Access to safe and sustainable drinking water services remains a significant challenge, particularly in rapidly urbanizing and climate-impacted urban and peri-urban areas. Traditional utilities, often operating under public-private partnerships, are frequently constrained by underinvestment, fragmented governance, and weak accountability, resulting in service gaps. Decentralized Drinking Water Services (DWS) offer adaptable, user-centered alternatives through locally tailored technologies and alternative water sources. However, their adoption is constrained by financial barriers, regulatory uncertainty, and limited community engagement. While previous studies have emphasized the technical and operational aspects of DWS, this study addresses a gap by examining how business model innovation can enable long-term adoption and scalability. Using a mixed-methods approach, combining a systematic literature review with interviews of private-sector providers, this research identifies Product-Service Systems, Social Enterprises, and Community-Based Management as key business models. Findings reveal that hybrid approaches, which bridge formal/informal, centralized/decentralized, and public/private boundaries, are central to navigating heterogeneous infrastructure configurations in diverse contexts. Providers must balance financial viability with equitable access, adapt to varying institutional capacities, and respond to evolving policy landscapes. The analysis shows that regions with advanced water infrastructure industries often shape service models in markets with more constrained resources, underscoring the need to adapt these transfers to local socio-political and cultural contexts. Scalable DWS delivery depends not only on technological innovation but also on coherent regulatory frameworks, inclusive governance, and financing strategies aligned with community affordability. Finally, the study calls for future policy efforts that prioritize coherent regulatory frameworks, including clear quality standards, permitting procedures for alternative water sources, mechanisms for public oversight, and community engagement to ensure long-term functionality and local ownership. • Identifies business models enabling Decentralized Drinking Water Services in urban and peri-urban areas. • Combines a systematic literature review with private-sector interviews. • Shows hybrid models bridging formal/informal and centralized/decentralized systems. • Highlights policy and regulations as key to scaling decentralized solutions. • Finds financial viability and equitable access as central trade-offs for providers.
Claire Cropper, Elizabeth Wulbrecht, Patrick Thomson, Aaron Dotson · 8 authors
Despite nationally reported metrics that suggest high levels of water security, approximately 12% of the United States of America (US) population is estimated to be water insecure based on the definition in United Nations (UN) SDG 6.1.1. Approximately half of these households are served by Decentralized Water Systems (DWS). In contrast, most research, engineering, innovation, and government programs are focused on Centralized Water Systems (CWS). In this perspective, we 1) characterize and define DWS using professional language common for CWS; 2) compare the social, economic, and regulatory responsibilities of stakeholders in each system; 3) outline existing strategies to professionalize this sector; and 4) propose research avenues to further professionalize DWS to ensure households served by these systems receive equitable water service. We demonstrate that while DWS share commonalities with CWS, decentralized systems are less formally structured; have more stakeholders between source and tap; and place much of the regulatory, finance, maintenance, and safety responsibilities on individual households. These responsibilities include ensuring water quantity and quality, selecting appropriate treatment technologies, finance of repairs and upgrades, and transporting water. We propose strategies for researchers to aid in codeveloping innovative DWS solutions, ensuring relevant integration and community-driven models that better support decentralized communities.
Urban water provision sits at the intersection of public administration, infrastructure policy, and social equity. In the Philippines, high aggregate access to drinking water coexists with uneven service reliability, coverage gaps, and persistent inefficiency—patterns that point to governance constraints rather than hydrological scarcity alone. This study examines how institutional structures and incentive systems shape urban water governance outcomes across five cities in the Zamboanga Peninsula (Region IX): Zamboanga City, Pagadian City, Dipolog City, Dapitan City, and Isabela City. The analysis applies a multi-level governance and institutional-incentive framework to trace how authority, resources, and accountability are distributed among national regulators and sector agencies (notably the National Water Resources Board and the Local Water Utilities Administration), local government units, and city water providers. The study adopts a comparative case design using publicly verifiable secondary data from 2022–2024, including utility performance reports and administrative records on service delivery and operational efficiency. Key indicators include service coverage, continuity of supply, and non-revenue water, alongside governance features such as tariff-setting influence, access to national financing, technical capacity, and the presence of cross-agency coordination mechanisms. Findings show persistent intra-regional disparities under a common national legal framework. Zamboanga City reports the highest coverage and continuity, but also the highest system losses, while smaller systems demonstrate lower coverage and more intermittent supply with only marginally better efficiency. Across cases, outcomes align less with formal decentralization than with fragmented mandates, weak regulatory enforcement, politically constrained tariff governance, and limited performance-linked funding—conditions that weaken accountability and dilute responsibility for results. The study proposes reforms focused on (1) tighter regulatory and planning coordination across levels, (2) performance-conditioned financing tied to measurable service and efficiency targets, and (3) transparent, insulated tariff review with structured stakeholder engagement to improve equity, reliability, and sustainability in regional urban water services.
