A Decision Support Tool for Rural Water Supply Planning 20-06

EfD Discussion Paper
1 March 2020

Joseph Cook, Jake Wagner, Gunnar Newell

Over a dozen studies have examined how households who travel to collect water (about one quarter of humanity) make choices about where and how much to collect. There is little evidence, however, that these studies have informed rural water supply planning in anything but a qualitative way. In this note, we describe a new web-based decision support tool that planners or community members can
use to simulate scenarios such as (1) price, quality, or placement changes of existing sources, (2) the closure of an existing source, or (3) the addition of a new source. We describe the analytical structure of the model and then demonstrate its possibilities using data from a recent study in rural Meru County, Kenya. We discuss some limits of the current model, and encourage readers and practitioners to explore it and suggest ways in which it could be improved or used most effectively.

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Sustainable Development Goals
Publication reference
Joseph Cook, Jake Wagner, and Gunnar Newell; 2020. A Decision Support Tool for Rural Water Supply Planning; EfD Discussion Paper Series, 06-20

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Publication | 13 May 2020