Sub-theme
3. Building Resilience for Disaster Prevention and Mitigation
Topic
3-6. Improving resilience of water infrastructure projects for extreme events
Body
ABSTRACT Water kiosks produce drinking water from existing local water sources (surface water, wells and sometimes existing small supply networks). This water is then delivered in 20-litre containers to the homes of beneficiaries who do not have access to safely managed services, thus providing them with sustainable drinking water. As recommended by the World Health Organization, water is marketed up to 3% of the total average monthly household income. The purpose of this paper is to put the economic model of water kiosks deployed in rural areas to the test of natural disasters (floods, droughts, typhoons…) resulting from climate change and analyze the reasons for potential resilience. This statistical study questions three hypotheses: 1) climate change has an impact on water production from water kiosks, 2) there is a relationship between the intensity of climatic phenomena and the level of performance of water kiosks at the provincial level, 3) water kiosks serving the community show signs of resilience in the face of the challenge of climate change. Cambodia is one of the countries in the Southeast Asian region most sensitive to climate change. Access to drinking water is particularly problematic for the 12.047 million inhabitants who live in rural areas. The country is also affected by severe and exceptional droughts and floods. We conducted a longitudinal case study of a community-based enterprise in Cambodia composed of a portfolio of 235 water kiosks. For this specific working paper, we performed statistical analysis over the period from 2012 to 2018 in view to analyze the impact of natural disasters resulting from climate change on production of water kiosks. Climate change has an impact on the production of water kiosks. It is possible to observe graphically that the occurrence of climatic events, mostly floods and drought episodes, has an impact on the average water production of the kiosks over the observation periods. The criteria retained to qualify the performance of the kiosks and the constitution of two groups of provinces on statistical criteria do not make it possible to establish a link between the intensity of the phenomena over the observation period and the level of performance of the kiosk . Statistically, we observe a greater occurrence of resilience scenarios. We conclude by presenting the drivers of this organizational resilience in a rural Bottom-of-the Pyramid environment by considering value of resources mobilized by the community-based enterprise.