Urban populations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are confronted with significant difficulties in accessing water due to inadequate infrastructure, limited governance capabilities, and the exacerbating effects of climate change, which further exacerbate water scarcity. This article investigates the physiological, environmental, and economic hardships that arise from insufficient access to quality water and sanitation infrastructure in cities of the Global South. Available evidence suggests that more than two billion individuals living in urban areas do not have access to water sources that are appropriately maintained. This lack of access has led to the widespread occurrence of diarrhoea diseases, particularly in marginalized informal settlements. There is a cumulative impact on households, municipal authorities, and national budgets due to economic losses resulting from healthcare expenses, decreased productivity, and limitations in the industrial sector. Reports also demonstrate severe water shortages caused by distinct local circumstances while also highlighting shared challenges of contamination, intermittent supply, and affordability problems that worsen inequality. While there are promising decentralized options available, as well as water efficiency and reuse advancements, there are still significant gaps in financing. It is estimated that an annual amount of $114 billion is needed to ensure access to safe water and sanitation for the increasing urban populations in the developing nations. Effective collaboration on a global scale and local administrative changes are crucial for addressing these deficiencies in infrastructure and enhancing the ability of mega cities in the Global South to withstand the escalating hazards posed by climate change.
We exploit the public good attributes of Ganges water pollution cleanup and theoretically analyze an aggregate economy of two cities—Kanpur and Varanasi—through which the Ganges flows. Our specific objective is to study whether water pollution cleanup in these two cities ought to be provided in a centralized or in a decentralized manner. We first determine the efficient cleanup amounts that maximize the aggregate surplus from making the Ganges cleaner in the two cities. Second, we compute the optimal amount of water pollution cleanup in the two cities in a decentralized regime in which spending on cleanup is financed by a uniform tax on the city residents. Third, we ascertain the optimal amount of water pollution cleanup in the two cities in a centralized regime subject to equal provision of cleanup and cost sharing. Fourth, we show that if the two cities have the same preference for pollution cleanup, then centralization is preferable to decentralization as long as there is a spillover from pollution cleanup. Finally, we show that if the two cities have dissimilar preferences for pollution cleanup, then centralization is preferable to decentralization as long as the spillover exceeds a certain threshold.
This publication provides a detailed overview of India’s public–private partnership (PPP) environment, with a focus on the national, local government, and sector PPP landscapes. India has a reasonably mature PPP market with approximately $265 billion invested across 1,150 projects since 1990. Based on a decentralized enabling framework, the PPP ecosystem in the country has been supported by key preparation, financing, and delivery institutions, policies, guidelines, and standardized bidding documents. To attract increased private investments across infrastructure sectors, the government has recently introduced innovative PPP models such as the hybrid annuity model and toll–operate–transfer, which will play a critical role in implementing the India’s $81 billion National Asset Monetization Pipeline, and help finance the $15 trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline, 2020–2025.
Aaron Janzen, Achari Gopal, Irwin Samantha, Dore Mohammed
Many rural households do not have access to treated drinking water. However, some households may be in regions where a water treatment plant has excess capacity to supply some additional households. In such circumstances, small diameter low-pressure supply systems can be connected to major transmission lines to give these households access to water. These typically occur in locations that do not belong to recognized municipal or other local government. Such supply systems, commonly referred to as “trickle fill,” have been implemented in South America, Africa and Canada. This paper explains the concept of trickle fill supply systems. A user-friendly decision-making framework is proposed to assist the decision maker to determine whether the implementation of a trickle fill system is economically feasible for a given rural area. The decision-making assessment template (DMAT) takes into projects the economic, energy and carbon footprint changes. A case study for a rural municipality in the province of Alberta, Canada is presented to illustrate the value of the DMAT and the feasibility of trickle fill water supply as a solution. In this case study, a trickle fill water supply solution is found to be technically and economically viable and would reduce energy consumption and the carbon footprint. It is shown that trickle fill solution can be implemented, resulting in an average cost of water to be $165 per month per household. This is higher than the affordability threshold of 2% of the median household income, but comparable to the cost that the end users currently pay for drinking water in the area. A capital grant from a higher level of government, or low interest rate financing, would reduce the end user costs to the level of the affordability criterion mentioned here. Hence, a trickle fill solution is worth investigating for some rural residents. Key words: Rural water systems; economic feasibility; carbon footprint, small diameter water distribution pipelines.
