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Livelihood factors, explaining water consumption in a (de facto) multiple uses water system in Colombia

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journal contribution
posted on 2015-06-19, 14:30 authored by Isabel Dominguez, Wilmar Torres-Lopez, Ines Restrepo-Tarquino, Ricardo Oviedo-Ocana, Ian Smout
In developing countries, rural water supply systems, generally planned for a single purpose, are used for domestic and productive activities. Research has found linkages between access to water and livelihoods, thus, promoting the implementation of Multiple Uses of Water Systems (MUS). However, there is concern on how users with more productive assets may exploit the highest levels of service promoted by MUS affecting users with fewer chances to use water productively. This article analyses through a case study and using multivariate techniques (Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis): key variables to characterize the users of a de facto MUS; identifies groups of users according to those variables, and discusses implications of the findings in the design and management of systems. Results show correlations for the variables Homestead Area, Storage Capacity and Number of Cows, with Household Water Consumption. Two groups of customers with statistically significant differences for key variables are identified. The results suggest that rural water systems should not be designed with household size as the only criterion. It also highlights the need of managerial rules for equitable access to water in systems, recognizing diversity of users, livelihoods and thus, water demands.

Funding

The authors thank the musgroup for providing financial support.

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Research Unit

  • Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC)

Published in

Ingeniería y Universidad

Volume

18

Issue

1

Pages

7 - 25

Citation

DOMINGUEZ, I. ... et al, 2014. Livelihood factors, explaining water consumption in a (de facto) multiple uses water system in Colombia. Ingeniería y Universidad, 18 (1), pp. 7 - 25.

Publisher

Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2014

Notes

This article was published by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in the journal Ingeniería y Universidad. It is distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

ISSN

0123-2126

Language

  • en

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