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Water and livelihoods [Quality Assurance: Patrick Moriarty, Jo Smet and Sandy Cairncross]

Author(s): Smits, Stef  |  Moriarty, Patrick  |  Smet, Jo  |  Cairncross, Sandy

Publisher: WEDC
Place of publication: Loughborough University, UK
Year: 2005

Series: WELL Fact Sheet
Collection(s): WELL

Links:

• http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/wedc/well/

People require water for a wide range of activities essential to their livelihoods, including both domestic (drinking, washing, cooking and sanitation) and productive needs (vegetable gardening, livestock, brewing beer, brick making, etc). Supplying water for these different needs can contribute to poverty alleviation. However, formal domestic water services often fail to address these different water needs in an integrated way. They typically focus only on the health benefits and not on the other livelihood impacts water can bring. The discrepancy between the needs of people and the design and management of water services leads to a number of problems, particularly by failing to capitalize on the benefits that catering to multiple needs can bring, and sometimes jeopardizing the sustainability of water services. This fact sheet illustrates these issues on the basis of a number of case studies. It also presents an alternative approach to the provision of water services in an integrated way based on people's livelihoods.

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