Arthur Hrast Essenfelder, Francesca Larosa, Paolo Mazzoli, Stefano Bagli · 9 authors
This study proposes a climate service named Smart Climate Hydropower Tool (SCHT) and designed as a hybrid forecast system for supporting decision-making in a context of hydropower production. SCHT is technically designed to make use of information from state-of-art seasonal forecasts provided by the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS) combined with a range of different machine learning algorithms to perform the seasonal forecast of the accumulated inflow discharges to the reservoir of hydropower plants. The machine learning algorithms considered include support vector regression, Gaussian processes, long short-term memory, non-linear autoregressive neural networks with exogenous inputs, and a deep-learning neural networks model. Each machine learning model is trained over past decades datasets of recorded data, and forecast performances are validated and evaluated using separate test sets with reference to the historical average of discharge values and simpler multiparametric regressions. Final results are presented to the users through a user-friendly web interface developed from a tied connection with end-users in an effective co-design process. Methods are tested for forecasting the accumulated seasonal river discharges up to six months in advance for two catchments in Colombia, South America. Results indicate that the machine learning algorithms that make use of a complex and/or recurrent architecture can better simulate the temporal dynamic behaviour of the accumulated river discharge inflow to both case study reservoirs, thus rendering SCHT a useful tool in providing information for water resource managers in better planning the allocation of water resources for different users and for hydropower plant managers when negotiating power purchase contracts in competitive energy markets.
The year 2018 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of David McCullough's page-turning The Johnstown Flood, still the most authoritative account of Johnstown's disaster. It is fitting that Neil Coleman would publish a new book in 2018 that uses quantitative science to allow readers to better assess who was responsible for the May 31, 1889, disaster and to clear up some critical ambiguities. It is a major update to the story.The flood was caused by the breaking of a dam owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a group of Pittsburgh industrialists, financiers, and business men. In a horrifying display of the power of nature, some 2,200 residents perished. The flood resulted in the biggest news story of the period and a national scandal. While the press was quick to harshly criticize the club members and the shoddy South Fork Dam, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) launched an investigation by three of the most qualified hydraulic engineers in the county on the cause of the dam failure. The report was highly anticipated but was suppressed and not released until two years after the disaster. It largely exonerated the club, presenting calculations that showed that the dam would have been overtopped and destroyed even if it had been repaired to its original condition when it was built by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the Main Line of Public Works. The disaster, it seemed, was inevitable and the club members were not liable despite the faulty repairs done to their dam.In his new book Neil Coleman uses scientific evidence to fill gaps and correct misinformation in the historical literature. The author and his team, all associated with the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, spent five years critically examining the South Fork Dam and the ASCE report, finding discrepancies, lapses in key observations, and excessive reservoir input estimates. The author finds that report's conclusions were wrong and, very likely, altered by agents of the Pennsylvania Railroad and associates of members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. In this new book and previous published articles (see “Revisiting the Timing and Events Leading to and Causing the Johnstown Flood of 1889,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 80, no. 3 [2013]) the author finds that the South Fork Dam would have survived if it had not been lowered by three feet and its discharge pipes removed. The author also confirms the existence of a second, emergency spillway on the southwest abutment of the South Fork Dam, a theory first advanced by Walter Frank in “Civil Engineering” (1988). The presence of that spillway would have saved the dam in 1889 had the top of the dam not been lowered.Coleman also solves the mystery about who removed the discharge pipes at the base of the dam and when that happened. The fifty club workers who had begun work at the South Fork Dam removed them, not former congressman John Reilly, who was technically still owner of the property. The pipes needed to be removed to drain the lake and begin repairs to the embankment. As readers of David McCullough's book will remember, without the discharge pipes the lake level could not be controlled.Coleman's historical evidence includes new biographic information on the ASCE committee and the presidents of the organization during the years following the Johnstown Flood. James Francis, considered to be the father of hydraulic engineering in the United States, worked with two other highly qualified engineers on the report. Coleman reports that two subsequent ASCE presidents, Max Becker and William Shinn, had ties with Robert Pitcairn and Andrew Carnegie (both club members). Stating their intention to avoid having the ASCE be involved in lawsuits resulting from the flood, Becker and Shinn suppressed the release of the report. The life history of John Parke, the young engineer who witnessed the dam breach in 1889, is also presented.Much of the author's proof is evidence-based: LiDAR data on the remains of the dam and lakebed, calculations of water input and output at the lake, water levels at the main spillway, the storage capacity of the reservoir, and hydraulic movement. He also provides new data on the flood wave based on hydrological models and provides new flood-flow calculations for the flood wave the moment it struck the Conemaugh Viaduct, west of South Fork Borough. While a judgment on the scientific basis of the author's findings is beyond this reviewer's capability, the preponderance of evidence provides compelling support for the author's assumptions and findings.In lieu of blaming club members for the loss of life (other than Benjamin Ruff, the club's first president and developer), the author singles out Robert Pitcairn, who headed the Pittsburgh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Pitcairn undoubtedly had previous concerns about the South Fork Dam and was near Johnstown on the day of the flood. He was a household name in Johnstown and had the opportunity to send explicit warnings by telegram to the flooded community. More people could have escaped and been saved if he had sent a direct warning. His hesitation likely cost many lives.The author has more at stake than just correcting history; he wants to hold engineers to a high professional and ethical standing. Coleman concludes that The engineering investigation of the Johnstown flood of 1889 is a tale of powerful men seeking to protect their reputations, then and now, by hijacking a safety investigation … and distorting its results. … In matters of public safety, when the lives of thousands and perhaps millions may hang in the balance, truth must somehow rise above the chaos that power and greed all too often inflict on it.Justice and closure are served by this new look at the Great Flood.
