IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v5y2013i11p4870-4888d30374.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Collecting Critical Data to Assess the Sustainability of Rural Infrastructure in Low-Income Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Sharon A. Jones

    (Civil Engineering Program, University of Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203, USA)

  • Kristen L. Sanford Bernhardt

    (Department of Civil Engineering, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042, USA
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Mark Kennedy

    (Civil Engineering Program, University of Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203, USA
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Kelsey Lantz

    (Department of Civil Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA)

  • Trent Holden

    (Civil Engineering Program, University of Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203, USA)

Abstract

Rural water systems in low-income countries often fail to deliver potable water sustainably. Reasons include socio-economic, financial, and technical challenges that are specific to the community. Improved assessment methods are critical if decision makers want to provide sustainable solutions; however, to be useful, such methods require substantial data about the complex interaction between people, water, and infrastructure. Such interaction is affected by, and in turn, affects the behavior of community members regarding water usage, resources for infrastructure maintenance, and choice of assets. Unfortunately, much of these data are not readily available, in a large part because of the site-specific context associated with each rural community. Because of the difficulty and expense in obtaining site-specific data, it is important to identify the most critical needs for field studies versus the data that can be obtained from sources such as non-governmental organizations and the general literature. We examine this issue by first using an extensive data set from Malawi to identify the critical data needs. We then present several examples of field studies in Honduras and Uganda where we collected some of that critical data. Throughout, we discuss best practices for conducting and using focused field studies versus the general literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Sharon A. Jones & Kristen L. Sanford Bernhardt & Mark Kennedy & Kelsey Lantz & Trent Holden, 2013. "Collecting Critical Data to Assess the Sustainability of Rural Infrastructure in Low-Income Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(11), pages 1-19, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:5:y:2013:i:11:p:4870-4888:d:30374
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/11/4870/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/11/4870/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marks, Sara J. & Davis, Jennifer, 2012. "Does User Participation Lead to Sense of Ownership for Rural Water Systems? Evidence from Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1569-1576.
    2. Sharon A. Jones & Abseen Anya & Nicholas Stacey & Lindsay Weir, 2012. "A Life-cycle Approach to Improve the Sustainability of Rural Water Systems in Resource-Limited Countries," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-28, November.
    3. Whittington, Dale & Mu, Xinming & Roche, Robert, 1990. "Calculating the value of time spent collecting water: Some estimates for Ukunda, Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 269-280, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haijing Zhang & Qingyun Du & Min Yao & Fu Ren, 2016. "Evaluation and Clustering Maps of Groundwater Wells in the Red Beds of Chengdu, Sichuan, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-21, January.
    2. Isabel Domínguez & Edgar Ricardo Oviedo-Ocaña & Karen Hurtado & Andrés Barón & Ralph P. Hall, 2019. "Assessing Sustainability in Rural Water Supply Systems in Developing Countries Using a Novel Tool Based on Multi-Criteria Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-22, September.
    3. Nsikak Mitchel Offiong & Fayyaz Ali Memon & Yulei Wu, 2023. "Time Series Data Preparation for Failure Prediction in Smart Water Taps (SWT)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, March.
    4. Fekadu Megersa Senbeta & Yang Shu, 2019. "Project Implementation Management Modalities and Their Implications on Sustainability of Water Services in Rural Areas in Ethiopia: Are Community-Managed Projects More Effective?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-19, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Koehler, Johanna & Thomson, Patrick & Hope, Robert, 2015. "Pump-Priming Payments for Sustainable Water Services in Rural Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 397-411.
    2. Cecile Jackson, 1998. "Gender, irrigation, and environment: Arguing for agency," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 15(4), pages 313-324, December.
    3. Anand Asthana, 1997. "Where the Water is Free but the Buckets are Empty: Demand Analysis of Drinking Water in Rural India," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 137-149, April.
    4. Gayatri Koolwal & Dominique van de Walle, 2013. "Access to Water, Women's Work, and Child Outcomes," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(2), pages 369-405.
    5. Aparna Katre & Arianna Tozzi, 2018. "Assessing the Sustainability of Decentralized Renewable Energy Systems: A Comprehensive Framework with Analytical Methods," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-18, April.
    6. Deribe Assefa Aga & N. Noorderhaven & B. Vallejo, 2018. "Project beneficiary participation and behavioural intentions promoting project sustainability: The mediating role of psychological ownership," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(5), pages 527-546, September.
    7. Georg Meran & Markus Siehlow & Christian von Hirschhausen, 2021. "Pipes, Taps, and Vendors: An Integrated Water Management Approach," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(04), pages 1-29, October.
    8. Hoddinott, John, 1997. "Water, health, and income," FCND discussion papers 25, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    9. Amandine Laré & Anne Briand & Eric Kéré, 2018. "Access to sanitation in precarious districts of Ouagadougou [L'accès à l'assainissement dans les quartiers précaires de Ouagadougou]," Post-Print hal-02430413, HAL.
    10. Michael Kremer & Jessica Leino & Edward Miguel & Alix Peterson Zwane, 2011. "Spring Cleaning: Rural Water Impacts, Valuation, and Property Rights Institutions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 145-205.
    11. Parikh, Priti & Fu, Kun & Parikh, Himanshu & McRobie, Allan & George, Gerard, 2015. "Infrastructure Provision, Gender, and Poverty in Indian Slums," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 468-486.
    12. Were, E. & Swallow, B. & Roy, J., 2005. "Water, women and local social organization in the Western Kenya highlands," Conference Papers h042984, International Water Management Institute.
    13. Nuru, Jude T. & Rhoades, Jason L. & Gruber, James S., 2021. "The socio-technical barriers and strategies for overcoming the barriers to deploying solar mini-grids in rural islands: Evidence from Ghana," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    14. Cieslik, Katarzyna, 2016. "Moral Economy Meets Social Enterprise Community-Based Green Energy Project in Rural Burundi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 12-26.
    15. Winter, James C. & Darmstadt, Gary L. & Davis, Jennifer, 2021. "The role of piped water supplies in advancing health, economic development, and gender equality in rural communities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    16. Curran, Franziska & Smart, Simon & Lacey, Justine & Greig, Chris & Lant, Paul, 2018. "Learning from experience in the water sector to improve access to energy services," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 41-50.
    17. Ryan Schweitzer & C. Pezon & Abdul Pinjari & Catarina Fonseca & James R . Mihelcic, 2013. "Household expenditure on water service Financial and economic expenditures of rural and peri-urban households across socio-economic classes and seasons in Burkina Faso," Post-Print hal-02012158, HAL.
    18. Koehler, Johanna & Thomson, Patrick & Goodall, Susanna & Katuva, Jacob & Hope, Rob, 2021. "Institutional pluralism and water user behavior in rural Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    19. Shawo G. Mwakilama, 2022. "Extent of Community Stakeholders’ Involvement and Outcomes in Communal Water Supply Systems in Malawi," Journal of Development Policy and Practice, , vol. 7(2), pages 243-264, July.
    20. Deepa Pradhan & Tihomir Ancev & Ross Drynan & Michael Harris, 2011. "Management of Water Reservoirs (Embungs) in West Timor, Indonesia," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 25(1), pages 339-356, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:5:y:2013:i:11:p:4870-4888:d:30374. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.