Rainwater Harvesting and Community Water Security in south-west Uganda
type: CreativeWork
description: Less than 40% of Uganda’s population has access to safe drinking water. Municipal water systems rarely reach the poorest, most remote communities, and where they do reach populations, quality and quantity are often inadequate due to poor system operation and maintenance. Decentralised water services, such as RWH can provide essential water where centralised supply is inadequate or does not reach. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) encourages the use of rainwater harvesting (RWH) to improve community water access in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Nonetheless, uptake of RWH across SSA is below targets that have been set by the United Nations. If these targets are to be met, further research is needed to understand the drivers and barriers of RWH adoption for water insecure populations in Uganda. Water security has become a widely accepted term that communicates the broader social, political and environmental benefits of water-related services. Rather than focusing solely on the materiality of water access in itself, water security frameworks have been used to assess the less tangible outcomes of decentralised water access. For this thesis, a new water security framework was designed based on the perspectives of water practitioners and stakeholders involved in the delivery of water services in south-west Uganda. The framework provided structure to identify and assess the sociotechnical outcomes of RWH access. The framework includes ten sociotechnical water security goals and is based on a new definition of water security developed for this research: ‘water services that contribute to community water security provide sufficient water of acceptable quality for good health, which is affordable and available year-round. They sustain livelihoods and can be equitably accessed across all user-groups. These water services should minimise the risk of local conflict and boost community cohesion and climate resilience. The management of these services should be suppo…
abstract: Less than 40% of Uganda’s population has access to safe drinking water. Municipal water systems rarely reach the poorest, most remote communities, and where they do reach populations, quality and quantity are often inadequate due to poor system operation and maintenance. Decentralised water services, such as RWH can provide essential water where centralised supply is inadequate or does not reach. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) encourages the use of rainwater harvesting (RWH) to improve community water access in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Nonetheless, uptake of RWH across SSA is below targets that have been set by the United Nations. If these targets are to be met, further research is needed to understand the drivers and barriers of RWH adoption for water insecure populations in Uganda. Water security has become a widely accepted term that communicates the broader social, political and environmental benefits of water-related services. Rather than focusing solely on the materiality of water access in itself, water security frameworks have been used to assess the less tangible outcomes of decentralised water access. For this thesis, a new water security framework was designed based on the perspectives of water practitioners and stakeholders involved in the delivery of water services in south-west Uganda. The framework provided structure to identify and assess the sociotechnical outcomes of RWH access. The framework includes ten sociotechnical water security goals and is based on a new definition of water security developed for this research: ‘water services that contribute to community water security provide sufficient water of acceptable quality for good health, which is affordable and available year-round. They sustain livelihoods and can be equitably accessed across all user-groups. These water services should minimise the risk of local conflict and boost community cohesion and climate resilience. The management of these services should be suppo…
author: O'Hanlon, Francesca
language: eng
keywords: sustainable development, water security, rainwater harvesting, climate change adaptation
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/382f73e6-4b65-4769-b385-f6a71a467039/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2021-06-28
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:28Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.73570