In the irrigated agricultural areas of Pakistan, the major sources of irrigation are canal water and groundwater. Due to the scarcity of canal water the dependency on groundwater is rapidly increasing in many areas of Pakistan. The groundwater is not only expensive, inadequate, and non-affordable for the small farmers but also of inferior quality. Much of the wastewater which is produced in urban and peri-urban areas is directly or indirectly used for irrigation without any kind of treatment. It appears that suitable technologies for decentralized treatment are avoided but other barriers to the wide adoption of the decentralized approach also exists. These barriers include lack of finance and suitable land, devoid of knowledge and skills and a lack of flexibility in official design standards. This study is an effort to check the status of treatment of the wastewater generated in Faisalabad: The area irrigated with wastewater in and around Faisalabad, quality of wastewater used to grow crops in wastewater irrigated areas, types of crops grown with wastewater, mechanism and composition of wastewater used and supplied to the farmers and farmer’s perception about the social and adverse impacts on human health and constraints in wastewater irrigation. To reduce these barriers several opportunities for improving wastewater management are to be considered via improved policies, institutional dialogues and financial mechanisms, which would reduce the risks in food chain contamination in agriculture practices. Effluent standards combined with incentives or enforcement can motivate improvements in water management by household and industrial sectors discharging wastewater from point sources. Segregation of chemical pollutants from urban wastewater facilitates treatment and reduces risk. Strengthening institutional capacity and establishing links between water delivery and sanitation sectors through inter-institutional coordination leads to more efficient management of wastewater and risk reduction. Key words: Wastewater irrigation, wastewater implication, constraints, farmer ‘perception, food chain contamination.
In Albania there are plenty of natural water resources, a fraction of these reserves cover the need of population for fresh, clean drinking water. But this sector presents several critical problems related with water suppliers. It seems they have not completed the decentralization process; they depend on state subsidies to cover losses from uncollectible bills. Literature shows traditional forms of financing of water supplier in different economies (developed or not). One of the classic financial forms is to increase the rate paid bills. The water should be seen as product that has its own market and an equilibrium price. But do the citizens of Vlora city perceive in adequate way this concept? Should be an economical problem for them if the water tariffs increase or are they using alternative resources of drinking water? The article aims to give a descriptive overview of water industry and suppliers in Albania and especially empirically conclusions about of the situation in Vlora city, focusing on the perceptions of citizens. Are the accumulated financial losses of water supplier correlated with the citizens’ perception about water as a public good? It's been used data through a structured questionnaire (Zeneli F., WP-Questionnaire, 2015) about 160 families, were part of the survey; also data from General Directorate of Water in Albania; elaborated using statistical software IBM SPSS 21, to identify link between determinants of drinking water demand in the sector. The main conclusion is that citizens see the water provider service a public good, while from water suppliers water distributed is their product that provides their market position and their economic sustainability. Let this paper be one of the first in the topic to determine drinking water demand determinants in Vlora city.
