PEOPLE PERCEPTION AND ACCEPTANCE OF RAINWATER HARVESTING IN A COASTAL AREA IN BANGLADESH

Transcription

1 PEOPLE PERCEPTION AND ACCEPTANCE OF RAINWATER HARVESTING IN A COASTAL AREA IN BANGLADESH Md. Rezaul Karim 1, Anwara Begum Shelly 2 and Michel Biswas 3 1 Department of Civil Engineering, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), Khulna-9203, BANGLADESH ( rezaulmd@yahoo.com) 2 Director, Caritas Fisheries Program, Prokalpa Bhaban, Pallabi, Mirpur, Dhaka Regional Director, Caritas Khulna, Rupsha Stand Road, Khulna ABSTRACT Rainwater harvesting is one of the feasible options of fresh water sources in the coastal areas of Bangladesh and recently a lot of initiatives and programme were undertaken to promote and install rainwater harvesting systems both in the coastal and arsenic affected areas in Bangladesh. People perception and acceptance of rainwater harvesting in a coastal area was assessed through a detail questionnaire survey, which provides useful information regarding the knowledge and awareness of key issues related to water supply, purpose of water uses and availability from the existing sources, peoples attitude towards rainwater harvesting and other alternative sources, rainwater harvesting technique and water usages, roof material of the houses of the households and problems related to safe drinking water in the study area. A total of 168 persons randomly selected were interviewed, representing different groups of the people like teacher, farmer, caretaker and housewife. From the survey, it reveals that rainwater harvesting is the most preferable source of water for drinking and cooking. A high portion of uses expressed their satisfaction with rainwater harvesting systems in their community and users involvement in operation and maintenance, which indicating high community interest and acceptance of rainwater harvesting in the study area. INTRODUCTION Rainwater harvesting is a recognized water supply technology in use in many developing countries and rainwater harvesting has promoted since 1984 in the coastal areas in Bangladesh to a limited scale for drinking purpose. In the recent years from , a lot of programs and huge investments have been done by government organization and NGOs with the financial support from international donor agencies to promote and install several types of household and community based rainwater harvesting systems both in the coastal and arsenic affected areas in Bangladesh as an alternative water supply sources other than groundwater. Rainwater is available in adequate quantity in Bangladesh and greater intensity of normal yearly rainfall in the coastal areas is favorable for rainwater harvesting (RWH). The average rainfall in the coastal region is more than 3000 mm, against an average rainfall of about 2400 mm (Ahmed and Rahman, 2003). In the coastal districts, particularly in the offshore islands of Bangladesh, traditional rainwater harvesting for drinking purposes in a limited scale is a common practice for long time and in some areas of the coastal region with

