Water Rationing, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Practices and Social Distancing at the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study of Melaka, Malaysia

Nirmala Devi (), Lim Su Yin, Siow Yung Ern, Fathiah Athirah Haris and Abdullah Sallehhuddin Abdullah Salim
Additional contact information
Nirmala Devi: Faculty of Business, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya 63100, Malaysia
Lim Su Yin: Faculty of Business, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya 63100, Malaysia
Siow Yung Ern: Faculty of Business, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya 63100, Malaysia
Fathiah Athirah Haris: Faculty of Business, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya 63100, Malaysia
Abdullah Sallehhuddin Abdullah Salim: Faculty of Accountancy and Management, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kajang 43200, Malaysia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 23, 1-20

Abstract: As an uninterrupted water supply is crucial for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices, a water shortage exacerbates the propagation of communicable and often life-threatening diseases. Melaka, a water-stressed state in Malaysia, had to impose a two-month water rationing exercise amid the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. Taking advantage of these concurrent occurrences, this study thus examines the impact of water rationing on the state’s residents’ WASH practices during that time. In particular, it seeks to examine whether there has been any shift in their WASH performance during the periods of pandemic and rationing. It also analyzes the effect of external water collection activity during rationing on the residents’ social-distancing performance. This study collects its data from 120 respondents; the data are tested using non-parametric tests and frequency analyses. The results demonstrate that most of the respondents had a significant negative perception of how the rationing affected their WASH practices during the pandemic. Yet even with the ongoing rationing, their WASH levels of performance had recorded significant growth. They also viewed external water collection activities as detrimental to their social distancing performance.

Keywords: water rationing; COVID-19; water; sanitation and hygiene; WASH; hand washings; social distancing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/23/16290/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/23/16290/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:23:p:16290-:d:1287351

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().