Alina Florentina Cucos, Кукош, А., Trif, N., Триф, Н. · 5 authors
Water supply and sewerage services represent utilities that must be provided to all users, both the urban and the rural. The responsibility to ensure these services in terms of non-discrimination and affordability belongs to the local authorities, which in the spirit of decentralization have exclusive jurisdiction on their establishment, organization and operation. Regardless of the chosen management, the funding of water supply and sewerage services, is accomplished by means of the prices and tariffs paid by the users. Their quantum, specific to some social services, covers the costs without allowing the accumulation of consistent profit margins, which would ensure the development of the specific infrastructure from the operators' own funds. It is therefore necessary that funding for the creation and rehabilitation of water supply and sewerage systems to be provided from other sources than the budgets of operators, such as: budgetary allocations of local public authorities, government or European funding programs. This paper is of interest because it captures just how the prices and tariffs for these services are composed, and the entire procedure for foundation, adjustment and modification that follows different rules from those of pricing in the market economy, and it provides a review of the types of programs through which the development of the specific technical-urban infrastructure and the significant increase in the number of users in the past 25 years.
In early 2000 the city of Quito, Ecuador, established the Water Protection Fund (FONAG) to provide sustainable financing for the management and conservation of surrounding watersheds. FONAG was innovative in that it pioneered the use of trust funds in a voluntary, decentralized mechanism for financing watershed conservation. Since then, at least 15 similar water funds have been created or are under development in the Northern Andes, seven of which are in Ecuador. Ecuador's later water funds share many similarities with FONAG, but there are also important differences. This paper analyzes the evolution of Ecuador's water trust funds since the creation of FONAG and related changes in community-level watershed management. It does so by comparing the development and effects-todate of two of the most-recent Ecuadorian water funds: the Fund for Pramo Management and Fight Against Poverty in Tungurahua (FMPLPT) and the Regional Water Fund (FORAGUA). After defining the water trust fund model, the paper provides an overview of the FMPLPT and FORAGUA. It then compares these newer funds with FONAG to identify several trends in the financing of watershed conservation within Ecuador.
A theory of payment for ecosystem services (PES) pricing consistent with dynamic efficiency and sustainable income requires optimized shadow prices. Since ecosystem services are generally interdependent, this requires joint optimization across multiple resource stocks. We develop such a theory in the context of watershed conservation and groundwater extraction. The optimal program can be implemented with a decentralized system of ecosystem payments to private watershed landowners, financed by efficiency prices of groundwater set by a public utility. The theory is extended to cases where land is publicly owned, conservation instruments exhibit non-convexities on private land, or the size of a conservation project is exogenous. In these cases, conservation investment can be financed from benefit taxation of groundwater consumers. While volumetric conservation surcharges induce inefficient water use, a dynamic lump-sum tax finances investment without distorting incentives. Since the optimal level of conservation is generated as long as payments are correct at the margin, any surplus can be returned to consumers through appropriate block pricing. The present value gain in consumer surplus generated by the conservation-induced reduction in groundwater scarcity serves as a lower bound to the benefits of conservation without explicit measurement of other benefits such as recreation, biodiversity, and cultural values.
Open access
2 source records
Economic and Environmental Valuation
Water resources management and optimization
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
Investments for basic rural sanitation programs should not only focus on the construction of new installations, but also on the necessity of implementing proper management models that guarantee the operational and financial sustainability of the investments. The integrated rural sanitation system (SISAR) is based on the idea of creating a confederation of local user groups which come together on a regional basis, and through an adequate institutional setup, are responsible for managing SISAR and assuring the adequate provision of water supply and in some cases, wastewater services. Financial sustainability is achieved by the implementation of tariffs for water consumption and provision of wastewater services generating revenue which is redistributed among all systems in order to cover all operational, maintenance and administration costs. Important stakeholders in the model include, besides the users, local and state government and international financing institutions responsible for financing the investments in the construction of rural water supply and wastewater systems. This document focuses on the experience and results achieved by SISAR in the Brazilian state of Ceará. In 2001 eight SISARs began providing improved water supply services in 66 settlements. Today, more than 560 settlements (more than 330,000 inhabitants) are supplied by SISARs.
