Household and community-level adaptation to droughts in rural water systems of Costa Rica

Climate change impacts threaten the actual and future achievements to provide safe water in many parts of the world. Drought events are expected to be more intense and prolonged in different areas of Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC), with significant impacts in the volume, timing, and quality of water provided by water suppliers (Kundzewicz & Döll, 2008). Community-based drinking water organizations (CBDWOs) are the most important providers of water in rural areas of LAC and are responsible to cope with future threats due to climate change, besides other non-climatic drivers of change such as demographic growth and land-use change. Their incapacity to adapt would probably lead to uncoordinated responses from households to drought conditions.