Abstract:
Increasing water scarcity and contamination pose a danger to the health of a
considerable number of the world’s population. Decisions regarding water supply
and treatment are usually made in a top-down fashion. The end-users, however,
still react to these decisions and the provided water facilities and treatment
options. These reactions include the rejection of certain water supplies or
treatment options and own provisions for a supply with safe and sufficient drinking
water. This study investigates the socio-cultural and economic factors which
influence the rural Indian population’s preferences regarding their water supply
and treatment. The study has been carried out, employing an ethnographic
approach to the field, in two villages in Karnataka, in South India, conducting 18
in depth, problem-centred interviews, participant observation, and two group
discussions. The key findings show a ubiquitous lack of education regarding
water and related hygiene-measures, water policies and water contamination.
This led to uninformed opinions about water supplies and treatment. Socio-
cultural factors, along with pragmatic factors such as reliability of water supply
and treatment, along with the physical ease of use regarding their operation, were
found to be more important for the villagers’ preferences than economic factors.
Most households viewed piped water supply as an unreliable source of water,
also in terms of water quality. The households and NGO interviewees favoured
individual community-based solutions on village level, whereas the political
decision-makers were in favour of centralised solutions, usually through piped
supply. These findings show a need for long-term, in-depth studies of individual
socio-cultural factors and the importance of decentralised and individually fitted
water supply and treatment solutions. The fact that perceptions of water supplies
and treatment, based on similar concepts could be found in two villages, in
entirely differing regions in South India, suggests the significance of these
findings beyond Karnataka and the Indian borders.