El primer objetivo de esta tesis es la identificación y análisis de aspectos clave para la gobernanza de los servicios de agua rural en países que adolecen de bajos niveles de cobertura, altos índices de pobreza, se encuentran en procesos de descentralización, reciben un importante apoyo de donantes internacionales. Esta situación es común para muchos países de África Sub-sahariana. Por ello, se eligió Tanzania como objeto de estudio. El segundo objetivo de esta tesis ha sido el ensayo de nuevas herramientas y mecanismos institucionales para la mejora de la eficiencia, equidad y sostenibilidad en la provisión de agua en las zonas rurales, con especial énfasis en el nivel de gobierno descentralizado. Para ello, se desarrollaron experiencias piloto así como procesos de investigación-acción. En el capítulo 1 se estudia el papel desempeñado por los diferentes actores internacionales en la financiación del sector del agua en los países en desarrollo durante la década 1995-2004. En el capítulo 2 se analizan los indicadores existentes para el seguimiento del sector del agua a nivel internacional, específicamente los utilizados para valorar el cumplimiento de los Objetivos del Milenio, así como el Índice de Pobreza Hídrica (Water Poverty Index). Se detallan algunos limitantes en cuanto al alcance y metodología de cálculo de estos indicadores, y se proponen las características básicas que los indicadores deben tener para apoyar la toma de decisiones a nivel gubernamental. En el capítulo 3 se presenta una metodología para el desarrollo de indicadores más completos de acceso al agua, basándose en el Mapeo de Puntos de Agua (Water Point Mapping-WPM). La metodología propuesta, denominada Mapeo Mejorado de Puntos de Agua, incluye la medición de parámetros básicos de calidad del agua y estacionalidad de los servicios. La factibilidad y pertinencia de la adopción de esta metodología a nivel nacional se desarrolló satisfactoriamente a modo de experiencia piloto en dos distritos de Tanzania, con una población rural aproximada de 840.000 personas (capítulo 4). En el capítulo 5 se analiza la sostenibilidad de los servicios de agua rural en relación al tipo de tecnología utilizada para el abastecimiento. El análisis se basa en los datos de 6814 puntos de agua, sobre una población equivalente al 15% de la población rural de Tanzania. El capítulo 6 se analiza el proceso de toma de decisiones, desde el nivel central al nivel comunitario, para la asignación de recursos en el sector del agua rural. Los resultados en los 4 distritos estudiados muestran que menos de la mitad de los proyectos asignados se destinan a zonas con baja cobertura de servicios. Las incoherencias entre el diseño y la implementación de los planes nacionales, y la influencia de los poderes políticos locales son los mayores obstáculos para una equitativa distribución de los recursos. El capítulo 7 detalla el caso de investigación-acción ejecutado a nivel de gobierno local entre 2006 y 2009 con el gobierno del distrito de Same, Tanzania. La mejora de la equidad y la sostenibilidad se fomentaron mediante el desarrollo de herramientas de planificación basadas en el WPM y de mecanismos institucionales para el apoyo a largo plazo a los sistemas de agua rurales. En el capítulo 8 se detallan las conclusiones generales y líneas de investigación futuras. La resolución de los desafíos principales encontrados implican la adopción de paradigmas diferentes: i) la aceptación del agua rural como un servicio responsabilidad del gobierno y no de las comunidades; ii) las actuaciones deben decidirse en función de las necesidades de las comunidades, y no de su capacidad de demanda, iii) el establecimiento de sistemas de información internos que partan desde el nivel local y estén adaptados a las capacidades de actualización disponibles, iv) el desarrollo de mecanismos para la orientación y el seguimiento cercano de los procesos de toma de decisión a nivel local The first objective of this thesis is the identification and analysis of key issues in the governance of rural water services in countries that suffer from a lack of rural water access, high levels of poverty, are under decentralization processes and receive significant donor support. This is a common situation for many Sub-Saharan countries. To address the relevant aspects, Tanzania was taken as a case study and was analyzed in depth. The second objective was to test tools and propose institutional arrangements at that can improve efficiency, equity and sustainability in the provision of water for the rural areas, with special focus at the local government level. This was made through pilot experiences and an action research case study. In Chapter 1 we analyse the role played by the international actors in the financing of the water sector of developing countries, in the period 1995-2004. In Chapter 2 we study existing indicators for international monitoring, specifically the ones used by the Joint Monitoring Programme for the monitoring of the MDGs, as well as the Water Poverty Index (WPI). Some drawbacks are found the indicators’ scope and methodology, which prevents them from being used as policy drivers at national level. The chapter concludes by proposing the main characteristics that those indicators must entail to be useful for governmental decision making. In Chapter 3, a methodology to define water access indicators, based on GIS-based Water Point Mapping (WPM) is proposed. The methodology, named Enhanced Water Point Mapping (EWPM), includes the measurement of basic parameters of quality of water and seasonality of the service. The feasibility and relevance of adopting this methodology at national level was tested with success in two districts in Tanzania, covering a rural population of approximately 840,000 people, as described in Chapter 4. In chapter 5, we analyze the sustainability of systems over time, and the relation between sustainability and technology; this chapter is based on the study of 6814 water points, covering 15% of the rural population in the country. Chapter 6 analyses the aspects affecting financial resource allocation for rural water in Tanzania at all levels, from central government to village level. Results in four districts studied showed that less than half of allocated projects go to underserved areas. Incoherencies between the design and the implementation of the plans and political influences at local level are highlighted as major obstacles to the effective, equitable allocation of resources. In chapter 7, we describe an action research process that was carried out at local government level, together with Same District Council, between 2006 and 2009. The improvement of equity and sustainability was supported through the development of EWPM based planning tools and new institutional arrangements for the long-term support of community managed water supplies. In Chapter 8 the overall conclusions and future research lines are presented. We propose some new paradigms in the sector: i) rural water supply must be considered as a service, with government and not communities as main duty bearers; ii) the adoption of a needs-based approach to projects planning at community level, instead of the current demand driven, iii) the establishment of bottom-up internal information systems adapted to available updating capacities and iv) the development of mechanisms for the guidance and close monitoring of local government decision-making.
