Comparative assessment of alternative water supply contributions across five data-scarce cities

ABSTRACT

Alternative water sources offer opportunities to contribute to the water supply to meet non-potable urban demand, closing water supply–demand gaps. Detailed assessments of these schemes are often data intensive, which can be a barrier in resource-scarce locations. A data-light approach is proposed and applied to assess the potential contribution of alternative water sources in five cities in the Global South, and to identify barriers preventing their widespread uptake. These barriers include perception, space, cost, home ownership and capacity constraints. This approach is applicable elsewhere, supporting assessment for city water planners/managers for preliminary planning to promote discussion on alternative sources to water security.

KEYWORDS:

• Alternative water supply sources
• rainwater
• stormwater
• treated wastewater reuse
• Global South

Acknowledgments

O.J. acknowledges the Lilongwe Water Board (LWB), the Lilongwe City Assembly, the Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services, Dr Paul Kamlongera and Tafika Mhango for assistance with data collection, information on the Lilongwe water supply and distribution network, and for help to carry out local surveys. M.O.M.O. acknowledges the North and South Sinai Company for Water and Wastewater for assistance with data collection and information on the Sharm El-Sheikh water system. M.C.A. acknowledges the staff at the Ghana Water Company Ltd (GWCL) for field survey assistance and data acquisition. R.F.Q. acknowledges Professor Wahyono Hadi and Dr Adhi Yuniarto at the Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Surabaya, Indonesia, for assistance during his field survey, including data acquisition. W.Y. acknowledges Carlos Cossa and Arone Tivan at AdeM for field logistical support and data acquisition. W.Y. also acknowledges the support of local translator Aires Da Silva. J.A.A. acknowledges the GWCL, the Madina Municipal Assembly, the Madina Municipal Town and Country Planning Department, the Geography and Remote Sensing Department of the University of Ghana, the Water Research Institute of the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Soil Research Center of the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research, and the Ghana Meteorological Agency for their support with data provision and field surveys. J.A.A. also thanks the Managing Director of GWCL, Dr Ing. Clifford Braimah; the GWCL Director of Communications, Mr Stanley Amartey; Ing. Emmanuel Johnson, the Accra Regional Distribution Manager of GWCL, and Mr Patric Apraku of the National Spatial Planning Authority. We thank the reviewers who contributed to improving the quality of the work presented in this paper.

Author contributions

J.S. acquired funding, conceived and led the research, analysed data, and contributed to paper writing. O.J., M.O.M.O., M.C.A., R.F.Q., W.Y. and J.A.A. carried out fieldwork, collected and analysed data, and contributed to paper writing. C.C., J.F., C.A.C., W.H., A.Y., B.D.M. and A.P. contributed to field logistics, data acquisition and provision, and data analysis. F.B. and C.Z. contributed to data analysis, discussion and paper writing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here

Notes

1. Note: The supplemental data online contains responses on stormwater harvesting and treated wastewater.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship; Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP); as well as by the DUPC2, the programmatic cooperation between the Directorate-General for International Cooperation of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and IHE Delft in the period 2016–20 for their contribution towards research, fieldwork and the writing of this manuscript. M.O.M.O., M.C.A., R.F.Q., W.Y. and J.A. also acknowledge the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) which funded their MSc studies.