Water Papers

183 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16997

Water Papers are produced by the Water Global Practice, taking up the work of the predecessor Water Unit, Transport, Water and ICT Department, Sustainable Development Vice Presidency.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10

The Nitrogen Legacy: The Long-Term Effects of Water Pollution on Human Capital

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12-10) Zaveri, Esha ; Russ, Jason ; Desbureaux, Sebastien ; Damania, Richard ; Rodella, Aude-Sophie ; Ribeiro, Giovanna

The fallout of nitrogen pollution is considered one of the largest global externalities facing the world, impacting air, water soil and human health. This paper presents new evidence that nitrogen pollution in water is an important determinant of variations in human capital. Data from the Demographic and Health Survey dataset across India, Vietnam, and 33 African countries are combined to analyze the causal links between pollution exposure experienced during the very earliest stages of life and later-life health. Results show that pollution exposure experienced in the critical years of development from the period of birth up until year three – is associated with decreased height as an adult, a well-known indicator of overall health and productivity, and is robust to several statistical checks. Because adult height is related to education, labor productivity, and income, this also implies a loss of earning potential. Results are consistent and show that early-life exposure to nitrogen pollution in water can lower height-for-age scores during childhood in Vietnam and during infancy in Africa. These findings add to the evidence on the enduring consequences of water pollution and identify a critical area for policy intervention.
The Cubango-Okavango River Basin Multi-Sector Investment Opportunities Analysis: Summary Report

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12-01) World Bank

The Cubango-Okavango River Basin is one of the world's most unique, near pristine free-flowing rivers, and central to sustainable economic development within the arid landscapes of southern Africa. The complex flood pulse cycle provides important services for local communities while supporting a rich and unique biodiversity that makes it a wetland of international importance and World Heritage site. However, the commitments to peace and prosperity among the three countries—Angola, Botswana, and Namibia—and the broader efforts of the Southern African Development Community to facilitate greater regional integration provide prospects for increased and improved development. The Multi-Sector Investment Opportunities Analysis is part of a systematic strategy by the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission, a body established in 1994 by Angola, Botswana, and Namibia, to promote coordinated and sustainable water resources management, while addressing the legitimate social and economic needs of the member states. The environmental integrity and long-term protection of the basin depends on addressing the underlying drivers of poverty. Accelerated environmental changes in the basin are largely driven by four factors—population dynamics, land use change, poverty, and climate change—leading to deterioration in water quality, changes in the flood pulse and diminishing biota. As a result, the risks associated with persistent poverty threaten the long-term sustainability of the basin.
Water and Nutrition: A Framework for Action

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-08) Chase, Claire ; Bahuguna, Aroha ; Chen, Yue ; Haque, Sabrina ; Schulte, Mik

This framework for action was developed to support the inclusion of nutritional considerations in the design of water operations and to help formulate nutrition-enhancing water policy. Chronic undernutrition early in life can cause cognitive and physical impairments that prevent children from achieving their full potential and have lasting consequences on the human capital that is essential for economies of the future to be competitive. The authors present an integrated water and nutrition framework to aid in understanding the various ways that water impacts early child nutrition, drawing on the three dimensions of water security: water quantity, adequate supply of water resources; water quality, water that is free of contamination; and water accessibility, reliable availability to all people, economies, and ecosystems. Each of these in turn affects the underlying drivers of poor nutrition outcomes in children. Challenges associated with water-related conflict and water resources in the context of fragility cuts across each of the drivers of undernutrition. The framework complements guidance notes that describe the evidence of how water sector investments across irrigation, water management, and water supply and sanitation impact early child nutrition and summarize recommendations on how to design interventions for greater impact.
Evaluating the Potential of Container-Based Sanitation: Clean Team in Kumasi, Ghana

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02-14) World Bank

This study is focused on Clean Team, a social enterprise providing container-based sanitation (CBS) services in Kumasi, the second-largest city in Ghana with a population of 2.7 million in 2018. Clean Team is owned by Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), a nonprofit partnership between the private sector, civil society, and academia. Clean Team delivers a single service: rental and regular servicing of in-house portable toilets, which includes transporting feces to a centralized treatment facility but not the processing and reuse of excreta. Customers find the Clean Team toilet appealing and Clean Team services are affordable compared to other alternatives. External subsidies, provided through public and philanthropic grant funding, have been necessary for Clean Team to cover its costs. Clean Team has been working, with support from funders and external advisers, on improving the efficiency of its services and reducing costs. Going forward, Clean Team could benefit from a clearer policy environment, which would allow them to increase the scale of their operations based on a more cost-efficient business model.
Evaluating the Potential of Container-Based Sanitation

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02-14) World Bank

In the face of urbanization, alternative approaches are needed to deliver adequate and inclusive sanitation services across the full sanitation service chain. Container-based sanitation (CBS) consists of an end-to-end service—that is, one provided along the whole sanitation service chain—that collects excreta hygienically from toilets designed with sealable, removable containers and strives to ensure that the excreta is safely treated, disposed of, and reused. This report builds on four case studies (SOIL – Haiti, x-runner – Peru, Clean Team – Ghana, Sanergy – Kenya) to assess the role CBS can play in a portfolio of solutions for citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS) services. The authors conclude that CBS approaches should be part of the CWIS portfolio of solutions, especially for poor urban populations for whom alternative on-site or sewer-based sanitation services might not be appropriate. Customer satisfaction with existing services is high and services provided by existing CBS providers are considered safe but have some areas for improvement. While the proportion of total CBS service costs covered by revenues is still small, CBS services are considered to be priced similarly to the main sanitation alternatives in their service areas. Recommendations include adopting a conducive policy and regulatory environment and exploring ways to ensure that CBS services are sustainably financed. The report also identifies areas for further analysis.
Performance of Water Utilities in Africa

