New Paper: Thinking beyond domestic water supply

The fourth paper from Dr. Raj GC’s dissertation was recently published in Water International. This paper explores a myriad of ways in which a multiple-use water services (MUS) approach to rural water provision could be incorporated into Nepal’s planning and governance systems. The first 50 downloads of the paper are fee (via this link).

ABSTRACT

The development of multiple-use water systems (MUS) in Nepal has mostly relied on international/non-governmental organizations. Despite the growing interest in MUS within the country, the approach has not yet received space in government policy and programmes, limiting its wider implementation. We seek to understand both the challenges to, and strategies for, scaling-up MUS, especially with regard to how MUS could be incorporated into Nepali institutional and policy processes arising from the adoption of a three-tier (federal, state and local) federal governance system. Our recommendations are informed by a study of MUS in the middle hills of Nepal.

The three other papers from Dr. GC’s dissertation research can be accessed below:

GC, R.K., Ranganathan, S., Hammett, T., and Hall, R. P. (2020) What factors determine the technical performance of community-managed rural water systems in the middle hills of Nepal? Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, https://doi.org/10.2166/washdev.2020.189.

GC, R.K. and Hall, R.P. (2020) The Commercialization of Smallholder Farming—A Case Study from the Rural Western Middle Hills of Nepal. Agriculture 2020, 10, 143.

GC, R. K., Ranganathan, S., and Hall, R. P. (2019) Does Rural Water System Design Matter? A Study of Productive Use of Water in Rural Nepal. Water, 11, 1978.

New Paper in Water

In 2012, I had the pleasure of meeting Raj GC at a Multiple-Use Water Services (MUS) retreat at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy. Raj is located on the top right of the picture below that was taken during the retreat. Four years later, Raj left his home in Nepal to join our PhD program in Planning, Governance, and Globalization (PGG) at Virginia Tech, to study the impacts of MUS in Nepal. On Monday, the first paper of his dissertation was published that explores whether the design of rural water systems in the mid-hills of Nepal impacts how households use water. The paper is open access (thanks to Virginia Tech’s Open Access Subvention Fund) and can be accessed by selecting the title of the paper below.

Abstract

In Nepal, rural water systems (RWS) are classified by practitioners as single-use domestic water systems (SUS) or multiple-use water systems (MUS). In the rural hills of Nepal, subsistence farming communities typically use RWS to support income-generating productive activities that can enhance rural livelihoods. However, there is limited research on the extent of existing productive activity and the factors enabling these activities. This paper examines the extent of water-related productive activities and the factors driving these activities based on a study, undertaken between October 2017 to June 2018, of 202 households served from five single-use domestic water systems and five multiple use water systems in the mid-hills of Nepal. The research found that a majority (94%) of these households engaged in two or more productive activities including growing vegetables and horticulture crops, raising livestock, and producing biogas and Rakshi (locally-produced alcohol), regardless of the system design, i.e., SUS vs. MUS. Around 90% of the households were engaged in productive activities that contributed to over 10% of their mean annual household income ($4,375). Since the SUS vs. MUS classification was not found to be a significant determinant of the extent of productive activity, the households were reclassified as having high or low levels of productive activity based on the quantity of water used for these activities and the associated earned income. A multinomial logistic regression model was developed to measure the relative significance of various predictors of high productive activity households. Five dominant predictors were identified: households that farm as a primary occupation, use productive technologies, are motivated to pursue productive activities, have received water-related productive activity training, and have received external support related to productive activities. Whereas MUS are designed for productive activity, nearly every household in SUS communities was involved in productive activities making them ‘de-facto’ MUS. These results challenge the current approach to rural water provision that views SUS and MUS as functionally different services.

New Paper in Sustainability

A new paper by Shyam Ranganathan, Raj GC, and I was recently published in Sustainability. The paper presents a way to advance an interconnected set of SDGs and targets through a multiple-use water services (MUS) approach to rural water delivery.