On January 8, 1997, the former President of Brazil, Fernando Enrique Cardoso signed the National Water Resource Policy into law (Law No. 9.433, 1997). The key principles of the National Water Policy include: an integrated approach with the river basin as the planning unit, water as a fragile and finite resource, water as an economic good, and finally, decentralized and participatory management of the resource (Formiga and Scatasta, forthcoming). The legislation provided for the implementation of bulk water pricing with the resulting revenues meant to finance the activities mandated by basin committees in the watershed area of Rio Paraíba Do Sul (in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and also in the state of Minas Gerais, that basin committee is Comitê para Integraςão da Bacia Hidrográfica do Rio Paraíba Do Sul (CEIVAP) (Abers and Keck, 2004). To improve the sustainability of many different resources it is a widely accepted concept that charging a fee for something will spur sparing use by the target audience, particularly if the price is high. One-hundred percent of the collected monies have been invested within the basin; mainly designated to the following: non-structural institutional interventions, sediment control projects, and municipal wastewater treatment. Payments from agriculture and small hydroelectric plants have been mostly symbolic or non-existent and payments from other sectors have not been high enough to maintain a sustainable system. Convincing those that have not been actively participating is central to the success of this initiative: this paper will explain a framework called Social Marketing which is becoming more widely used throughout the globe to inspire behavior change. Social Marketing is a tool that can be used to persuade more users to pay the cobrança.
Open access
Water resources management and optimization
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
Jean-Philippe Fontenelle, François Molle, Hugh Turral
The political changes which induced the technical and institutional evolution of the Red River Delta's (Vietnam) water control systems are described. The management framework and financial organization of the delta's water control systems are also described. The financing of the different operators, the amount and use of the water fees paid by farmers, and the process of water management decentralization and privatization in the delta, are analysed.
The paper describes and analyzes river basin management in the most intensely urbanized and industrialized region of Brazil. The area covered by the Alto Tiete basin is almost coterminous with the Metropolitan Region of Sao Paulo. With a drainage area of 5,985 square kilometers (2.4 percent of the state's territory), the basin encompasses 35 of the 39 municipalities and 99.5 percent of the population of Greater Sao Paulo. Population growth and urban sprawl in Greater Sao Paulo have been rapid and uncontrolled in recent decades. In 2000, 17.8 million people lived in the basin and by 2010 the population is estimated to reach 20 million. This massive human occupation was accompanied by the large-scale construction of water infrastructure, including dams, pumping stations, canals, tunnels, and inter-basin transfers to and from neighboring basins. Today, the Alto-Tiete basin is served by a complex hydraulic and hydrological system. Despite this extensive water infrastructure, the water availability of the region is still very low (201 m3-hab-an) and even lower than the semiarid regions of the Brazilian Northeast. The two key management issues to be addressed in the Alto Tiete basin are water quantity to supply a burgeoning population, and water quality which is deteriorating to a point where water availability for a range of uses is severely affected. Urban flood control and mitigation represents another major challenge in the basin. Although important achievements have been made over the past 15 years, the decentralization process - characterized by the creation of the Alto-Tiete committee and its subcommittees and some financing from the State Water Resources Fund - has yet to reveal measurable physical results such as the improvement of water quality or the rationalization of water use. It is undeniable that the Alto-Tiete committee and its subcommittees have already played an important leadership role around several issues. An extraordinary mobilization around water issues, problems, and management has occurred, even though solving many water-related problems may be beyond the capacity of the committees or even of the water resources management system as a whole. Charging for water remains one of the key issues in making the Alto Tiete Committee more relevant and giving it more say in water investment and management decisions. As long as such decisions remain at the individual agency level (both state and municipal), decisionmaking will remain fragmented and it is unlikely that key policy instruments to curb water demand increases and pollution will be implemented.
