Tracking Water Sustainability

March 29, 2011
By Ned Breslin

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Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) asks:

The development community has increasingly embraced the concept of “sustainability” as it relates to WASH services.  However, there is disagreement as to what constitutes sustainability and how to measure it. What does sustainability mean to your organization? What practices encourage service provides and implementers to ensure WASH programs are sustainable?

Ned Breslin responds:
The debate around "sustainability" is somewhat surprising.  Arguments rage over the issue for reasons I still struggle to fully understand.  Simply put, sustainability means that water flows, toilets are used and hands are washed, forever.  Not for awhile or for the operational life for a particular piece of hardware, but rather to the point that children grow up expecting water to flow, expecting toilets to be available to them at all times, and unthinkingly wash their hands.

Measuring this also tends to be overcomplicated.  At Water For People, we look at the following for water supply:

• Quantities – the volume of water provided per day meets government standards (as standards vary from country to country).  If quantities diminish, then sustainability is threatened
• Quality – water quality meets government standards or if not, is at least known to communities/families so they can decide whether the efforts associated with treatment merit the costs
• Access – number of users, within government defined distances, and most importantly – water supplies expanding with populations over time
• Down Time – less than 1 day/month for basic Operations &Maintenance and repairs.  More than this means women and children are back in polluted rivers and streams fetching water
• Finance – we look at 3 key times and link them to finance.  Within 3 years after construction, communities/owners/government (or a combination of these) should have demonstrated the ability to collect money and maintain the system to the conditions explained above.  After 6 years, communities/owners/government (or a combination of these) should be able to pay for the most expensive part, and after 10 years there should be enough money in place to replace the infrastructure.  Truthfully, this time frame is more likely for handpumps than for more expansive gravity fed schemes, so this may need to be reconsidered

Click here to read the rest of Ned's entry.

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