Principles of Town Water Supply and Sanitation, Part 1: Water Supply (Water Working Notes No.13, December 2007)

Water supply and sanitation services are crucial to a town’s prosperity, but service provision in towns has been extremely poor, most often characterized by sporadic government handouts for rehabilitation or expansion, followed by long periods of deterioration. There has been a lack of knowledge about institutional arrangements and planning processes appropriate to towns.
  
This report is a first attempt to set out a strategy for town water supply and sanitation. The primary objective is to identify, and find solutions for, the neglected towns - those that fall between rural and urban, the two relatively well-established approaches to managing water supply and sanitation services. Towns in the 2,000-50,000 population range generally fall within this “management gap”, they are the prime focus of this report. These towns face special challenges in the provision of their water and sanitation services. The demand for differentiated technologies-piped water supply in the core, alternative technologies in the fringe areas-and the often rapid, unpredictable growth in water demand and spatial spread requires planning, design, and management skills that exceed “rural” community-based management approaches. Unlike larger towns or cities, however, these smaller towns lack the financial and human resources to plan, finance, manage, and operate their water and sanitation systems independently.

Table of Contents:

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Executive Summary

1. The Town Challenge

2. Management of Water Supply and Sanitation

3. Design and Financing

4. Professional Support

5. Contracting

6. The Business Planning

7. Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

Annexes
Annexes A: Preliminary Data on the Proportion of People Living in Towns
Annexes B: Glossary of Legal Terms
Annexes C: Modular Approaches to Design
Annexes D: Financial Assessment of the Sector
Annexes E: Town Utility Operation Functions
Annexes F: Regulatory Tools
Annexes G: Contents of Volume 2 and 3

References