Challenges and Prospects of Water Supply in Gondar City, Ethiopia

Abstract

Even if Gondar city had the modern water supply service in1930s, and has been expanding in the later years, still the demand is not satisfied and large numbers of people don‟t have access to adequate amount of potable water. The objective of the study was to assess the challenges and prospects for water supply. Emphasis was put on examining the nature of the water supply challenges, impacts of water supply shortage on households, perception of households towards water supply service and the prospective option for city water supply enhancement. For the study, from 160 samples, 150 households were selected by using systematic random sampling technique. Both primary and secondary data sources were used in this study. For primary data collection, household surveys, key informant interview, focus group discussion and personal observation were used as tools to collect the necessary information. For secondary data collection, document review and data were used to collect valuable information. The key informants and focus group discussants were selected by purposive sampling techniques. The data from the respondents were analyzed using SPSS software and interpreted and narrated using descriptive statics (tables & figures). The findings revealed that almost all of the respondents prioritized or referred water supply service to their prime need to be fulfilled. The water demand of the city is higher than the present supply that the current water supply service found to satisfying 22%-25% of the demand of the residents. It has been revealed that water shortage in the city is grounded on and circumscribed by such challenges as poor watershed development, high population increase, urbanization, financial problems, and limited water sources. As a result, household members have to find out alternatives to access the water. This has brought heath and, financial impacts as well as impacts on domestic activities. Protracted water crisis in the study area was enforced the household to develop coping mechanisms. The Common mechanisms to cope with the situation include drilling of boreholes and wells, rainwater harvesting, buying water from street water vendors, changes in water consumption patterns, buying of many storage facilities and walking long distance in searching for water. Therefore, the perception of households indicated that, households were not satisfied with quality of services the GCWSS is offering. Finally, to solve the water source problems and make sustainable water supply, GCWSS has to search any possible alternatives mentioned in the study.