Master’s Thesis 2016 - 30 ECTS (per student) Department of Environmental Sciences (IMV) A study of water and sanitation in rural villages of Lamjung District, Nepal: challenges and sustainable solutions Gabrielle Hairabedian and Tara Bartnik Master of Science in Environment and Natural Resources - Specialisation Sustainable Water and Sanitation, Health and Development Acknowledgements We would really like to thank Ingeniører Uten Grenser, Norsk vannforening and Hjellnes Consult for providing funding towards our transport, living expenses and project costs in Nepal. Thank you to our supervisor and co-supervisors Professor Petter Jenssen, Manoj Pandey and Associate Professor Iswar Amatya for their insight and making this thesis possible. Thank you to the four community health and food security volunteers that received us in their homes: Kyle Hugo, Celine Smith, Cheng-Hui Wong and Elie Amkraut. Thank you to our two interpreters who made administration and deliverance of the survey possible: Manoj Pangeni and Sajak Upadhyaya. A special thank you to Shreerendra Pokharel for his guidance on EcoSan technology, we wish you all the best with your future endeavours. i Abstract Many people throughout the world still lack safe and affordable access to drinking water and basic sanitation. As of this year, only 83.3% and 53.1% of the population in Nepal will have ‘improved’ water resources and sanitation facilities, respectively. Improvements in water and sanitation infrastructure results in benefits to health, education and livelihoods. During March 2016, an investigation of the existing water and sanitation situation in Lamjung District was undertaken to understand the key issues facing the region. In total, 50 surveys were carried out in four different Village Development Committees (VDCs) across the district, working with the aid of four Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) and two Nepali interpreters. Simple Correspondence Analysis was conducted on all significant correlations to describe relationships between different variables. The results from our study were compared with findings from the 2011 National Population and Health Census, as well as other similar studies in Nepal, and this showed that Lamjung District generally has a better situation than other rural districts in Nepal with regard to access to water and sanitation. However, there were a range of issues found including insufficient quantity of water for domestic and agricultural use, poor accessibility and reliability of water sources, prevalence of waterborne diseases, a lack of protection and maintenance of water supply sources, low production of biogas, over-reliance on chemical fertilizers and inequality of access to water and sanitation between different socio-economic groups. Some of these issues were found to disproportionately affect marginalised groups such as the poor and members of lower castes, while some issues are more dependent on location and impact all groups regardless of their socio-economic status. By analysing the results and researching relevant literature, this thesis proposes sustainable solutions to all issues discovered. Concrete measures that could be implemented in Lamjung District are proposed, including implementation of sustainable low-cost technology to improve the quantity, quality, reliability and accessibility of water, and ecological sanitation systems which will have benefits both in reducing the spread of diseases and in improving crop yields through increased access to organic fertilizer made from human excreta and urine. These systems should be accompanied by better education, management and funding practices, which are also discussed. ii Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 1.1. General introduction .................................................................................... 1 1.2. Objectives and research questions ............................................................... 2 1.3. Rationale for study ........................................................................................ 3 2. Background Information ........................................................................... 7 2.1. Geography, geology and hydrogeology ....................................................... 7 2.2. Caste system ................................................................................................ 10 2.3. Health ........................................................................................................... 11 2.4. Climate ......................................................................................................... 13 3. Lamjung District ....................................................................................... 15 3.1. Location ....................................................................................................... 15 3.2. Demographics .............................................................................................. 16 4. Research Methods ..................................................................................... 17 4.1. Survey........................................................................................................... 17 4.2. Field investigation ....................................................................................... 20 4.3. Limitations ................................................................................................... 21 5. Results ........................................................................................................ 24 5.1. Survey demographics .................................................................................. 24 5.2. Statistical analysis ....................................................................................... 25 5.3. Field investigations ...................................................................................... 26 6. Further Results and Discussion ............................................................... 30 6.1. Domestic Water Supply .............................................................................. 30 6.2. Domestic Water Quality ............................................................................. 44 6.3. Sanitation and hygiene ............................................................................... 54 6.4. Agriculture ................................................................................................... 61 6.5. Access to water and sanitation ................................................................... 76 iii 7. Conclusions ................................................................................................ 80 8. References .................................................................................................. 82 Appendices A. Coding of Answers to the Survey B. Detailed Correlation Analysis C. Rainwater Harvesting Calculation D. The Survey E. Calculations regarding fertilizer iv List of Figures Figure 1 - Distribution of nutrients and organic matter among domestic wastewater fractions........................................................................................................................................................... 5 Figure 2 - How farmers use the nutrient cycle to maintain soil fertility ........................................... 6 Figure 3 - Ecological regions of Nepal ............................................................................................................ 7 Figure 4 - Land type and physiographic zones of study area ................................................................. 8 Figure 5 - Tectonic zones of Nepal .................................................................................................................... 8 Figure 6 - Summary of key properties of the most widely-occurring aquifer types ...................... 9 Figure 7 - Water table fluctuation during the wet and dry seasons ................................................. 10 Figure 8 – Caste or ethnic grouping pyramid for Nepal ........................................................................ 11 Figure 9 - Transmission routes for disease from faeces ....................................................................... 12 Figure 10 – Map of GPS coordinates of surveyed households ............................................................. 15 Figure 11 - Giving a survey in Kunchha with the help of one of our interpreters ....................... 18 Figure 12 - Caste of participants in all VDCs surveyed .......................................................................... 24 Figure 13 - Correlation matrix ........................................................................................................................ 25 Figure 14 - Income categories of all VDCs surveyed ............................................................................... 26 Figure 15 - Housing materials and different features of the toilets observed .............................. 28 Figure 16 - Hygiene observations .................................................................................................................. 28 Figure 17 - Water sample observations ...................................................................................................... 29 Figure 18 - Water source types in Nepal .................................................................................................... 31 Figure 19 - Daily per capita water