Inequalities in microbial contamination of drinking water supplies in urban areas: the case of Lilongwe, Malawi

Abstract

Over past decades strategies for improving access to drinking water in cities of the Global South have mainly focused on increasing coverage, while water quality has often been overlooked. This paper focuses on drinking water quality in the centralized water supply network of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. It shows how microbial contamination of drinking water is unequally distributed to consumers in low-income (unplanned areas) and higher-income neighbourhoods (planned areas). Microbial contamination and residual disinfectant concentration were measured in 170 water samples collected from in-house taps in high-income areas and from kiosks and water storage facilities in low-income areas between November 2014 and January 2015. Faecal contamination (Escherichia coli) was detected in 10% of the 40 samples collected from planned areas, in 59% of the 64 samples collected from kiosks in the unplanned areas and in 75% of the 32 samples of water stored at household level. Differences in water quality in planned and unplanned areas were found to be statistically significant at p < 0.05. Finally, the paper shows how the inequalities in microbial contamination of drinking water are produced by decisions both on the development of the water supply infrastructure and on how this is operated and maintained.

Water Infrastructure Always In-The-Making: Distributing Water and Authority through the Water Supply Network in Moamba, Mozambique

“…By shifting the focus of research from formal designs and official rules of operation to the detailed documentation of everyday practices of tinkering with water infrastructure, we show that Moamba's water infrastructure is constantly in-the-making. Just like other researchers who engage with everyday practices to show how actors exercise agency to (re)produce disparate access to water (see amongst others [6][7][8][9]18]), our findings reveal how water infrastructure itself co-constitutes social processes. As pointed out in this paper, the physical environment, in which infrastructure is constructed, is never fully known nor knowable as it constantly changes due to human interventions as well as natural processes.…”

Urban‐rural water access inequalities in Malawi: implications for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals

“…Water access inequalities in SSA exist not only between urban and rural areas, but also within other sub‐national geographical units (Pullan et al, ; Yu et al, ) and across household socio‐economic strata. Indeed, some studies show that intra‐urban inequalities in water quality may be rooted in historically uneven infrastructure development and policies (Boakye‐Ansah et al, ). In urban Lilongwe, Malawi, Rusca et al .…”

Water insecurity and urban poverty in the Global South: Implications for health and human biology

“…Some use wooden planks to cover water storage containers or, for lack of space, choose to store containers in unhygienic open environments (Figure ), while others avoid boiling unsafe water because they do no not have surplus containers. Households unable to buy enough water for household use may intentionally avoid rinsing containers (Boakye‐Ansah, Ferrero, Rusca, & van der Zaag, ). Poor households face tougher choices between safe, costly water sources vs cheaper, unsafe sources.…”