2 high salinity problem, about 36 percent households have been found to practice rainwater harvesting in the rainy season for drinking purpose (Hussain and Ziauddin, 1992; Chowdhury et al, 1987). In most part of the country, people normally can have access to rainwater for about 6-8 months. However, the rainwater is not available throughout the year and need preservation for the yearlong use. Collection and storage of rainwater in the proper way and maintaining the quality of harvested rainwater (HRW) from bacteriological and other pollution especially during the lean period is a significant problem. Bangladesh has very long coastlines and coastal area covers 20,000 km 2 area. In the coastal areas, aquifer conditions are not suitable for shallow tubewell and high salinity in both surface and groundwater are the main constraints for the development of a dependable water supply system (Ahmed, 1999). People in the coastal areas mainly depend on rain feed pond water and harvested rainwater for their domestic need. Countries like India, Sri Lanka are still practicing rainwater harvesting to supply drinking water to the rural communities and the option is very much accepted by the rural people. However, water supply based on rainwater harvesting is quite a new option to the rural communities in Bangladesh and people perception and acceptance are most important for sustainability of rainwater harvesting. People acceptance and perception of RWH in an offshore area was assessed through a detail structure questionnaire survey and results of the study are presented in this paper. The study was conducted with the financial support from Caritas, Bangladesh under sustainable environmental management program (SEMP) from March 2003 to February 2004 to explore the peoples perception and acceptance and community participation of rainwater harvesting in the context of both technical as well as socio-economical aspects. Every household was asked certain questions according to questionnaire that provided certain profile, behavioral psychological and socio-economic date, purpose of water uses and availability from the existing sources, peoples attitude towards rainwater harvesting and other alternative sources, rainwater harvesting technique and water usages, roof material of the houses of the households and problems related to safe drinking water in the study area. Close observations were also made to point out the problems, operational performance and maintenance issues of the investigated RWH systems. STUDY AREA The study was conducted in Shyamnagar upazila in Satkhira district, which is an offshore area located closed to world largest mangrove Sundarban at the southwest part of the country (Figure 1). The area of Shyamnagar upazila is sq. miles and a population of 3, 65,000 are living in this area. The main economic activities of the people are shrimp culture, agriculture and fishing. The freshwater aquifer is rarely available and the geological condition is not suitable for groundwater development and shallow tubewells are not operative to supply domestic water in this region. Most of the rivers are tidal rivers, contain very high salinity and turbidity and people normally used harvested rainwater either at ponds or at the households or institutional big RCC reservoirs for their domestic purposes like drinking and cooking. The monsoon rainfall starts earlier in this region by the end of April and continues upto September and the rainfall is much more higher that the average rainfall in Khulna region. Study Area Figure 1. Map of Bangladesh and the study area. In a recent report published in a national daily stated that availability of fresh drinking water is one of the greatest problems in Shyamnagar upazila, especially during the summer. Many households collect drinking water from ponds, PSFs or community based RWH systems at a

3 distance of 3 to 4 km. Many ponds water become highly turbid due to presence of small quantity of water and become unsuitable for domestic use, as a result, water borne and skin diseases are very common in this area during dry season. In the recent years, arsenic in excess of 50 µg/l is also detected in tubewell water in many parts of the study area, thus further worsening the availability of drinking water. There are about 111 numbers of RWH systems and 29 pond sand filters (PSFs) in this area, provided by various NGOs. There are about 1533 non-government and 54 government ponds in Shyamnagar upazila and people wants more government and NGOs initiatives to provide more PSFs and RWH systems in this area to augment the drinking water in this area. METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS The following methodology was followed to conduct the study: q Development of structured questionnaires q Translation of questionnaires into Bengali q Face to face interview and discussion with the users and stakeholders q Data processing and analysis A total of 168 persons were interviewed, of them 48% are male and 52% are female. The selection of respondents was based on random basis and different groups of the people like teacher, farmer, caretaker and housewife were interviewed during the questionnaire survey. Numerical responses such as income and expenditure were grouped into intervals. In some cases, multiple responses were possible and were considered during the field interviewed. General Profile of Respondents Household size is a function of many variables related to culture, social and economic development and it is an important criterion for measuring the household condition. In the study area, household size widely varies between 2 to 21 members; with an average household size of 6.86 persons that were comparatively higher than national average household s size. The national average household size in Bangladesh is 5.8 and the urban household size is 6.52 (BBS, 2000). Education level of the community people is an important factor for implementing any development and social activity especially to implement a project on water supply, sanitation and use of safe water. In the study area, about 37.0% people (34% illiterate and can give signature only) have never been to school (Figure 2). The remaining 63.0% family members of the households are literate in different levels and only 1.0% is found to graduate from university. Only Signature Primary 21% Junior Secondary 20% Illiterate 34% Post Graduate 0% Graduate 1% HSC 8% SSC 1 Figure 2. Respondent s education level (Source: Field Survey, ). It was observed from the field survey that about 52.48% of the people are living in the community for a long time (10 to 30 years) and only 25.52% are settled recently (0 to 10