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03) van den Berg, Caroline ; Danilenko, Alexander

Africa’s urban population is growing rapidly. Between 2000 and 2015, the urban population increased by more than 80 percent from 206 million to 373 million people. Although access to piped water increased over the period (from 82 million urban dwellers with piped water in 2000 to 124 million in 2015), African utilities were not able to keep up with the rapid urbanization as reflected in the decline of piped water as a primary source of water supply in percentage terms. The objective of this assessment is to inform Bank and government policies and projects on the drivers of utility performance. The report describes the main outcomes and lessons learned from the assessment that identified and analyzed the main features of water utility performance in Africa. The report includes the following chapters: chapter one gives introduction, chapter two describes the methodology used in the study, including details on the data collection process. In chapter three, the study team undertook a trend analysis of utility performance of the sector. Chapter four examines the efficiency of utilities using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) while also using an absolute performance approach. Chapter five investigates the effect of institutional factors on utility performance. Chapter six presents an econometric analysis of the drivers of utility performance, using various definitions of utility performance. The results from the econometric models are triangulated with a set of case studies of five utilities (Burkina Faso’s l’Office National de l’Eau et de l’Assainissement (ONEA), Cote d’Ivoire’s la société de distribution d’eau de la Côte d’Ivoire (SODECI), Kenya’s Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company (NCWSC), Senegal’s Sénégalaise des Eaux (SDE), and Uganda’s National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), similar to those that the electricity study team undertook, which are presented in chapter seven. The report concludes in chapter eight with the lessons learned from the assessment.
Lesotho WEAP Manual

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-02-08) World Bank

This analysis looks specifically at the need to ensure continued development of water resources within Lesotho and aims to empower stakeholders to act with more confidence by demonstrating that the implementation strategies can provide benefits to water resources management over a broad range of possible future scenarios. The analysis quantifies a range of possible future conditions to demonstrate the benefits that can be realized over a broad range of possible future outcomes. This quantification is based on a water resource decision support model developed specifically for Lesotho, using the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model which couples climate, hydrologic, and water management systems to facilitate an evaluation of the uncertainties and strategies of impacts on specified management metrics. The WEAP model was used to simulate the historic climate based on data from the national government archives and global datasets available in the public domain. These included 121 downscaled Global Climate Model (GCM) projections of future climate over two possible water demand future scenarios, for a total of 244 scenarios up to the year 2050. The analysis concludes the following: (a)Climate change has important determinants for the future, long-term sustainable macroeconomic development of Lesotho: (b)Domestic and industrial water security is highly vulnerable under historical and current climate conditions, as well as under the full range of climate future scenarios; (c) Agriculture production will remain vulnerable to inter-annual variability over the coming decades, particularly with continued reliance on rain fed agriculture; and (d) The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) will continue to reliably meet transfers to South Africa over the coming decades unless climate conditions are about 5 percent drier or more than the historical record.
Toward Efficient and Sustainable River Basin Operational Services in Indonesia

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-08) World Bank Group

Since the introduction of the Water Law in 2004, national river basin management in Indonesia has been carried out by 30 public river basin management organizations (RBOs), called either Balai Besar Wilayah Sungai(s) (BBWSs) or Balai Wilayah Sungai(s) (BWSs); the two are referenced together here as B(B)WSs. These national government agencies fill both regulatory and management functions, as well as undertaking construction, operation, and maintenance of river infrastructure and irrigation systems larger than 3,000 hectares. Provincial water agencies also provide water resource and river basin management in provincial basins and basins of national river territories, in coordination with the national river basin agencies.
Sierra Leone : Public Expenditure Review for Water and Sanitation 2002 to 2009

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-07) Bennett, Anthony ; Thompson, Darrell ; van Ginneken, Meike

This review focuses on how public expenditure translates into the delivery of water supply and sanitation services in rural and urban areas in Sierra Leone. It describes the legal and institutional framework for the allocation of resources assesses access to Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) services and past sector performance, and analyzes public expenditure in the sector, including the factors affecting the efficiency of use of resources, and makes recommendations. Water supply includes the supply, distribution, and usage of water for drinking, food preparation, and hygiene. Sanitation is defined as the sanitary disposal of liquid waste and the promotion of hygienic practices. The review covers the period from 2002 to 2009, a period of reconstructing after a decade of upheavals. Since 2002, democracy and a stable environment for development have been re-established in the country, especially since the 2007 presidential elections. Sierra Leone remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
Appropriate Groundwater Management Policy for Sub-Saharan Africa: In Face of Demographic Pressure and Climatic Variability

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011) Tuinhof, Albert ; Foster, Stephen ; van Steenbergen, Frank ; Talbi, Amal ; Wishart, Marcus

This paper provides an overview of major groundwater issues for Sub-Saharan Africa, with an assessment of their policy implications in terms of potential development and appropriate management. In terms of construction time, capital outlay and drought resilience, groundwater is the preferred source to meet most water-supply demands, despite hydro geological complexity, natural constraints on water well yields and quality, and institutional weaknesses. The 'new developmental agenda' relates to improving urban water-supply security and expanding irrigated agriculture to meet these challenges many countries need to undertake strategic assessment of their groundwater and prioritize investment on institutional strengthening so as to facilitate appropriately-managed groundwater development. Without effective use of available groundwater resources, improved livelihoods and climate-change adaptation will prove much more difficult to achieve.