Determinants of the marginal willingness to pay for improved domestic water and irrigation in partially electrified Rwandan villages

Abstract

Access to water for domestic and irrigation uses remains limited across Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in rural areas. While the technical feasibility of implementing innovative technologies to improve water supply has been often evaluated, less is known about the drivers that motivate users to pay for obtaining the inherent benefits of improved water supply. In this article, the determinants of the marginal willingness to pay (mWTP) for improved domestic and irrigation water are investigated. For this purpose, a contingent valuation study is performed in rural Rwanda. This study uses survey data from 316 households situated in 8 villages, in which ~20 % of the households receive electricity thanks to microgrids powered by solar energy. It is found that the mWTP for improved domestic water supply is influenced by the proportion of children in the household, business ownership, and satisfaction with water quantity and quality. The mWTP for irrigation is determined by respondent education, business ownership and crop area planted. This paper contributes to the literature by allowing a comparison of the determinants of the mWTP for improved domestic water supply to the determinants of the mWTP for irrigation. Another contribution is to examine the mWTP for improved water infrastructure in partially electrified villages. Identifying areas with high marginal benefits from water can guide infrastructure investment and electrification efforts while improving well-being and increasing revenues in rural areas.

Valuing Households’ Willingness to Pay for Water Transfers from the Irrigation Sector: A Case Study of the City of Seville (Southern Spain)

“…In this specific case, we assume that the elicited WTP is not affected by these other explanatory variables and thus, the B-estimate can be interpreted as the estimated average WTP. Subsequently, Model 2 incorporates households' demographic and socio-economic factors, since age, gender, income, and level of education have shown to be significant explanatory factors in the literature [29,65,66,73]. The inclusion of additional explanatory variables that may influence the WTP estimate leads to a second step in our analysis, since it enables the role played by these additional factors determining the estimated average WTP to be examined.…”

“…The use of CV methods for WTP estimation in the irrigation sector is widespread in the literature [23,[26][27][28][29][30]. The most recent studies, however, have focused on the assessment of WTP for better supply reliability, especially through the valuation of the willingness to accept interruptions in irrigation supply.…”

“…In our specific case, the sampling process began with a focus group discussion with representatives of EMASESA to define the type of questions to be asked and the stratification of the sample by city district, age, and gender. A sample of 300 households was obtained from this stratification process, in the line with the sample size of other studies using the double-bounded approach [29,30,37,38,64]. In order to determine the interval of bids to be offered in our WTP assessment, a pilot survey was carried out face-to-face with 20 clients.…”

Evaluating Water Resource Accessibility in Southwest China

“…Water resources are an important basis for supporting the development of eco-socio-economic systems, whereas social and economic development provides the necessary funds and conditions for ensuring the sustainable development and use of water resources [58], which affect and restrict each other. The limited water resource accessibility of spatial units not only threatens the supply of drinking water and irrigation water, but also threatens the sustainable and healthy development of the ecosystem [20,59,60]. Therefore, spatially accessible water resources are essential for an adequate freshwater supply [28].…”

Effect of irradiance data on the optimal sizing of photovoltaic water pumping systems

“…Water pumping systems powered by photovoltaic energy have proved to be an interesting solution to improve water access in off-grid areas of developing countries [1,2]. Several models of photovoltaic water pumping systems (PVWPS) were developed.…”