Abstract: The 2030 agenda presents an integrated set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets that will shape development activities for the coming decade. The challenge now facing development organizations and governments is how to operationalize this interconnected set of goals and targets through effective projects and programs. This paper presents a micro-level modeling approach that can quantitatively assess the impacts associated with rural water interventions that are tailored to specific communities. The analysis focuses on how a multiple-use water services (MUS) approach to SDG 6 could reinforce a wide range of other SDGs and targets. The multilevel modeling framework provides a generalizable template that can be used in multiple sectors. In this paper, we apply the methodology to a dataset on rural water services from Mozambique to show that community-specific equivalents of macro-level variables used in the literature such as Cost of Illness (COI) avoided can provide a better indication of the impacts of a specific intervention. The proposed modeling framework presents a new frontier for designing projects in any sector that address the specific needs of communities, while also leveraging the knowledge gained from previous projects in any country. The approach also presents a way for agencies and organizations to design projects or programs that bridge sectors/disciplines (water, irrigation, health, energy, economic development, etc.) to advance an interconnected set of SDGs and targets.

Citation: Hall, R.P.; Ranganathan, S.; G. C., R.K. A General Micro-Level Modeling Approach to Analyzing Interconnected SDGs: Achieving SDG 6 and More through Multiple-Use Water Services (MUS). Sustainability 2017, 9(2), 314.

Public Health Grand Rounds Seminar – 12pm, Oct 22 (Webcast)

At 12pm on Thursday, October 22, Sophie Wenzel and I will give a seminar on our research group’s work relating to rural water services planning. We will support the presentation with a story map that can be accessed by clicking on the image below.

Since the webcast will not enable viewers to ask questions, I have set up a public Google Doc in which viewers can ask questions or provide feedback/comments. We will do our best to respond to these questions at the end of our presentation. If we run out of time, I will post a written response to questions we were unable to address on this blog.

MUS Research in Burkina Faso

On Sunday, our research team – consisting of Emily Van Houweling, Sophie Wenzel, Nicholas Polys, Paige Williams, and I – arrived in Burkina Faso to study the water accounting process developed by Winrock International as part of their Multiple-Use Water Services (MUS) project. Our team will be here for two weeks, during which we will visit project communities and identify opportunities to further advance the water accounting process by drawing on the unique skill set of the research team.

Emily Van Houweling, Sophie Wenzel, Paige Williams, Ralph Hall, and Nicholas Polys

Winrock’s MUS project is one of several funded by the USAID WA-WASH (West Africa Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene) Program. The WA-WASH program focuses on increasing sustainable access to safe water and sanitation and improved hygiene in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Niger. The program is a complex endeavor that includes some thirteen partners and is led by Florida International University (FIU).

This research expedition was made possible by a grant from Virginia Tech’s Institute for Environment, Culture, and Environment.

New Paper on The Human Right to Water

The Human Right to Water: The Importance of Domestic and Productive Water Rights

Ralph P. Hall, Barbara Van Koppen, Emily Van Houweling

Science and Engineering Ethics

Abstract

The United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights engenders important state commitments to respect, fulfill, and protect a broad range of socio-economic rights. In 2010, a milestone was reached when the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation. However, water plays an important role in realizing other human rights such as the right to food and livelihoods, and in realizing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. These broader water-related rights have been recognized but have not yet been operationalized. This paper unravels these broader water-related rights in a more holistic interpretation of existing international human rights law. By focusing on an emerging approach to water services provision—known as ‘domestic-plus’ services—the paper argues how this approach operationalizes a comprehensive range of socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas. Domestic-plus services provide water for domestic and productive uses around homesteads, which challenges the widespread practice in the public sector of planning and designing water infrastructure for a single-use. Evidence is presented to show that people in rural communities are already using their water supplies planned for domestic uses to support a wide range of productive activities. Domestic-plus services recognize and plan for these multiple-uses, while respecting the priority for clean and safe drinking water. The paper concludes that domestic-plus services operationalize the obligation to progressively fulfill a comprehensive range of indivisible socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas.

Download or Read Paper On-line