Assessment of willingness to accept upgrading water supply system for rural indigenous settlement

Abstract

Everyone has the right to access clean water because it is one of the basic needs of human being. In Malaysia, in 2017, 96.50% of rural households had access to clean water supply. Of these, 15.31% were using alternative water supply systems. Gravity Feed System (GFS) is one of the water supply schemes that contributes the biggest quantity to the coverage of rural water supply systems. The sources of water supply which were free from pollution at the beginning of the project, are now suffering from deterioration of water quality. Ministry of Health under Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Programme is taking part to implement the roles accordingly by making upgrades to systems supplied to the rural communities. However, the upgrading projects are often unable to sustain due to of incompatibility of the systems and acceptance by the rural community especially indigenous people. The government is giving emphasis on clean water supply, whether in urban or rural area. Thus, the aim of this study is to identify significant methods to improve delivery approaches for upgrading GFS. Data was collected from eight different indigenous settlements. Based on the objectives, there were three phases conducted, which included water quality assessment, site investigation and survey/ interview session to determine the causes of contamination and acceptance level by the indigenous people. In general, the results show that water quality was within the range of acceptance level of National Drinking Water Quality Standard for raw water except for turbidity. In addition, it is discovered that the areas surrounding GFS have been developed for agriculture activities. Furthermore, health concern is the most important factor which influenced the Willingness-To-Accept among indigenous communities. By applying awareness of health and hygiene practices, it can help in the success of the plan to upgrade GFS through self-ownership realization.