Behind the paper: unravelling the hidden crisis of rural water supply performance through interdisciplinary research

We speak to Donald John MacAllister, lead author of a recent paper “Connecting narratives and numbers to investigate the interaction of social, physical and technical determinants of rural water supply performance“ published in PLOS Water.

What motivated you to explore the topic and decide on this research question?

Poor functionality of rural water supplies has been a persistent problem in Africa for at least 40 years. In the 1970s and 1980s, concerted efforts were made to promote the use of boreholes with robust community handpumps as a safer, accessible and more reliable source of rural water supplies. During this period, the most widespread handpumps (the India Mark II and Afridev models) were developed and became the standard technology for rural water supply programmes. They transformed access for many millions of people. 

It quickly became apparent that there were several problems:

• the handpumps broke down regularly 
• corrosion was common and often severe
• there were challenges with spare parts supply 
• community management was difficult
• maintenance wasn’t as easy as originally hoped

These problems resulted in up to one in four handpumps being non-functional at any one time, undermining the progress in access to safe water that handpumps had originally facilitated. The reasons for these low rates of functionality cut across physical, technical and social factors and it was this challenge that motivated our study. 

Could you talk us through how you designed your study?

The study, recently published in PLOS Water, was part of a much larger project called Hidden Crisis, which was part of the NERC/ESRC/FCDO-funded UPGro programme. Hidden Crisis was designed as an interdisciplinary project from the very start, because we recognised that it was impossible to understand the root of the problems without looking at the whole spectrum of factors that contribute to poor handpumped borehole functionality. 

Hidden Crisis was designed in two phases and took place in Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda, where the India Mark II and Afridev handpumps are widely used. The first phase examined 600 handpumped boreholes, which were selected using a stratified random sampling approach and classified into one of six functionality categories. The second phase, which is the focus of the PLOS Water article, then systematically selected a subsample of 150 hand-pumped boreholes, representing the six functionality categories, and conducted much more detailed physical, technical and social investigations at each borehole. 

Crucially, the research was co-designed with social science colleagues based at the University of Sheffield at the time and in each of the three countries in which we worked. The physical and social investigations were conducted in parallel at each site. Teams worked alongside each other to develop a shared understanding of the social, physical and technical dynamics of the handpump. After a period of community consultation, led by WaterAid, handpumps were systematically dismantled, observations made of pump and component condition, and pumping tests and borehole investigations conducted. In parallel, participatory mapping, transect walks and focus groups were conducted with the local community. At the end of the day, the teams jointly briefed the communities and repairs were conducted where necessary. The data was then analysed within the framework of the socio-material interface, which we developed as a key outcome of the project.

Our interdisciplinary framework and conceptual model of the social, physical and technical factors that comprise the socio-material interface as it relates to rural handpumped boreholes

Did you encounter any challenges during your study?

Interdisciplinary research is not easy! Developing a joint conceptual framework to analyse our results was a real challenge and took a lot of time, but I think what we ended up developing has been effective. Our framework allowed us to maintain as much of the rich insight provided by the social science methods as possible, while at the same time drawing out the quantitative and mechanistic understanding that the physical science data provided. 

On a more practical note, the research involved long periods of physical and demanding fieldwork; huge credit goes to the research teams in Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda for their dedication and persistence that allowed them to successfully build a unique and comprehensive interdisciplinary dataset. This dataset was the foundation for our subsequent analysis and should continue to prove valuable for the rural water supply community long into the future.

What did you find most striking or surprising about your results?

If pressed I think the most striking finding is the clear evidence we found that a handpump’s likelihood of failing is largely shaped by hydrogeological and technical conditions, while the length of time people are left without water is primarily shaped by social factors such as finance, access to spares and external support arrangements. Linked to these is our finding that ineffective finance and external support systems are worse than having no formal systems at all. One of the most surprising findings was in areas with favourable hydrogeology, which underpins high levels of functionality, management and financial arrangements can evolve in highly unpredictable ways. 

In one community, we found a well-functioning water point allowing fees to increase from 10 cents to 25 cents per jerry can, this in turn allowed the accumulated savings to pay for other projects in the village, including the construction of a school and the installation of taps with water supply lines. In contrast, we found a user fee system in another community that had evolved into a loan scheme, whereby members of the community can borrow money and pay it back with interest, but this has been accompanied by a harsher system of fines for non-payment, which potentially risks equitable water access. 

How do you think this research will be used and who do you hope might benefit from these new insights?

We hope these insights help policymakers, service providers and donors design interventions that reflect the realities of the socio-material interface. Recognising that failures, downtime and repairs are driven by different combinations of physical, technical and social factors can result in better outcomes for millions of users. 

Handpumps are used by millions across Africa and this is likely to continue long into the future, so we will continue to work with partners with the aim of using our findings to improve management of rural water supplies, leading to more sustainable rural water services and better outcomes for handpump users. 

At the same time, there is a push across the sector for the use of new technologies and to facilitate the UN Sustainable Development Goal of safely managed water. Hopefully, 40 years of lessons from handpumps will not be forgotten and our results will play a part in avoiding repeating many of the errors and problems when it comes to the management of other technologies, such as solar pumping or piped water supplies sourced from groundwater.

What further research questions need to be addressed in this area?

Our findings raise important questions about how social, physical and technical factors interact over longer timescales and across different institutional contexts. Future research should investigate how: 

• these relationships change over time
• they are shaped by wider political and environmental processes
• more adaptive service delivery approaches can work with, rather than against, the socio-material dynamics that influence water supply performance

This type of study needs to be replicated for other higher-yielding boreholes used for larger community supplies and for other technologies like solar-water pumping or piped water supplies; doing this now, before solar pumping explodes across the continent for example, can help avoid many similar problems to those faced by users of handpumped boreholes.

Why did you choose PLOS Water as a venue for your article?

We chose PLOS Water because it publishes high-quality research and recognises that solving water challenges requires insights and collaboration from across different disciplines. PLOS Water was a natural home for our study. The journal’s open access model was also important as we wanted to ensure our findings are accessible to those working day-in-day-out to improve rural water services.

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