Assessment of tap water scarcity and alternative water sources used at household level: a case of Lukobe ward, Morogoro municipality, Tanzania

Abstract

Water is essential to life because it heavily influences public health and living standard. However, many developing countries face severe challenges with the reliability of water supplies. Until now, water is unequally distributed throughout the world. The study assesses the tap water scarcity and alternative household water sources in Lukobe Ward. The study adopted cross-sectional research design. Mixed method approach was employed involving quantitative and qualitative data. Descriptive statistics and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used for quantitative data while qualitative data were subjected to content analysis. Data were collected from three streets, a household survey of 120 respondents, key-informant interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). The findings from household survey show that (100%) of the respondents depended on buying water from vendors, (63.1%) depended on fetching water from private sources, (61.1%) use shallow wells and (100%) use harvested rainwater. Further, 81.5 were the mean litres obtained per households per day. In addition, the findings showed that there was no significant difference in litres of water that was gained among the three streets per household per day (f=2.335) and (p=0.101). However, there was a significant difference in litres of water from shallow wells and water from vendors gained between Lukobe Juu and Mgudeni streets (p=0.035). Furthermore, findings showed that the distances from households to water sources were significantly different (f=19.965) and (p=0.000) among streets. While, the overall mean distance from a household to a water source was 633.45 metres with a standard deviation of 1015.77 metres. However, there was no significant difference in distance used between Lukobe Kambi Tano and Lukobe Juu streets (p=0.0581). Additionally, the findings showed that more than 50% of the respondents among streets in the study area purchased water which spent 400 Tshs per 20 litres of water per day from water vendors. The average proportion of respondents reported the need of up to 5 buckets (100 litres) of water per day which costs 2 000 Tshs per day. Therefore, the households were expected to spend 60 000 Tshs per month implying that 720 000 Tshs was spent per year as costs of buying water. However, the water requirements and the associated costs mainly depended on the size of the households. Moreover, findings showed 60.0% of male respondents spent less than 60 minutes for fetching water than female respondents (58.1%). In addition, findings further showed that 89.5% and 95.4% of the respondents agreed on two statements: poor water supply leads to poor households sanitation and long distance to water points delays other economic activities. Until now, ensuring access to water within 400 metres to domestic water sources by the majority of household is not yet to be achieved in Lukobe Ward. Majority of respondents depend much on water from vendors, use shallow wells and private water sources from neighbours as their alternative water sources for domestic uses. From the findings, it is recommended that in line with the 2002 National Water Policy, the beneficiaries in the peri-urban areas should be encouraged to manage and run the water schemes in partnership with the private sector for sustainable water service delivery in the area.