data from Dar es Salaam to show that poor quality, fluid price structures, unreliable supplies, and burdensome collection all limit water access even though they are not considered in official measurements. This paper argues for a meaningful definition of access is required to generate real development and poverty reduction.

Water quality awareness and barriers to safe water provisioning in informal communities: A case study from Ndola, Zambia

Abstract Local water providers in developing nations typically view shallow hand-dug wells as traditional and backward sources of water supply. It has long been assumed that the urban poor do not have the ability to develop these in a way that allows them to be classified as ‘improved’ in terms of the Millennium Development Goal for water, believing that users do not understand the factors that constitute safe water and the threats to these sources. Our assessment of the level of environmental knowledge held by local water-users in Ndola in Zambia demonstrates a coherent understanding of the safety of their water sources, the quality of these, the threats to them, and the fundamentals of how their local hydrology works, all of which is contrary to the perspective of key informants who are involved in water supply. Despite their environmental awareness, the majority of users did not generally protect their wells from contamination nor treat their water. The apparent paradox between awareness of risks to water and implementing protection of that water source is a function of the complex suite of socially manifested attitudes, habits and behaviours when it comes to water protection and treatment, which is exacerbated by vulnerable community and family structures and entrenched poverty. For meaningful outcomes in improved access to safe water to be realised providers need to increase their engagement with the informal communities, moving deeper into community-based participatory planning and recognise the societal and cultural factors that are entrained into these communities water supply practices. A key part of this involves the need for providers to move away from simple knowledge-based education to the more holistic form of skill-based health education.

Liquid dynamics: challenges for sustainability in the water domain

Water is essential for human well‐being and is a basic asset for productive livelihoods in many developing countries. It is also key to realizing most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Although the water MDG was met in 2010, 768 million people around the globe still lack access to safe and adequate water. Huge disparities continue to exist in access between rural and urban areas and rich and poor, as well as inherent social and gender inequalities. We argue that debates about access have so far paid insufficient attention to the long‐term sustainability of systems and services for accessing water. They have also neglected issues concerning uncertainty and social, environmental, and technological dynamics—particularly through addressing power imbalances and enhancing equity. There are two main reasons for this. One, discourses on access tend to be globalized and general, often disconnected from people's lived realities. Two, the dynamic interaction among social, technical, and ecological/hydrological dimensions of water across multiple scales is not adequately taken account of. There is a variety of different pathways in which water systems of access might develop. There are also multiple understandings and framings of water, and the gathering of knowledge about such diverse understandings implies that appraisal of access needs to broaden up to include a wider range of perspectives to inform policy and political discourse. We thus introduce the concept of ‘Liquid Dynamics’ to capture an understanding of sustainability that takes on board issues of uncertainty, complexity, local knowledge, equity, gender, and power relations. WIREs Water 2014, 1:369–384. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1031This article is categorized under: Human Water > Rights to Water Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation

Geospatial and regression tree analysis to map groundwater depth for manual well drilling suitability in the Zinder region of Niger

Summary Manual and low-tech well drilling techniques have potential to assist in reaching the United Nations’ millennium development goal for water in sub-Saharan Africa. This study used publicly available geospatial data in a regression tree analysis to predict groundwater depth in the Zinder region of Niger to identify suitable areas for manual well drilling. Regression trees were developed and tested on a database for 3681 wells in the Zinder region. A tree with 17 terminal leaves provided a range of ground water depth estimates that were appropriate for manual drilling, though much of the tree’s complexity was associated with depths that were beyond manual methods. A natural log transformation of groundwater depth was tested to see if rescaling dataset variance would result in finer distinctions for regions of shallow groundwater. The RMSE for a log-transformed tree with only 10 terminal leaves was almost half that of the untransformed 17 leaf tree for groundwater depths less than 10 m. This analysis indicated important groundwater relationships for commonly available maps of geology, soils, elevation, and enhanced vegetation index from the MODIS satellite imaging system.

Geographical analysis of the role of water supply and sanitation in the risk of helminth infections of children in West Africa

Globally, inadequate water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are major contributors to mortality and burden of disease. We aimed to quantify the role of WASH in the risk of Schistosoma hematobium, Schistosoma mansoni, and hookworm infection in school-aged children; to estimate the population attributable fraction (PAF) of helminth infection due to WASH; and to spatially predict the risk of infection. We generated predictive maps of areas in West Africa without piped water, toilet facilities, and improved household floor types, using spatial risk models. Our maps identified areas in West Africa where the millennium development goal for water and sanitation is lagging behind. There was a generally better geographical coverage for toilets and improved household floor types compared with water supply. These predictions, and their uncertainty, were then used as covariates in Bayesian geostatistical models for the three helminth species. We estimated a smaller attributable fraction for water supply in S. mansoni (PAF 47%) compared with S. hematobium (PAF 71%). The attributable fraction of S. hematobium infection due to natural floor type (PAF 21%) was comparable to that of S. mansoni (PAF 16%), but was significantly higher for hookworm infection (PAF 86%). Five percent of hookworm cases could have been prevented if improved toilet facilities had been available. Mapping the distribution of infection risk adjusted for WASH allowed the identification of communities in West Africa where preventive chemotherapy integrated with interventions to improve WASH will yield the greatest health benefits.

