On flood occurrence and the provision of safe drinking water in developing countries

Abstract

Developing countries in South Asia and elsewhere are frequently ravaged by floods. An important part of most flood management programmes is the provision of safe drinking water (SDW) to prevent the spread of diseases. How should a government agency that is interested in distributing SDW to flood victims, go about its task? Further, how might this agency maximize the net social benefit from the provision of SDW? Finally, given that SDW is a particularly scarce commodity in a flood situation, how likely is it that this agency will be unable to meet the stochastic demand for SDW? In this paper, we use queuing theory to shed light on these three questions regarding the disbursement of SDW to flood victims.