Water Supply and Distribution Challenges in Rural areas: The case of Amereba Indato Water Supply System, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

The challenges of providing satisfactory water supply to the rapidly growing populations in developing countries are increasing over time. In Ethiopia, ensuring an adequate and reliable water supply in rural areas has become a significant challenge for many water utilities. Amereba Indato rural water supply system was constructed to give service for 162,519 people living in 22 rural kebeles and 3 rural towns in Robe and Tane, Arsi Zone of Oromia Region. However, the scheme is not performing efficiently according to the intended design capacity and 5 kebeles in the distribution radius are not getting water. Hence, the objective of this study was to identify the challenges of Amereba Indato rural water supply system and to propose course of actions to improve system performance and service delivery. Water demand was computed by using population projection and unit rate consumptions considering different mode of service. Hydraulic analysis was conducted employing Water GEMS software to evaluate the pressure and velocity of both transmission and distribution pipe lines. The result shows that 85.32L/s maximum day demand (MDD) is required to address the water supply coverage for the intended design period. With the existing sources spring and borehole was 30L/s and 120L/s capacity can be provided whereas the analysis shows that 36.58L/s capacity is required indicating around the spring sources remain in deficits of 6.58L/s for area supposed to be covered by the spring sources. Hydraulic analysis also shows that 22% of the distribution lines were exposed to high pressure energy (80-181m), whereas, 21.05% of the pipe has velocity less than the recommended 0.6 m/s, which might result in stagnant water formation. The analyzed water losses result indicates that about 41.09% of production is non revenue water and 32.41% of non -revenue water is estimated as a real lose. The factors associated to water loss were found to be community interest, problem at construction time, illegal connection, and pressure. Thus, it is important to change the more pressurized pipes from the distribution network and transmission pipe by providing pressure reducing valves in the link having high pressure in distribution network. It is also important to give awareness for the community and make a rehabilitation work to cause during construction phase in the area. Finally, it is necessary for the water utility to give attention to water losses reduction policies and strategies to minimize water loss in the rural