4 years back). The distribution of the occupation of the household head is presented in Figure 3. The occupation of majority of the young and working people are business (29%), fishing (27%) and farmer (12.0%). A notable proportion (17.0 %) of the family members of the households are boatman (10.0%) and motorcycle driver (7.0%). In the study area, motorcycle is very familiar type of vehicle used for public transport and boats are mainly used during the monsoon period. Day Labour Teacher 4% Motormechanics 1% Van-puller 4% Salesman Fisherman 27% Farmer 12% Motor-cycle Driver 7% Boatman 10% Business-man 29% Figure 3. Occupation of the household head (Field Survey, ). The income and expenditure of the survey people is shown in Table 1. It has been found from the survey that the monthly income of about 60.74% of the survey people lies between Tk to 5000, representing the middle class people. On the other hand, 70.26% of the survey people have the monthly expenditure in between Tk to About 15.19% of the survey people have income more than Tk per month. The economic condition of the survey people was found that about 24% family income is more than their expenditure. Table 1. Monthly income and expenditure (Field Survey, ). Monthly Income (Tk.) Percentage Monthly Expense (Tk.) Percentage > > Information Regarding Water Sources It was observed from the study that for drinking purpose about 54.8% of the people use PSF water and about 70.0% use rainwater and 25.0% people use pond water (Table 2). There are very few tubewells in the study area, as a result; only 6.0% people use the tubewell water for drinking purpose. This indicates that the dependent of the people on rainwater for drinking purpose is very high in this area. Most of the family uses pond water for cooking (76.4%), utensil washing (95.6%), raw vegetable washing (92.5%), bathing (97.95%) and hand washing before and after meal (89.5%). The dependence of the people on pond water for domestic purposes other than drinking is relatively high indicating the high risk of spreading water borne diseases due to use of unsafe pond water for these types of domestic purposes.

5 Table 3 shows the respondents responses regarding the preference for water sources for various domestic purposes. Most of the people prefer rainwater (56.75%) and PSF (45.56%) for drinking and cooking purposes, however most of the people (67.68%) prefer pond water for other domestic purposes like cleaning, bathing and washing, etc. There is no dug well in the study area and people in the study area do not prefer canal or river water for any type of domestic purpose. Table 2. Information regarding the sources of water for various purposes. Sources of Water Uses of water Tube Deep Tubewell Pond PSF Canal/ Rain Well /Tara River water % % % % % % Drinking Cooking Utensils washing Raw vegetable washing Bathing Hand washing Washing clothes (Multiple responses considered, Field Survey, ). Table 3. Preference of water supply sources for different domestic purposes. For drinking and For cleaning, bathing and Sources of water For all purposes cooking purpose washing purpose supply % % % Tube well Pond PSF Dug well Deep Tube Well Canal / River Rainwater (Multiple responses considered, Field Survey, ). About 66.0% respondents mentioned that they get sufficient water in all season and the rest 34.0% people get sufficient water in wet season only. People those do not get sufficient water in dry season, about 89.0% of the respondents mentioned that they use pond water as an alternative source and only 5.0% people use PSF as an alternative sources, located a far distance from their houses. During the dry period, peoples dependence on unsafe pond water increased. The respondent s perception of safe drinking facilities in their communities is presented in Table 4. It is observed from Table 4 that about 40.65% people are not satisfied with the location of water source, as the source is located too far from their house premises and 78.97% people are not satisfied with the existing number of water supply system in their community and demand for more water supply systems to their community. About 62.34% people are satisfied with the rainwater harvesting systems in their community and the cost of rainwater harvesting systems is acceptable to the people and people are satisfied with the quality of harvested rainwater (100.0%). Only 16.85% people cited that they are satisfied with the access to water sources to their community and 43.7% are not satisfied with the access to water sources. It was found that most of the people (96.8%) were not satisfied about service and finance from Govt./NGOs and about 63.21% people mentioned that the cost for safe drinking water is high and about 60.04% people are not satisfied with the PSF system. Rainwater Harvesting People in the study area harvested rainwater into the protected ponds with or without PSF, household and community reservoirs made of plastic tank, ferrocement and RCC. In this study, about 75.0% respondents mentioned to practice household rainwater harvesting

