Principles for Water Governance in a Post-COVID World: Water Sector Needs to Be Embedded in Environmental Justice

This paper argues that the crisis in humanity's relationship with water reflected in rapidly escalating demand and dangerously depleting freshwater and groundwater reserves, can be understood as the outcome of the anthropocentric assumptions underlying our current development models. These assumptions have given rise to both the challenge of severe water scarcity as well as to the kind of policies used to address it. Drawing on principles from an environmental justice framework, it calls for a drastic restructuring of the water sector on more equitable, sustainable and democratic lines. Some of the guiding principles for water governance that are suggested include ensuring that interventions in nature or river systems are along the contours of nature, focusing on managing the demand for water as against the present emphasis on supply augmentation, recognition of structural and historical inequities which determine access to water, adoption of an approach to water management that is adaptive to rapidly changing circumstances and promotion of the participation of all stakeholders in governance and knowledge production. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

The Paradox of ‘Water Is Life' in a Water Rationed City During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In this chapter, we use the concept of everyday practice to highlight the plight of urban residents and what it means/takes to survive the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in a water-insecure city. We use data from four Wards on differentiated locations relative to storage tanks supplying water and different water rationing zones. The data was collected from 2020 to 2021 (2 years). A stratified random sampling technique was used to select a study sample of 303 respondents. Of these, 200 household heads were interviewed at their place of residency, while the remaining 103 respondents gave interviews while waiting to draw water from boreholes dotted around the four residential areas. Our results suggest that the policies for managing the pandemic paid less attention to everyday practices of getting around the more than two-decade-old water challenges in the urban areas. The water challenges in the urban areas further exposed the residents to COVID-19 infection, and the pandemic widened the gendered and spatial inequalities to access to water. We conclude that the search for and concerted efforts to access water to manage and prevent COVID-19 infection were equally associated with high chances of being infected and/or spreading COVID-19. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is not the last water-demanding crisis we will experience. This calls for a paradigm shift in urban water and sanitation access planning to include alternative water sources - groundwater - at the initial stages of residential planning. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

Water Disconnection and Vital Flow Policies: International Practices in Medium- and High-Income Countries

Water access is recognized as a human right by the United Nations since 2010. However, even when piped water is available, the economic crisis has limited poorer households to afford those services on a regular basis. Users become debtors as utilities face growing service costs and shrinking national public funds, pushing tariffs as the main source of revenue for cost recovery. The COVID-19 pandemic lit up affordability issues and health consequences of disconnection policies. Countries worldwide banned water shutoffs during the last year, ensuring water and wastewater service access for all citizens. Although disconnection is a way to reduce the number of debtors, it is, at the same time, considered a threat to human rights statements. This study gathered information on water subsidies, disconnection and vital flow policies applied among several medium- and high-income countries, in order to analyze how utilities have dealt with default rates and if there is any difference between the approaches between medium- and high-income countries. Through case studies, this paper also aims to inspire other practitioners facing the same issues. Based on the eleven case studies presented here, we concluded that high-income countries use assistance programs over water disconnection policies when compared to medium-income ones. Water shutoffs are explicitly forbidden in the United Kingdom, Australia, and France. Although a humane alternative, water flow restrictors have limited application, especially considering the technical issues involved. © 2023 by the authors.

Respectful Tribal Partnership: What Philanthropy Can Learn From the Navajo Nation’s Collaborative Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

The gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disparately harsh impact on Indigenous peoples, including the stark reality of a historical lack of access to essential services and health care, are now well known. COVID-19 death rates, aggregated through May 4, 2022, and normalized by population, show there have been far more Native American than white American deaths: 454 per 100,000 versus 327 per 100,000, respectively (APM Research Lab, 2022). © 2022. Foundation Review.All Rights Reserved

COVID-19 lockdowns: Employment and business disruptions, water access and hygiene practices in Nairobi's informal settlements.

