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Field
Abstract
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Before
Water scarcity and water quality are acute problems for millions of rural households across the world, affecting health, education, and economic outcomes. Access to safe and reliable water remains a challenge for 780 million people worldwide, most of whom live in low density rural areas. While in urban settings piped water networks working with large reservoirs and underground aquifers are viable solutions for water access, for families living in low-density rural settings an economical solution to water supply is yet to be found. In the Brazilian Northeast region we study, comprising 9 states home to 22 million rural inhabitants spread over 974,752km2, 96% of households in rural areas have inadequate or semi-inadequate water and sanitation. The region is populated by small landowners dedicated to rain-fed agriculture. For the majority of these families the main sources of water are seasonal rivers and small community reservoirs at the foot of hills which replenish during the rainy season. Vulnerability to drought is very high, and families cope with water scarcity by restricting use, depleting savings to purchase water, and migrating temporarily or even permanently. Even when water is available during the rainy season, in terms of health, drinking surface water has a high likelihood of being contaminated causing children to suffer from chronic diarrhea and other illnesses that prevent absorption of micronutrients essential to physical growth and cognitive development. In this context, we conduct an impact evaluation of a novel water technology being rolled out on a large scale by the Brazilian Government to address water access in the rural Northeast. It consists of providing households (free of charge) with a large residential rain-fed water cistern to households in rural areas lacking other water sources (No piped water, no pre-existing water cistern). The cistern intervention we study consists of a 16,000 liter reinforced concrete cistern for residential use, which is filled during the rainy season with water running from the house’s rooftop, and – in theory – should provide families enough water for cooking and drinking during the dry season. The cistern technology was a proposal of the NGO community in Brazil as a solution to water access in the region after a major drought in the late 1990’s exposed profound structural water vulnerabilities. Since 2003, the Brazilian government has been working with a network of organizations on a program to install one million roof-fed rainwater cisterns that will serve roughly five million rural people in the region. With support from the Federal Government and a host of other organizations, over 500,000 cisterns have been built to date. In spite of billions of dollars spent on this initiative nationwide, a rigorous randomized control trial of the adequacy of this technology and its impacts at household level has not been performed up to now. We address key questions about effects of the cistern on water availability, water quality, children’s health, labor market outcomes, and educational outcomes.
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After
Water scarcity and water quality are acute problems for millions of rural households across the world, affecting health, education, and economic outcomes. Access to safe and reliable water remains a challenge for 780 million people worldwide, most of whom live in low density rural areas. While in urban settings piped water networks working with large reservoirs and underground aquifers are viable solutions for water access, for families living in low-density rural settings an economical solution to water supply is yet to be found. In the Brazilian Northeast region we study, comprising 9 states home to 22 million rural inhabitants spread over 974,752km2, 96% of households in rural areas have inadequate or semi-inadequate water and sanitation. The region is populated by small landowners dedicated to rain-fed agriculture. For the majority of these families the main sources of water are seasonal rivers and small community reservoirs at the foot of hills which replenish during the rainy season. Vulnerability to drought is very high, and families cope with water scarcity by restricting use, depleting savings to purchase water, and migrating temporarily or even permanently. Even when water is available during the rainy season, in terms of health, drinking surface water has a high likelihood of being contaminated causing children to suffer from chronic diarrhea and other illnesses that prevent absorption of micronutrients essential to physical growth and cognitive development.
In this context, we conduct an impact evaluation of a novel water technology being rolled out to address water access in the rural Northeast. It consists of providing households (free of charge) with a large residential rain-fed water cistern to households in rural areas lacking other water sources (No piped water, no pre-existing water cistern). The cistern intervention we study consists of a 16,000 liter reinforced concrete cistern for residential use, which is filled during the rainy season with water running from the house’s rooftop, and – in theory – should provide families enough water for cooking and drinking during the dry season. The cistern technology was a proposal of the NGO community in Brazil as a solution to water access in the region after a major drought in the late 1990’s exposed profound structural water vulnerabilities. Since 2003, the Brazilian government has been working with a network of organizations on a program to install one million roof-fed rainwater cisterns that will serve roughly five million rural people in the region. With support from AECID (Spanish International Development Fund for Water and Sanitation) we implement a rigorous randomized control trial of this technology and its impacts at household level. We address key questions about effects of the cistern on water availability, water quality, children’s health, labor market outcomes, and educational outcomes.
An additional data collection effort was implemented on the same sample in 2012 and 2013 financed by SSHRC to study how the cisterns affected political interactions between households and local politicians.
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JEL Code(s)
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Before
O12, O18, O54, I38
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After
O12, O18, O54, I38, P16, O10, O12, O54
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Field
Last Published
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December 02, 2014 03:13 PM
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After
March 06, 2019 02:04 PM
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
i. Water access (quantity and quality)
ii. Time use
iii. Labor market participation and earnings
iv. Spillover effects onto non-treatment families
v. Savings (Durable goods, wealth accumulation)
vi. Health outcomes
vii. Children’s educational outcomes
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After
i. Water access (quantity and quality)
ii. Time use
iii. Labor market participation and earnings
iv. Spillover effects onto non-treatment families
v. Savings (Durable goods, wealth accumulation)
vi. Health outcomes
vii. Children’s educational outcomes
viii. Citizen requests of private goods from local politicians in exchange for votes (clientelism)
ix. Voting outcomes at the voting machine level
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
i. Ultrasonic water level sensors had been installed into the constructed cisterns. These provide hourly data on the level of water and also increases or decreases in water level in the cistern. This information allows us to measure water collection and water use patterns. Water quality is measured through EColi presence absence tests
ii. Using a visual basic time use module, we obtain information from the main water fetcher of the household, providing us with time allocated to various activities during the previous day
iii. Standard modules about labor supply and earnings
iv. Direct questions about frequency and amount of water that is being requested and shared, as well as participation of neighboring families without cistern assignment in the study
v. Standard modules about durable goods (and values), livestock holdings (and values)
vi. Height, weight, anemia, reports of diarrhea and illness symptoms in the last seven days to measure health outcomes.
vii. Standard modules on school attendance school enrollment
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After
i. Ultrasonic water level sensors had been installed into the constructed cisterns. These provide hourly data on the level of water and also increases or decreases in water level in the cistern. This information allows us to measure water collection and water use patterns. Water quality is measured through EColi presence absence tests
ii. Using a visual basic time use module, we obtain information from the main water fetcher of the household, providing us with time allocated to various activities during the previous day
iii. Standard modules about labor supply and earnings
iv. Direct questions about frequency and amount of water that is being requested and shared, as well as participation of neighboring families without cistern assignment in the study
v. Standard modules about durable goods (and values), livestock holdings (and values)
vi. Height, weight, anemia, reports of diarrhea and illness symptoms in the last seven days to measure health outcomes.
vii. Standard modules on school attendance school enrollment
viii. Two dedicated survey rounds were fielded on the same sample to study political interactions of the individuals in the household with local politicians. The main outcome is citizens' requests for private goods.
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Additional Keyword(s)
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Before
Water access, water quality, health
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After
Water access, water quality, health, vulnerability, clientelism, voting
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