6 system. Among them, most of the family (97%) use Motka (earthen pot) for rainwater harvesting and only use RCC jar. However, the capacity of household Motka is not sufficient to meet the yearlong demand of drinking water and they have to depend on another source for dinking water during the dry period. Table 4. Respondent s perception of safe drinking facilities in their community. Items / Variable Satisfactory (%) Acceptable (%) Unsatisfactory (%) Location of water source Number of water source Quality of tube well water Quality of pond water Accessibility to water sources Availability of safe drinking water Water test by Govt./NGOs PS Filtering system Service & finance from Govt./NGOs Cost for safe drinking water Rainwater harvesting system Cost of RWH systems Quality of RWH (Multiple responses considered, Field Survey, ). The priority ranking of using harvested rainwater is presented in Table 5. The first priority of the people using harvested rainwater is for drinking and cooking purpose, whereas the second priority for washing utensils and clothes. Most of people (96%) using household rainwater harvesting system can avail water for about 4 to 6 month and only 4.0% families can avail the harvested rainwater through the year. During the dry period, people would collect rainwater from a distance sources like institutional reservoir, PSF or from ponds. Table 5. Priority ranking of using harvested rainwater. Purpose Rank Drinking and cooking 1 Bathing 3 Washing utensils, clothes etc 2 Others 4 The roofing condition of the household in the study area is shown in Figure 4. About 38% roofs of the houses are built up with CI sheets (tin) and 8.0% of the houses are pacca (RCC roof). Therefore, 46.0% of the roofs of the houses in the study area are suitable to setup rainwater-harvesting system. About 50% of the roof in rural areas in Bangladesh is made of titles, CI/ metal sheet and RCC (NGO Forum, 2002; BBS, 1995) and thus the suitability of roofing condition for rainwater harvesting in the study area is slightly less than the country average. Most of the users (57.0%) collect the rainwater after 10 minutes of the start of rainfall and 40.0% after 5 minutes of the start of rainfall, thus allowing the flushes of dusts and other impurities accumulated on the roof surface. This indicates that peoples in this area are aware of problem of storing rainwater immediately after rainfall and that they are well motivated in practicing rainwater harvesting in the proper way.

7 Figure 4. Roofing condition of the households (Field Survey, ). Roofing Condition Pacca 8% Others Straw 51% Tin 38% Rainwater feed ponds are widely used in the coastal area for storing rainwater and pond/psf based community water supply is one of a feasible options of supplying drinking water to the coastal people. Ponds are also used in the study area for rainwater harvesting for both drinking and irrigation purposes. Most of the ponds (48%) were excavated or re-excavated in the study area within 1 to 3 years and only 10% has been excavated recently within the last one-year (Figure 5). Government organizations and NGOs are excavating or re-excavating the ponds for rainwater harvesting and from the field survey, it was observed that about 64.0% of the ponds are excavated by the owner of pond, 30.0% by NGOs and only 4.0% by government organization. The general information of the ponds and water uses pattern of pond water are presented in Table 6 and 7, respectively. It is observed that 56% pond in the study area is protected by embankment around the pond and in 6 cases; storm water can enter into the pond. From the field survey, it was also observed that 4 ponds are located beyond the safe distance (>30ft) from a latrine (Figure 7) in the study area. Excavation or re-excavation of pond 1-3 Year 48% 4-7 Year 26% Distance of latrine from pond 15-20ft 16% 20-25ft 4% 25-30ft >30ft 4 <1 Year 10% >7 Year 16% 10-15ft ft 10% 0-5ft 1% Figure 5. Excavation or re-excavation of the pond and distance of latrine from the pond. Table 6. General information of the pond (Field Survey, ). Items Yes (%) No (%) Embankment or protection around the bank of the pond Storm water entering into the pond Latrine nearby the pond 58 42