Host to one billion people around the world, informal settlements are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 lockdown measures as they already lack basic services such as water, toilets, and secure housing. Additionally, many residents work in informal labor markets that have been affected by the lockdowns, resulting in further reductions in access to resources, including clean water. This study uses a cross-sectional design (n = 532) to examine the vulnerabilities of households to employment and business disruptions, water access and hygiene practices during the COVID-19 lockdowns between April and June 2020 in three informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. We used survey questions from the Household Water Insecurity Experience Scale (HWISE) to investigate the relationship between employment and business disruptions, water access, and hygiene practices (i.e., hand washing, body washing, clothes washing, and being able to use or drink clean water). Of the sampled households, 96% were forced to reduce work hours during the lockdowns, and these households had 92% lower odds of being able to afford water than households who did not experience a work hour reduction (OR = 0.08, p < .001). Household challenges in affording water were likely due to a combination of reduced household income, increased water prices, and pre-existing poverty, and were ultimately associated with lower hygiene scores (Beta = 1.9, p < .001). Our results highlight a compounding tragedy of reduced water access in informal settlements that were already facing water insecurities at a time when water is a fundamental requirement for following hygiene guidelines to reduce disease burden during an ongoing pandemic. These outcomes emphasize the need for targeted investments in permanent water supply infrastructures and improved hygiene behaviors as a public health priority among households in informal settlements.

Stakeholder Perspectives on COVID-19 and Household Water Access in Vulnerable Communities in the Mekong Region.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of safe access to sufficient clean water in vulnerable communities, renewing interest in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs and related targets under Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6). The purpose of this study was to better understand the obstacles to water access in vulnerable communities and identify ways they might be addressed in five countries in the Mekong Region (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam). To this end, qualitative interviews with 50 government officials and development or health experts were complimented with a quantitative survey of the experiences and views of individuals in 15 vulnerable communities. There were several key findings. First, difficulties in accessing sufficient clean water for drinking and hygiene persist in certain vulnerable communities, including informal urban settlements, remote minority villages, and migrant worker camps. Second, limited rights, high prices, and remote locations were common obstacles to household access to improved water sources. Third, seasonal differences in the availability of clean water, alongside other disruptions to supply such as restrictions on movement in COVID-19 responses, drove households towards lower quality sources. Fourth, there are multiple threats to water quality from source to consumption that should be addressed by monitoring, treatment, and watershed protection. Fifth, stakeholder groups differ from each other and residents of vulnerable communities regarding the significance of water access, supply and quality difficulties, and how they should be addressed. The paper ends with a set of program suggestions addressing these water-related difficulties.

Building Strategies and Resilience in the Face of a Pandemic in Urban China and Brazil: COVID-19, Access to Water, and Inequality

The response capacity to the pandemic in cities relates to pre-existing spatialized and socioeconomic inequalities. This is the case for vulnerable areas in major cities in Latin America, where access to water and sanitation services is often precarious;while China’s densely populated coastal cities achieved lower contagion rates thanks to strict lockdown measures. The role of better sanitation systems cannot be understated. The analysis in this chapter employs a regression model with key elements that contribute to urban inequalities: investment in sanitary infrastructure and access to water;differentials in socioeconomic indicators such as literacy rate and income inequality;and policies to prevent contagion. We argue that not only are fast containment strategies important, but long-term investment in access to sanitation also helps build resilient cities and puts them in a better position to fight new pandemics. This study points out the importance of considering a multilevel approach in designing public policies to prepare for pandemics and build urban resilience, considering inequalities, education, healthcare, access to water and sanitation, and urban and regional mobility. First, we give an overview of localized aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and Brazil, followed by a description of the methodology and an analysis of our findings and results. The last section discusses policy implications for each country. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

BASIC SANITATION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN BRAZIL

Basic sanitation is a matter of great relevance in the context of public health. It is currently observed that the pandemic resulting from the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronarirus strengthens the need to provide essential sanitation services to the population, and the provision of treated water are even more important, being seen as a way for coping with the impacts resulting from the current situation. The objective of the study is to identify coping actions regarding the population financial protection in the provision of basic sanitation services to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. To meet the objective of this study, the method adopted is of an applied nature, as it makes it possible to generate knowledge from the studied reality. In this study, data were collected from the National Sanitation Information System, Trata Brasil Institute and the Ministry of Health. The results reveal that the actions taken by the companies responsible for providing water supply and sewage services during the Covid-19 pandemic, such as the creation of financial protection mechanisms - suspension of the supplying cut due to default or social tariff charging exemption are essential to expand access to such services in this scenario. In addition, short-term interventions in the form of flexibility or exemption from payments of water and sewage tariffs for people in vulnerable situations, contribute to maintaining an uninterrupted supply and preventing further spread of the virus due to lack of basic hygiene conditions.