Analysis of spatial pattern of water supply continuity in an Indian metropolis: a case study of Hyderabad

ABSTRACT

Water supply continuity is a crucial indicator of service efficiency. Multiple South Asian cities have Intermittent Water Supply (IWS). Water supply equity in cities depends on the spatial patterns of intermittency. The present study used Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) to investigate the spatial pattern of water supply intermittency for 3071 localities of Hyderabad, India. Further, the relationship between population density and supply continuity has been examined in 146 wards of Hyderabad using Spatial Autocorrelation and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). Spatial Autocorrelation defines two distinct clusters of central wards for high continuity (12 wards) and population density (19 wards). However, the ward clusters are different for continuity and density, with only three central wards (2.06% of all wards) being common in both the high-high clusters. The results highlight that the water supply continuity in Hyderabad has minimal consideration for population density, resulting in a spatially inequitable water supply.

KEYWORDS:

• Geographically weighted regression
• intermittent water supply
• Kernel density estimation
• spatial autocorrelation
• supply continuity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2024.2360180