Minimizing costs in a drought situation - Malawi

The current drought experiences of Southern Africa including Malawi has shown that the failure of the existing water supply systems to meet demands when water resources are receding can be reasonably described in terms of the clear and definite monetary expenditures and economic losses related to the emergency actions. Malawi through Ministry of Works' Water Department operates over 53 urban and semi-urban water schemes and 56 rural piped water schemes. It is known that frameworks have previously been presented which can allow Water Depart­ment's designers of the stated range of water systems and the utility management to formulate least cost drought emergency plans, and to systematically examine the trade­off between the expected value of the long-term cost of coping with water deficits and the cost of the long-term water supply/conservation projects. This paper examines the suitability of such framework which has been used once in some places as an analytical tool for deficit planning. The analysis of that scheme in Spring Field, Illinois had indicated that the optional short-term programs for the mitigation of potential shortages of water during droughts consist of a combination of moderate demand and loss reduction measures coupled with intensive utilization of emergency water supply systems. To this it is therefore important to note that the choice of demand reduction measures should involve a certain degree of discrimination among various consumer categories in order to avoid substantial losses to the local economy.