Contamination of drinking water between source and point-of-use in rural households of South Africa and Zimbabwe: implications for monitoring the Millennium Development Goal for water

Aims: To assess contamination of drinking water in rural Zimbabwe and South Africa Methods: We conducted a cohort study of 254 children aged 12-24 months in rural South Africa and Zimbabwe. In dry and wet seasons, we measured water quality, using the indicator organism E. coli, at improved and unimproved sources, in household storage and drinking cups. We also recorded hygiene and socio-economic factors for each household. Results: For improved sources, samples with E. coli counts less than 10 cfu/100ml were as follows: at source: 165 (88%); in household storage 137 (59%); in drinking cups 91 (49%). The corresponding values for unimproved sources were: source 47 (29%); household storage 32 (19%); drinking cups 21 (18%). This significant deterioration in microbial quality of water from improved sources was seen in both countries and both survey rounds. Conclusion: Although improved sources generally delivered ‘safe’ water at the point-of-supply, 12% of source samples were contaminated and as such were ‘unsafe’. Furthermore, in household storage, more than 40% of samples were ‘unsafe’. For monitoring the Millennium Development Goal for water, UNICEF-WHO are assuming an equivalence between ‘improved’ sources and ‘safe’ water. Our findings suggest that this equivalence may be unsound.

Contamination of drinking water between source and point-of-use in rural households of South Africa and Zimbabwe: implications for monitoring the Millennium Development Goal for water

Contamination of drinking water between source and point-of-use in rural households of South Africa and Zimbabwe: implications for monitoring the Millennium Development Goal for water

Flagging global sanitation target threatens other Millennium Development Goals

The global target of halving the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015 is currently out of reach for many countries, said Borge Brende, Chair of the 12th Session of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development (UNCSD), in a special interview with the Bulletin. The Commission is to meet in New York on 14-30 April 2004 to review progress on achieving the Millennium Development Goals relating to water, sanitation and human settlements. There are major differences in how much progress has been made, both across [the water and sanitation-related] goals and across countries. The least progress has been made on said Brende. This affects not only other health-related goals but also some non-health-related goals such as poverty reduction and education, he added. A report on the status of progress towards the implementation of the targets relating to sanitation will be submitted by UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to the UNCSD in April and will be the first review of sanitation as a stand-alone topic by an intergovernmental body. In 2000, 2.4 billion people lacked access to basic sanitation and 1.1 billion people did nor have access to safe water supply, according to a report by WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. Whilst progress was made during the 1990s--over one billion people acquired access to improved sanitation and over 900 million people acquired access to improved water supply-population growth has left the gains looking modest when compared with total global coverage. WHO projections suggest that continuing the rates of progress maintained in the 1990's could lead to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal for water--to halve the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking-water by 2015. For the sanitation target, however, the picture is bleaker. Projections indicate that globally the targets will not be achieved and over 2 billion people will still not have access to any type of improved sanitation facility by 2015. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, if rates of progress from the 1990's are maintained, the number of people without sanitation coverage will almost double by 2015. Even if the target is achieved, 1.7 billion people--almost a quarter of humanity--would be left without access to even a simple improved latrine in said Dr James Bartram, Coordinator of the Water, Sanitation and Health programme, who is leading input to the UN Secretary-General's report to be submitted to the UNCSD in April. Achieving the sanitation target requires extending coverage to an additional 1.9 billion people between 2000 and 2015, taking into account projected population expansion in urban areas. The regions that pose the biggest challenge are South-Central Asia and East Asia where an additional one billion people require access to basic sanitation over the same period. Sub-Saharan African countries, where roughly one in two people do not have access to improved sanitation, will need to extend coverage between 2000 and 2015 to an additional 355 million people. For all regions, access to sanitation in rural areas is much worse than in urban areas. In 2000, only 15% of India's rural population of 730 million had sanitation coverage whilst in the same year 600 million people living in rural China had no access to basic sanitation. Urban areas, on the other hand, are faced with the challenge of extending sanitation coverage to slum settlements. Currently 930 million people live in slums and this figure is growing at an accelerated rate. UN Habitat recently reported that 83 per cent of the population in 43 African cities live without connection to a sewerage system. Insufficient progress in meeting the sanitation target is holding up other health-related Millennium Development Goals including access to clean drinking water. …