Assessing the Impacts of Relative Wealth and Geospatial Factors on Water Access in Rural Nepal: A Community Case Study

Naseeha Islam, Pramesh Koju, Reetu Manandhar, Sudip Shrestha and Charlotte Smith
Additional contact information
Naseeha Islam: School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Pramesh Koju: Department of Community Programs, Dhulikhel Hospital—Kathmandu University Hospital, Dhulikhel 45200, Nepal
Reetu Manandhar: Department of Community Programs, Dhulikhel Hospital—Kathmandu University Hospital, Dhulikhel 45200, Nepal
Sudip Shrestha: Department of Community Programs, Dhulikhel Hospital—Kathmandu University Hospital, Dhulikhel 45200, Nepal
Charlotte Smith: School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 18, 1-13

Abstract: As one of the poorest nations, citizens of Nepal lack access to safe, affordable, and sufficient drinking water. While many nationwide studies have been performed at a country or regional level in Nepal to determine regions of the highest vulnerability, this study uniquely recognizes the economic heterogeneity within a single rural village and assesses the impact of household socioeconomic status on water access at the intracommunity level. Household surveys in a rural village setting provided the information for a locally-informed relative wealth index. A spatial analysis determined suitable locations for future installation of improved water sources to prioritize water access for the community’s most vulnerable households. Three sites were shown to be optimal for future water source construction. This study provides a blueprint to assess water inequalities within a single village and incorporate forward-thinking development approaches to water access.

Keywords: WASH; wealth inequality; geospatial information systems; suitability analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6517/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6517/ (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:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:18:p:6517-:d:410197

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

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