ABSTRACT
This article compares urban and rural household water insecurity experiences during the last major drought period (2011–17) in the semi-arid interior region of Ceará, Brazil. Using data from a household survey (N = 322), we determined that households in small urban areas are more and differently water insecure than rural counterparts. Factor analysis and an ordinal logistic regression pinpoint key dimensions, such as water distress, water-sharing and intermittency, contribute differently to water insecurity in rural and urban households. Policy recommendations are made.
Acknowledgements
Research was approved by the Texas A&M University Institutional Review Board and the Brazilian human subject protection programme. The authors thank the Department of Geography at the Federal University of Ceará for continued support of their international collaboration. Finally, the authors thank Amber Wutich and Justin Stoler for reviewing earlier versions of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).