Research Article iMedPub Journals Journal of Biomedical Science and Applications 2019 www.imedpub.com Vol.3 No.1:1 Challenges and Coping Strategies of Potable Water Supply Systems in Rural Communities of Vhembe District Municipality, South Africa Tuwani Malima*, Beata Kilonzo and Jethro Zuwarimwe Institute for Rural Development, University of Venda, Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou, 0950, Limpopo, South Africa *Corresponding author: Tuwani Malima, Institute for Rural Development, University of Venda, Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou, 0950, Limpopo, South Africa, Tel: +27825182676; E-mail: [email protected] Received date: February 03, 2019; Accepted date: February 08, 2019; Published date: February 20, 2019 Copyright: © 2019 Malima T, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation: Malima T, Kilonzo B, Zuwarimwe J (2019) Challenges and Coping Stratergies of Potable Water Supply Systems in Rural Communities of Vhembe District Municipality, South Africa. J Biomed Sci Appl Vol.3 No.1:1 water from unsafe sources such as rivers and fountains for survival. The study recommended that communities play Abstract active role in the water projects which include paying of water supply service for the sustainability of water Challenges with respect to potable water supply in service. The study further recommends water committee Vhembe District threaten the health and welfare of that will manage, operate and maintain and collect water people residing in the District. Aged water infrastructure, users fee and help to maintain the water in the area with systems breakdown, vandalism of infrastructure, lack of the assistance of VDM municipality. In conclusion rural maintenance and operations of infrastructure are the water supply situation can be improved when main problems which make water supply systems communities, government and all stakeholders involved unreliable and inconsistent. This paper assessed can come together and provide solutions and resources. challenges and coping strategies in the Vhembe District Municipality (VDM) in relation to potable water supply Keywords: Potable water; Rural area; Water supply systems to rural communities. The aim was to identify systems; Coping strategy intervention systems to improve the water supply systems in rural areas of VDM. Vhembe District is found in Limpopo Province of South Africa. Most of its residents (90%) are located in rural areas. Data for this paper was Introduction collected from households, councilors, and municipal officials through questionnaires, interviews and focus Water supply is a fundamental basic human right protected group discussion. Thematic content analysis and by international and national legislation of many countries descriptive statistics were used to analyze data. The including South Africa (World Health Organization (WHO) [1]. results showed that the main sources of water are ground Despite this, there are 884 million of people globally who water from the borehole which is used by about 45.3%, continue using unprotected water sources to survive such as followed by tap water at 35.3% from the dams, then rivers springs, fountain, wells and rivers which are easily at 4.0%, fountain at 5.4% and water tankers at 10.0%. contaminated. According to Sustich et al. [2] globally over one Most sources were not functional due to inadequate billion people are affected by water-borne disease due to funding to maintain and operate the water supply system. inadequate water supply which forces them to use Boreholes and tap water from the dam in most villages unprotected sources. Makuhlani, Nyamupingidza and Adeoye were not functional at the time of the visit. This was due et al. [3,4] established that potable water supply shortages in to breakdown of the boreholes or pipe system, stolen Sub-Sahara Africa was attributed to global warming, drought water infrastructure and lack of maintenance. In addition, and population increase which increases during the dry spell. some water supply problems were caused by vandalism of In Africa although there are countries who are making efforts infrastructure, which further results in breakdown of the to improve the state of potable water supply, most rural water supply system. Non-payment of water services by communities still struggle to get clean water as also supported residents was a serious problem as there is no village by Itoua et al. [5]. visited which is paying for water supply service, inadequate community participation in management and The South African constitution in Schedule 4 and 5 of the operation of the water project. To cope with water supply Constitution of the Republic of South Africa gives water supply challenges, some of the rural communities of VDM resort systems prerogative to the district municipality while to buying water from water vendors, store water in provincial government’s role is that of monitoring, evaluation containers or tanks for future use as well as from those and support. In addition, Section 27 of the Constitution of the who have their own private boreholes. For those Republic of South Africa (1996) further provides that communities without financial capacity, they collected © Copyright iMedPub | This article is available from: http://www.imedpub.com/journal-biomedical-science-applications/ 1 Journal of Biomedical Science and Applications 2019 Vol.3 No.1:1 “everyone has the right to have access to sufficient water and Methods sanitation”. The national department of water affairs and sanitation is mandated to deliver equitable and sustained provision of water of acceptable quality and quantity, its Description of the study area protection and sanitation services to provincial, district and The study was carried out in the rural wards from each of local municipality communities. Various legislation such as the the four local municipalities within Vhembe District (VDM) in Municipal Structures Act (Act 117 of 1998), Municipal Systems Limpopo Province of South Africa (Figure 1). Vhembe District Act (Act 32 of 2000) and White Paper on Transforming Public Municipality (VDM) was established in 2000 based on the Service Delivery (1997) emphasized transformation of Local Government Municipal Structures Act 117 of 1998. municipality and provision of service delivery which include Vhembe District is located in the rural areas. The District is water service. made up of four local municipalities namely Musina, Furthermore, water service authorities as suggested by Thulamela, Makhado and LIM 345 (Collins Chabane) which is Mukuhlani and Nyamupingidza et al. [3] Lorlumun, Ahmed and the newly named municipality covering Malamulele area Cook et al. [6-8] implemented water shedding, drilling, (Vhembe District Municipality IDP). The District Municipality rehabilitation of boreholes, water tanks, building water has a population of about 1,294,722 people with about reservoirs and conserving natural water resources as ways to 335,276 households (Vhembe IDP, 2016/17) in addition address potable water supply challenges in rural communities. Vhembe District continues to struggle to try to overcome a Pre-paid meter water supply systems have been established large backlog in the provision of basic services that include for some communities especially urban areas in Vhembe as provision of potable water to rural communities (Vhembe also noted by Rananga and Gumbo et al. [9]. The availability of District Municipality IDP, 2009). clean water for drinking is a serious concern in Vhembe District Figure 1 below is the map of Vhembe District Municipality Municipality as many communities continue to collect water together with all four municipalities which are Makhado, from any convenient water sources available. The purpose of Musina, Thulamela and Collins Chabane. this paper was to investigate the challenges and copying strategies of potable water supply systems to rural areas of Vhembe District. The aim was to come up with an intervention strategy to improve the water supply system in the area. Figure 1 Vhembe District Municipality Map. Wards with the most households (With 670 households and participate in the study. Interviews were held with three more) and which is more remotely situated were selected. municipal officials and questionnaires were distributed to 448 Households participation were based on their willingness to households and 14 councilors. 14 Focus Group discussions 2 This article is available from: http://www.imedpub.com/journal-biomedical-science-applications/ Journal of Biomedical Science and Applications 2019 Vol.3 No.1:1 were held to seek convergence across qualitative and The requirement for signed consent was waived due to the quantitative methods as supported by Creswell [10]. Data was implied consent assumed by participants when they agreed to analyzed through content analysis and descriptive statistics. complete and submit their surveys. Data analysis Results and Discussion Pearson correlations were conducted to assess the relationship between student’s lifestyle behaviors, their Main water sources in VDM knowledge, confidence and attitudes towards nutrition in patient care. The following factors were included as “self- Findings of the study in Table 1 below indicate that most of reported lifestyle behaviors”: knowing how to cook, eating the households in the rural areas of VDM rely on boreholes three or more