OR/15/019 Future research

Bonsor H C1, Oates N2, Chilton P J1, Carter R C3, Casey V3, MacDonald A M1, Calow R2, Alowo R4, Wilson P1, Tumutungire M5, Bennie M5. 2015. A Hidden Crisis: strengthening the evidence base on the sustainability of rural groundwater supplies – results from a pilot study in Uganda. British Geological Survey Internal Report, OR/15/019. 1BGS Edinburgh, 2ODI London, 3Wateraid UK, 4Wateraid Uganda, 5Makerere University

Key knowledge gaps

The work undertaken with this UPGro catalyst grant has gone a significant way to developing a methodology and framework with which the causes of water point failure (specifically boreholes with handpumps) can be examined, and the tools required to gather the necessary data. Analysing the data collected in the pilot study has enabled a much more thorough investigation within the Amuria and Katakwi districts of why systems fail, and the framework developed is transferrable and could be incorporated into other functionality studies and post‐construction audits to generate a much wider understanding and in‐depth dataset to determine why water points fail in other areas.

The results of the pilot study, and the efforts to analyse the data and identify underlying causes of water supply failure, have also highlighted several key gaps in the data and the research approach and toolbox, where more focused investigations, particularly in relation to investigation the wider governance and management arrangements surrounding water point functionality, is required to fully understand the underlying ‘root causes’ of failure:

• The results of the pilot study identified that nearly all of the communities had difficulty in accessing external support (e.g. DWO) to maintain and operate a sustainable water point. A better understanding of the wider institutional arrangements and how these are accessible to communities or WUC is needed in future research. For example, what direct external support is there in place from local Government, NGOs and the private sector; how is this support structured, and through what arrangements is it accessible to the community WUCs? Is access to external support more important to long‐term functionality of supplies than the capacity and training of community WUCs? What expertise is most needed in external support (technical/managerial/financial)? Would greater access to private investment benefit community management capacity? What other community management structures exist away from the WUC?
• A better understanding of the processes by which supplies are sited, and the individuals and organisations involved — who commissions siting of new supplies, and the procurement of drilling and installation of supplies? What forms of communication exist between individuals in the siting process and construction process?
• The hydrogeology of the crystalline Basement Complex was variable within the Amuria and Katakwi districts — in some cases significant shallow inflows of water were shown coming into the boreholes from the weathered overburden by the CCTV surveys, rather than being supported by deeper flow at the base of the weathered zone. A more detailed understanding of how the aquifer properties vary between the overburden and underlying bedrock aquifer is needed to indicate how important matching the borehole design to the local variations in aquifer horizons is to the borehole yield and in ensuring long‐term sustainability.
• Has long term recharge or demand changed the groundwater resources in the Amuria and Katakwi area? Little or no information was collected on these issues in the pilot study, but these are key factors to fully understanding the sustainability of groundwater‐based water supply over the long‐term.

UPGro Consortium grant proposal

A larger research consortium was developed within this UPGro catalyst grant, and submitted to the UPGro Consortium Call in June 2014 (Grant proposal NE/M008606/1) — A hidden crisis: unravelling current failures for future success in rural groundwater supply. The research proposal is centred on testing the hypothesis “The underlying causes of the rapid failure of approximately a third of African rural groundwater sources are complex and multifaceted, but with interdisciplinary approaches can be understood, diagnosed, and ultimately anticipated and mitigated.”

The overall aim is to develop a robust, multi‐country evidence base on water supply failure, and to develop the methodology of the research to be fully inter‐disciplinary, extending the research and field methods to investigate some of the more nuanced questions about why water points fail, including a much fuller exploration of the local and wider institutional arrangements surrounding service delivery, the relative significance of these factors in determining failure, and the implications of long‐term and seasonal trends in climate and demand pressures for sustainability of rural water supply. The project aims to deliver recommendations for diagnosing existing problems in country programmes, and for developing policy and practice to mitigate risks — overall, developing a ‘critical public knowledge’ of supply failure in Africa.

The research represents a more substantial and larger‐scale investigation of supply failure in sub‐Saharan Africa, which will be undertaken in three countries — Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda — investigating supply failure in a range of governance environments and a range of groundwater resources, climate and demand pressures. The research team is composed of a wider consortium of leading researchers and practitioners in water governance, hydrogeology, systems engineering and groundwater recharge from the UK, Australia and Africa and three WaterAid country programmes.