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Observational Study
. 2022 Mar 20:813:151876.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151876. Epub 2021 Nov 23.

Infrastructure alone cannot ensure resilience to weather events in drinking water supplies

Katrina J Charles  1 , Guy Howard  2 , Elena Villalobos Prats  3 , Joshua Gruber  4 , Sadekul Alam  5 , A S M Alamgir  6 , Manish Baidya  7 , Meerjady Sabrina Flora  6 , Farhana Haque  6 , S M Quamrul Hassan  5 , Saiful Islam  8 , Alfred Lazaro  9 , Dickson Wilson Lwetoijera  10 , S G Mahmud  11 , Zahid Hayat Mahmud  12 , Fatuma Matwewe  13 , Kamal Pasa  14 , Mahmudur Rahman  6 , Ashek Ahammed Shahid Reza  6 , M Selimuzzaman  6 , Ahmed Raihan Sharif  6 , Subodh Sharma  15 , Jacqueline Marie Thomas  16 , Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum  17
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Free article
Observational Study

Infrastructure alone cannot ensure resilience to weather events in drinking water supplies

Katrina J Charles et al. Sci Total Environ. .
Free article

Abstract

Climate resilient water supplies are those that provide access to drinking water that is sustained through seasons and through extreme events, and where good water quality is also sustained. While surface and groundwater quality are widely understood to vary with rainfall, there is a gap in the evidence on the impact of weather and extremes in rainfall and temperature on drinking water quality, and the role of changes in water system management. A three-country (Bangladesh, Nepal and Tanzania) observational field study tracked 2353 households clustered around 685 water sources across seven different geographies over 14 months. Water quality (E. coli) data was modelled using GEE to account for clustering effects and repeated measures at households. All types of infrastructure were vulnerable to changes in weather, with differences varying between geographies; protected boreholes provided the greatest protection at the point of collection (PoC). Water quality at the point of use (PoU) was vulnerable to changes in weather, through changes in PoC water quality as well as changes in management behaviours, such as safe storage, treatment and cleaning. This is the first study to demonstrate the impact of rainfall and temperature extremes on water quality at the PoC, and the role that weather has on PoU water quality via management behaviours. Climate resilience for water supplies needs to consider the infrastructure as well as the management decisions that are taking place at a community and household level.

Keywords: Climate resilience; Drinking water quality; E. coli; Management; Weather.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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