Dissertation
Water is essential to life because it heavily influences public health and living standard.
However, many developing countries face severe challenges with the reliability of water
supplies. Until now, water is unequally distributed throughout the world. The study
assesses the tap water scarcity and alternative household water sources in Lukobe Ward.
The study adopted cross-sectional research design. Mixed method approach was
employed involving quantitative and qualitative data. Descriptive statistics and one-way
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used for quantitative data while qualitative data
were subjected to content analysis. Data were collected from three streets, a household
survey of 120 respondents, key-informant interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group
Discussions (FGDs). The findings from household survey show that (100%) of the
respondents depended on buying water from vendors, (63.1%) depended on fetching
water from private sources, (61.1%) use shallow wells and (100%) use harvested
rainwater. Further, 81.5 were the mean litres obtained per households per day. In
addition, the findings showed that there was no significant difference in litres of water
that was gained among the three streets per household per day (f=2.335) and (p=0.101).
However, there was a significant difference in litres of water from shallow wells and
water from vendors gained between Lukobe Juu and Mgudeni streets (p=0.035).
Furthermore, findings showed that the distances from households to water sources were
significantly different (f=19.965) and (p=0.000) among streets. While, the overall mean
distance from a household to a water source was 633.45 metres with a standard deviation
of 1015.77 metres. However, there was no significant difference in distance used
between Lukobe Kambi Tano and Lukobe Juu streets (p=0.0581). Additionally, the
findings showed that more than 50% of the respondents among streets in the study area
purchased water which spent 400 Tshs per 20 litres of water per day from water vendors.
The average proportion of respondents reported the need of up to 5 buckets (100 litres)
of water per day which costs 2 000 Tshs per day. Therefore, the households were
expected to spend 60 000 Tshs per month implying that 720 000 Tshs was spent per year
as costs of buying water. However, the water requirements and the associated costs
mainly depended on the size of the households. Moreover, findings showed 60.0% of
male respondents spent less than 60 minutes for fetching water than female respondents
(58.1%). In addition, findings further showed that 89.5% and 95.4% of the respondents
agreed on two statements: poor water supply leads to poor households sanitation and
long distance to water points delays other economic activities. Until now, ensuring
access to water within 400 metres to domestic water sources by the majority of
household is not yet to be achieved in Lukobe Ward. Majority of respondents depend
much on water from vendors, use shallow wells and private water sources from
neighbours as their alternative water sources for domestic uses. From the findings, it is
recommended that in line with the 2002 National Water Policy, the beneficiaries in the
peri-urban areas should be encouraged to manage and run the water schemes in
partnership with the private sector for sustainable water service delivery in the area.