A Survey of Household Water Use and Groundwater Quality Index Assessment in a Rural Community of Cambodia

Saret Bun, Sreymao Sek, Chantha Oeurng, Manabu Fujii, Phaly Ham and Pisut Painmanakul
Additional contact information
Saret Bun: Faculty of Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering, Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Phnom Penh 12156, Cambodia
Sreymao Sek: Faculty of Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering, Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Phnom Penh 12156, Cambodia
Chantha Oeurng: Faculty of Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering, Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Phnom Penh 12156, Cambodia
Manabu Fujii: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan
Phaly Ham: Faculty of Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering, Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Phnom Penh 12156, Cambodia
Pisut Painmanakul: Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 18, 1-24

Abstract: To propose an efficient system for addressing water scarcity in a rural area through groundwater use, the information on water consumption and interpretation of groundwater quality are essential for estimating the optimal preparation of the comprehensive water system. Hence, this study aimed to estimate the current household domestic water consumption and groundwater quality index of currently accessed wells in a small rural community of Preyveng province, Cambodia as a practical and beneficial as well as a model for the water resource sector in rural areas. The questionnaire survey was designed as the main instrument for collecting the household water use as face-to-face interviews. The result showed that the average daily water consumption in the Preal commune is about 71 L per capita, which is almost two times lower than the minimum water quantity recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), 150 L/day per capita. Moreover, 100% of the households in this commune heavily rely on groundwater wells for domestic water use and more than 50% confirmed that they used raw groundwater as drinking water without a proposer treatment system. Approximately 70% of the people in Preal wishes to have a clean water supply and more than 80% of the household had a positive willingness to pay for clean water supply. In terms of groundwater quality in the Preal commune, it is mainly contaminated by iron, arsenic, fluoride, and manganese, which are mainly associated with human health effects from daily consumption. About 75% of groundwater wells are presented in poor conditions and were unsuitable for drinking purposes. Lastly, the suitable water treatment and supply should be considered in order to reduce the effects on people’s health as well as to improve living conditions.

Keywords: household water use; rural community of Cambodia; groundwater quality; questionnaires survey; water quality index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10071/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10071/ (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:13:y:2021:i:18:p:10071-:d:631708

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 ().