Water, Sanitation and Agriculture

Abstract

In rural areas access to improved water supply is inadequate; consequently, most households rely on unimproved water sources, including unprotected wells/springs, streams, and surface water, which are easily polluted by human and animal feces. Moreover, irrigated agriculture has complex interactions with water supply and sanitation (WATSAN) services as separate sources of water for drinking and for agricultural use do not exist in several areas. For this analysis, a household survey has been conducted in rural areas of Fogera and Mecha districts of Ethiopia between February and June 2014. A sample of 454 agricultural households was randomly selected using a stratified two-stage cluster sampling method. <br /> The survey collected a range of information including anthropometric measures for under-five children to examine child nutritional status. In addition, assessment of the microbial quality of stored drinking water and community water sources were undertaken. The number of Escherichia coli (E.coli) colony-forming units per 100ml water was used as an indicator of fecal contamination, and the results demonstrate that 58 percent of household stored water samples and 74 percent of water sources were contaminated with E.coli. Our results also show that uncontaminated household storage water and safe child stool disposal decrease incidence of child diarrhea by 15 and 23 percentage points, respectively. In contrast, neighborhood concentration of pit latrine increases the incidence of child diarrhea by 13 percentage points. The latter result casts serious doubt on the assumed health and social benefits of moving from open to fixed-location defecation. Creating open defecation free communities in rural areas is not enough to achieve the desired health benefits of sanitation. To protect rural households from the risk of contracting communicable diseases, existing pit latrines should be upgraded to make them safer to use –fly-proofed and hygienic.<br /> Using anthropometric measures of under-five children, our results show that WATSAN services are strongly associated with improved weight-for-age z-score but its correlation with height-for-age z-score is not statistically significant at any of the conventional levels. Dietary diversification of child feeding practice and health indicator variables, such as number of antenatal care visits and delivery with a health professional, turn out to be strong predictors of both nutritional outcome measures. On the other hand, although the domestic use of irrigation water significantly increases household’s overall morbidity status except for diarrhea, it substantially reduces the burden of time spend on water collection for women. Recognizing the multiple-use of water resources in rural areas where access to improved water supply is inadequate or where there is only one water source for all household needs would be vital to design the right intervention. Promoting improved WATSAN from ‘farm to fork’ through water source protection, appropriate water-lifting technologies, ensuring households do not use irrigation runoff for drinking, and adopting household water treatment and safe storage to reduce microbiological contamination so that the health risks associated with domestic use of irrigation water may be minimized.