In spite of a long history of institutional reforms, Mexico still cannot assure adequate water services to its population and its aquifers and ecosystems are being degraded. Although decentralization is a principal theme of administrative reform, the National Water Commission (CNA) remains a powerful semi-autonomous organization charged with the oversight and control of local water agencies. Local urban water administrations are under intense pressure to change their management structures to ...
In order to strengthen the real ownership and leadership of the communities in rural water supply implementation the\nCommunity Development Fund (CDF) approach was developed in Rural Water Supply and Environmental Programme in\nAmhara Region. The purpose of the CDF approach is to create an alternative funding mechanism, which is separate from the\nconventional governmental funding mechanisms, which are many times slow and bureaucratic and cannot support natural\nprivate sector development. In this approach the funds for the water supply construction are not anymore channelled to\nthe implementing Water Office, instead the funds are transferred to the community using private credit institution in fund\nmanagement. In CDF the community elects an executive body called WATSANCO, which manages the funds, construction\nand material management as well as the management of the water point after construction. Amhara Credit and Savings\nInstitution (ACSI), a share company, which has branches in each Woreda (District) carries out the fund management with\n2% commission only. The CDF project coordination at the Woreda level is carried out by the Woreda Community Development\nFund Board (CDFB) having members from government offices and local organizations and private sector. CDF\napproach in funding will support the decentralization of responsibilities, i.e. initiating and implementing water supply\nprojects by communities and user groups themselves, which will have a significant impact on the ownership issue from the\nvery start. This approach has had enormous impact on the community’s capacity and it has also increased the rural water\nsupply implementation pace. The approach builds the community capacity to take the lead of their own development with\nother sector development projects as well.
David S. McCauley, Robert Bruce Anderson, Richard L. Bowen, Ibrahim Elassiouty · 6 authors
Egypt seems to be on the brink of a new era in water management. The country suppose to follow a different operational mode that is “water conservation oriented, decentralized, environmentally sensitive, private sector oriented, equitable and operationally efficient” The focus of this study was on market-based instruments (MBI’s) as complements to traditional command and control measures for managing water quantity and quality. Prior to evaluating potential water MBIs, it was necessary to identify the water management problems and challenges that need to be addressed through policy adjustments. \nThese challenges were threat of water shortages, service delivery in municipal water supply, lake Nasser pollution, Irrigation service delivery challenges, Nile River pollution above Cairo, Insufficient irrigation system upkeep, water pollution in the Nile Delta, Pollution of lakes , low user contribution to irrigation system upkeep, groundwater contamination, and Weak attention to in-stream flows. \nSuch challenges have impacts on: (1) Nonrenewable groundwater management, (2) Adverse effects on human health, (3) Subsidies affecting water use efficiency, (4) Reduced agricultural productivity, (5) Rainfall capture and flash flood protection. The impacts generated some Threats to aquatic ecosystems, particularly, Negative consequences of rising water tables and Negative impacts on aesthetics (incl. tourism) \nA two-step screening process was developed and utilized to evaluate the likely success of alternative market-based policy instruments in response to one or more of water management challenges. The instruments were screened based on economic efficiency and equity and other economic factors relating to the nature of the instrument itself. They also were evaluated based on criteria that considered the specific social, cultural, political, and institutional context in which the instrument will be applied. \nThereon, the study explored the applicability of economic instruments to help address Egypt’s current water management challenges. It resulted in an initial evaluation of twenty instruments that seemed most promising. Screening criteria were developed and applied to assess the merits of each, and direction also was received from nearly 60 participants who attended the study’s concluding Workshop on Economic Incentives for Water. The most promising policy instruments that concluded from the study were: \nWoith respect to the water quantity management deemed of highest priority for follow-up analysis and possible policy action were: Groundwater Extraction Charges, Tariff Reductions for Imported Water Meters and Water Conserving Equipment, Several other measures were identified as warranting careful further analysis. These include area-based irrigation service charges; volumetric water delivery charges for large agricultural enterprises; and increased user fees for the supply of urban and industrial water services. \nLikewise, the most promising policy measures identified to address water quality \nproblems were: Increased User Fees for Wastewater Treatment, Increased Subsidies to Finance Wastewater Treatment Facilities, Subsidized Rural Sanitation, and Subsidized Pollution Control Equipment \nTo achieve such model four approaches to positive change have been identified. These include Creating incentives and disincentives for water management to protect its quality. In addition to Institutionalizing the role private participation; environmental protection and identifying mechanisms to ensure appropriate benefits for participating private sector partners, decentralizing decision making, institutionalizing environmental protection, changing the role of government and improving personnel policies at macro-level decision making regarding uses of the Nile River, and improving awareness of water resources and associated environmental issues.