A hidden crisis? Strengthening the evidence base on the sustainability of rural groundwater services

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Extending access to improved groundwater sources for the estimated 344 million Africans currently without access to safe water is fundamental to many of the development efforts to improve health, reduce poverty and increase the resilience of households to climate change. Considerable progress has been made in increasing water coverage under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with estimates indicating 322 million people have gained access to safe water over the period 1990 to 2010. However, there is growing concern that coverage statistics based on assumed levels of functionality and service may conceal real problems of service sustainability. The published evidence, albeit fragmented and methodologically unclear, suggests that perhaps 30% or more of groundwater-based water sources 'fail' within a few years of construction. Sector professionals have known about such problems for years, but the emphasis on investment and infrastructure, rather than long term results, has diverted attention away from what actually happens to facilities once built. Despite the suggested scale of the problem, there is also very little evidence on why sources fail. In the absence of systematic evidence on the extent and causes of failure, donors and country governments risk repeating mistakes and achieving poor value for money. The cumulative loss of investment in large numbers of failed sources could be enormous - tens of millions of dollars - and public health and livelihood benefits are lost if people revert to unimproved water sources on a temporary or permanent basis. The causes of groundwater-dependent rural water failure are complex, and supply failure is likely to be the result of a number of inter-related contributory factors, ranging from changes in demand for water, reduction in rainfall, inappropriate engineering, and governance. These factors will have significantly different importance and contribution to source failure in different settings. Unravelling the causes of supply failure requires an understanding of (1) groundwater conditions and trends, (2) water point siting, design and construction, (3) financing, management and backstopping arrangements, and (4) demand pressures and peaks. This research programme sets out to address the key knowledge and evidence gap surrounding rural groundwater supply failure in Africa, and by developing a robust methodology for diagnosing why systems fail, which can be used to inform decisions around the construction of new water supply points, and the upkeep and rehabilitation of existing ones. The project will apply the methodology to a pilot study in Uganda to develop the first systematic evidence base on causes of groundwater supply and source failure. This will be the first rigorous assessment of the causes of failure, and the outputs of the research will significantly increase the capacity of donors and country governments, and NGOs, to ensure investment in water achieves lasting access to safe drinking water. The research will lead to realised benefits to the poor rural communities reliant on failing groundwater-based water supplies, particularly women and children as the main water collectors. Only by providing reliable evidence of the scale of the problem, and its underlying causes, can the problem be addressed.