Basic water quantity

Q: I need information on the international quantity standards of basic water supply. I have read 20 litres is a minimum, but does that include hygiene for example?
(Researcher, South Africa)

Answer: 20 liters includes personal hygiene, according to the WHO Technical note for emergencies : minimum quantity needed for domestic use in emergencies:

"Medium term allocation: 15-20 Lpcd (sustainable for a few months)
• Drinking: 3-4 Lpcd
• Food preparation, cleanup: 2-3 Lpcd
• Personal hygiene: 6-7 Lpcd
• Laundry: 4-6 Lpcd"

See Reed (2005) below for more tables and figures on water quantity and its use:

Also, the WHO states on their web site:

Based on estimates of requirements of lactating women who engage in moderate physical activity in above-average temperatures, a minimum of 7.5 litres per capita per day will meet the requirements of most people under most conditions. This water needs to be of a quality that represents a tolerable level of risk. However, in an emergency situation, a minimum of 15 litres is required. A higher quantity of about 20 litres per capita per day should be assured to take care of basic hygiene needs and basic food hygiene. Laundry/bathing might require higher amounts unless carried out at source.

Source: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/emergencies/qa/emergencies_qa5/en/index.html

And, Les Roberts argues in his article "Diminishing standards: How much water do people need?":

"UNHCR's [1] guideline regarding water quantity in the 1960s was adopted from that of the WHO [2], 30 litres per person per day (l/p/d). This standard was not adapted from empirical data contrasting healthy populations with unhealthy populations, but was established by "experts" estimating the amounts of water needed for cooking, washing, drinking, etc., and then adding up the total daily requirements.

In the 1970s the WHO standard was reduced to 20 l/p/d and the UNHCR target followed suit.

In 1982 UNHCR declared the desirable goal to be 15 to 20 litres [3] and by 1992 it was calling for a minimum allocation of 15 l/p/d. But "when hydrogeological or logistic constraints are difficult to address, a per capita allocation of 7 litres per person per day should be regarded as the minimum 'survival' allocation. This quantity will be raised to 15 litres per day as soon as possible" [4].

Again, the new target was based on what was actually occurring given the relief communities' funding and workload, and was in no way based on human health data. At the time, the average water provision to an African refugee was perhaps only 12 l/p/d, in spite of the UNHCR standard [5].

While the new target is a "survival" ration, millions of refugees throughout the world currently receive between 7 and 15 l/p/d. The new "survival" target enables project managers to say that, while we are not providing an ideal quantity of water, provisions are well above the survival level. Thus, the diminishing quantity standard is fundamentally to provide political protection rather than public health protection.

[…]Thus, from a public health perspective, our guidelines should say "15 to 20 l/p/d are required during the acute phase of a crisis, but less may be sufficient in the later phases", rather than vice versa."

More data and guidelines on (minimum) water quantity requirements are available in:

Nozaic, D. (2002). Water quality and quantity
In: Wijk-Sijbesma, C.A. van (ed.) and Smet, J.E.M. (ed.) (2002). Small community water supplies : technology, people and partnership. (Technical paper series / IRC; no. 40). Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
Download the PDF file (109KB) or go to the IRC web site to download it

Minimum standards in water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion
In: Sphere Project (2004). The Sphere project : humanitarian charter and minimum standards in disaster response. Rev. ed. Geneva, Switzerland, Sphere Project.

Howard, G. and Bartram, J. (2003). Domestic water quantity, service level and health. Geneva, Switzerland, World Health Organization (WHO).

Reed, B. (2005). Minimum water quantity needed for domestic use. (WHO technical note for emergencies ; no. 9).
Dowload the PDF file (517 KB)

Roberts, L. (1998). Diminishing standards: How much water do people need?
Extract from FORUM: Water and war.

For which topics should we provide funds?

Q: Which aspects of the global water crisis and which areas of the world are most in need of funding? How does IRC itself prioritise where its resources will be best put to use?
(Researcher of a philanthropic and nonprofit consulting firm, USA)

Answer: At IRC we have published a report in which we analyse 17 existing trends in the water and sanitation sector.

This report was developed as part of a process of strategy development undertaken by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. It includes the outcome of a process of sector trend analysis, and scenario building that was developed over a period of about a year as part of the development of a new five-year business plan for IRC. It is therefore written from a very particular point of view, namely that of a medium-sized non-governmental resource centre, based in the Netherlands but operating exclusively in the South. The paper tries to look into the future, to understand what currently observable trends in the sector, the wider development world, and the rather specific area of Dutch development strategy may mean.

Fonseca, C. and Moriarty, P. (2006). WASH scenarios for 2015 : a trends analysis paper. Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
Download the document: http://www.irc.nl/page/28445.

You could also take a look at WaterAid´s Advocacy issue sheet


DONOR POLICIES

DGIS, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands

* Drinking water and sanitation for 50 million people - Holland Water Aid, March 2006

DfID, UK

* Why we need a global action plan on water and sanitation, published 11 Nov 2006
* Keeping our promises: A second update on DFID’s work in water and sanitation since the Water Action Plan, 2004


OTHER DOCUMENTS

Human Development Report 2006

Water is life and water for livelihoods are the focus of UNDP's 2006 Human Development Report. Across much of the developing world, unclean water is an immeasurably greater threat to human security than violent conflict, according to the Report, entitled Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis.
Read more : http://www.irc.nl/page/31625

CSD 13: Dutch NGOs propose actions on water, sanitation and human settlements

Following a debate on 29 November 2004 in The Hague, The Netherlands, Dutch NGOs formulated concrete actions on water, sanitation and human settlements in preparation for the 13th Session of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) in April 2005. The NGOs call for inclusion of the human right to water, sanitation and human settlements in national legislation. They also state that water should be recognised as a public trust in national and international law and that it should therefore not be privatised. In addition, absolute priority should be given to improve livelihoods of poor people living in urban slums and rural areas.

The actions proposed covered the following five areas:

* legislation and regulations
* capacity building and education;
* participation;
* financing; and
* coordination and cooperation.

The full text of the Dutch NGO paper is available here: http://www.mondialedo.nl/uploaded_files/NGO%20Paper%20final.doc