Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

C I T I E S : C O M P E T I N G N E E D S I N A N U R B A N E N V I R O N M E N T / 1 8 3Table 7.4: Comparison of different approaches to demand-side water management in the household sectorThe conservation The hygiene The marginal cost pricing The community actionargument argument argument 1 argumentGuiding concern Water stress is a growing Water-related diseases still Water is a scarce commodity, Adequate water is a basic need,problem in most parts of the constitute a large share of with an economic value in without which people cannot liveworld, due to excessive the global burden of disease. numerous alternative uses. healthy and fulfilling lives.water consumption.Key insight There are numerous Achieving health depends on Piped water is typically priced Disorganized (poor) communitiesunexploited opportunities for how water is used as well as well below its (marginal) are at a disadvantage in bothsaving water without reducing how much water (of adequate economic value. addressing their own water needsthe services water provides. quality) is provided. and negotiating with outsiders.Contributory Householders using piped Householders cannot discern Water is often treated as a Water utilities are not responsivefactors water often cannot tell how the health consequences of social good, with provision to the needs and demands ofmuch of their water is going their water use practices, organized as a non-commercial low-income communities,to which purposes, are not and often rely on social norms enterprise. Even commercial especially if they are located inaware when they are wasting which, especially in crowded providers rarely bear the full informal settlements. Localwater, and do not have the and generally hazardous living (marginal) costs of water organization is often suppressedmeans of judging water- environments, may be withdrawal and in any case do for political reasons.conserving technologies. unhealthy. not operate in a competitivemarket.Demand-side Users are unaware and Users often fail to adopt safe Consumers overuse water, Residents receive inappropriateconsequences unconcerned about water water practices, and do not either leading to resource or inadequate water services, orconservation, and there is achieve the potential health problems and/or depriving must rely on informal and oftenunnecessary water wastage. benefits even when they others of valuable water. costly and inadequate waterreceive piped water.sources.Recommendation Conservation education and Hygiene education and Piped water pricing should be Poor communities should mobilizepromotion should become an promotion should become based on long-run marginal (or be mobilized) around localintegral part of piped water an integral part of water costs, giving users the incentive water issues, and providers shouldprovision. provision. to manage their own demand be responsive to community asefficiently.well as individual demands.1. This column concentrates on the economic arguments for marginal cost pricing, and ignores the economic arguments more specific to low-income communities.The limited water management capacity in many cities maymean that adding new management burdens is counterproductive.As such, forms of demand-side management that also ease overallmanagement burdens are far more likely to be successful thaninitiatives that give greater responsibilities to already strugglingutilities and government agencies.There is a danger that, rather than creating a more integratedform of water management, as most proponents hope, demand-sidemanagement will accentuate conflicts between ecological andhuman health and welfare goals. It is one thing to recognize thatwater is often wasted even in poor areas (leakage in particular isoften a serious problem); it is quite another to treat water resourceabuse as the defining environmental problem in areas where waterrelatedhealth problems are pervasive.Thus, there is a case for a form of demand-side watermanagement that actively serves both conservation andenvironmental health/welfare goals, recognizing that the relativeimportance of these different goals, and the appropriate strategiesfor pursuing them, is very context dependent.ConclusionsA significant proportion of those living without proper water supplyand sanitation are urban dwellers, mainly in the peri-urban areas.They are forced to draw on water sources that are unsafe, unreliableand often difficult to access. For sanitation, they have poor qualitylatrines – often shared with so many others that access and latrinecleanliness is difficult – or they have no provision for sanitation.Virtually all urban dwellers with inadequate provision live in the lowandmiddle-income nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America and theCaribbean. Inadequacies in the provision of water, sanitation andhygiene bring an enormous health burden: half the urbanpopulation in Africa, Asia and Latin America suffer one or more of