Sustainability and risk assessment matrix (SRAM): pathway to water security

Abstract

Water security, as a sustainable development goal, ensures that sustainable water supply is consistently available to every individual. A water supply systems assessment matrix was designed as a tool for assessing water supply systems (WSS) in low-income countries; with selected urban, peri-urban, and rural Nigerian communities as case studies. Sustainability of the WSS was assessed through established criteria against five sustainability factors. Sanitary surveys were conducted to evaluate the risks associated with the WSS using Sanitary Inspection Forms through which the Sanitary Risk Scores (SRS) were derived. For sustainability, the WSS were ranked as Very High, High, Medium and Low Sustainability, and for SRS as Very High, High, Intermediate and Low Risk. A Sustainability and Risk Assessment Matrix (SRAM) was designed using sustainability evaluation and risk assessment for the WSS. The WSS in the rural areas are more ‘Secure’ than those in urban and peri-urban towns, and boreholes are more ‘Secure’ than hand-dug wells, but none of the public water point is scored ‘Secure’. The paper concludes that SRAM provides a cost-effective method of classification and may serve as a pre-water quality and source sustainability assessment tool, especially in low-income countries, as part of the measures to achieve water security.

Failure mode effects and criticality analysis of water supply systems' risks: Path to water resources planning and policy

“…Residents of Ogun State rely mainly on hand‐dug wells, boreholes and the State owned public utility for their water supply needs (Oluwasanya et al, 2011). Increase in population and rapid expansion of towns have limited the adequate supply of potable water from the public utility (Odjegba, Oluwasanya, Idowu et al, 2020; Odjegba, Oluwasanya, Sadiq et al, 2020). Other factors include water shortage due to infrastructural break down, power failure and total absence of water supply in areas previously having water supply.…”

“…Previous studies on the assessment of water supply systems' risks in the study area (Oluwasanya et al, 2011; Odjegba, Oluwasanya, Idowu et al, 2020; Odjegba, Oluwasanya, Sadiq et al, 2020) focused on the use of sanitary risk inspection approach. Sanitary risk inspection is an easy to use visual survey method for assessing the risk factors that contribute to the contamination of water supply systems (Pond et al, 2020; Kelly et al, 2021).…”