Progress in improving the quality and quantity of water used by people in rural areas of the developing world has been unsatisfactory in two respects: (1) supplies that have been built are frequently neither used correctly nor properly maintained and (2) extension of improved service to unserved populations has been slow. Though this poor record is not the result of a single factor, a major impediment to improved performance is inadequate information on the response of consumers to new service options. The behavioral assumptions that typically underlie most rural water supply planning efforts are simple. It is commonly assumed that so long as financial requirements do not exceed 5% of income, rural consumers will choose to abandon their existing water supply in favor of the "improved" system. Several reviews by the World Bank, bilateral donors, and water supply agencies in developing countries have shown, however, that this simple model of behavioral response to improved water supplies has usually proved incorrect.1 In rural areas many of those "served" by new systems have chosen to continue with their traditional water use practices.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.