8 Table 7. Water usage pattern of the pond (Field Survey, ). Purpose Yes (%) No (%) Drinking Cooking Washing Bathing Bathing of animals Fish Culture From the study, it was found that most of the people (94.0%) would require 2 to 3 liter of water per day for drinking purpose, which is very similar to the drinking water requirements for the rural people found in other studies (Ahmed and Rahman, 2004). In the study area, housewives are mainly involved in collecting drinking water for the family and they also carry the collected water by themselves. The usual mode of water collection is by plastic jar (91.67%) and by Kolsi and others (8.3). It was also found that 52% families have to collected water from a distance of 0.5 to 1.0 km (Figure 6) and only 5.0% families would collect water from a far distance (> 1.0 km). Most the family (67%) would need to collect drinking water once in a day and 58.3 respondents mentioned that they would spend min for each water collection and 8.3 spend more than 30 min for each water collection. Most of the people responded that they do not filter the collected water at the house before drinking and even, they do not use alum in treating the water at the household. The dependence of the people in the study area on the existing RHW systems and PSFs is very high and people want more initiative to install more RWH systems and PSF in the area. Distance travel to collect water >1.0 Km 5% <0.1 Km 9% Km 52% Km 34% Figure 6. Distance of water sources of water collection per day (Field Survey, ). CONCLUSIONS The people s perception and acceptance of different rainwater harvesting systems in a coastal area in Bangladesh was assessed through a questionnaire survey. It reveals from the study that rainwater harvesting either at rain-feed ponds or household and community based systems is the main sources of drinking and cooking water in the study area. People in the study area mentioned rainwater as their first choice of water sources, because the visual quality of the harvested rainwater is very high and satisfactory. The second preference of the people as source of drinking water is the community based PSF. The roofing condition of house is suitable for developing both household and institutional based RWH systems and the rainfall in this area is more than the average rainfall in the country. Rain feed pond water is also used for drinking and cooking purposes. There are only 29 ponds are currently being used for PSF and most of the ponds used for PSF are rain-feed pond, embankment is constructed to protect the ponds to be contaminated from outside. The numbers of available fresh water sources for drinking purpose is still low in this area and during dry seasons, availability of fresh water become a great problems. People have to travel a long distance to collect drinking water and use of unprotected pond water increased. Therefore, steps should be undertaken to mitigate the drinking water problems by installing more household and community based RWH systems and also by installing community based PSF. The existing RWH systems are running very well due to high community participation in

9 operation and maintaining of RWH systems and social acceptance of RWH systems is very high in this area. REFERENCES Ahmed, M. F. and Rahman, M.M (2003) Water Supply and Sanitation, Rural and Low Income Urban Communities, 3 rd Edition, ITN - Bangladesh, Center for Water Supply and Waste Management, BUET, Dhaka. Ahmed, M.F. (1999) Rainwater Harvesting Potentials in Bangladesh, Proceedings of 25 th WEDC Conference on Integrated Development for Water Supply and Sanitation, Addis Ababa, 30 August 3 September, BBS (1995) Statistical Yearbook of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Planning, Government of the People s Republic of Bangladesh, BBS (2000) Statistical Yearbook of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Planning, Government of the People s Republic of Bangladesh, Chowdhury, N.I., Ahmed, M.F. and Choudhury, J.R. (1987) Use of rainwater for water supply in the coastal areas of Bangladesh, Proceedings of International Conference on Rainwater Cistern System, Thailand, January, Hussain, M. D. and Ziauddin, A. T. M. (1992) Rainwater Harvesting and Storage Techniques from Bangladesh, Water Lines, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp NGO Forum (2002) Rainwater Harvesting System, NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation, Dhaka, Bangladesh.