Abstract:
Water is life and especially potable water is essential for life and health. So, access to
drinking water, improves overall socio-economic and environmental existence. Numerous
schemes have been planned and implemented, but only a portion of these schemes
continue to provide water to the communities that they were intended to serve due to the
problems caused by poor design and construction work. The aim of this study is to assess
the challenges for design and construction of rural water supply projects. To this end, the
study was undertaken in 30 existed and newly constructed water supply schemes among
rural communities in East Belessa woreda. The study was conducted by applying both
qualitative and quantitative method. The most common challenge investigated in the
design of rural water supply projects were constructing of rural water supply points
without checked the water yield of the schemes. Due to this only some of the schemes
were flow throughout the year but most of the schemes flow intermittently. As a result at
the end of the year especially from April to mid-June the available quantity of water
become very low after fetching of almost 10-15 plastic pots (200-300 liters). So that the
communities are searching another source by traveling long distance or fetching river
water for drinking and cooking purposes. On the other hand 53% of the developed
springs were decreased their flow rates during construction. This was due to blocking of
the spring eye and improper collection of the eye during construction period. The other
major cause for the reduction of flow rate was seeping of collected water through the
cracks and the base (foundation) of the spring box due to construction of spring box
structure on loss (unconsolidated) foundation, using of poor quality of construction
materials and lack of regular follow up. In general, the findings on assessment of
challenges for design and construction of rural water supply projects in the study area
reflect a critical situation. Therefore, it is important to establish a design and
construction standards (methods) depending on the reality of the Woreda.
