User:Julesbarr/sandbox

 Working Sandbox for Draft of "Water Supply and Sanitation in Latin America" Article 

 (4/29/22) 

- Paragraph 1, Sentence 1 could use a citation

- The "Service Provision" section can have a small case study section added of how specifically water is provided in this case study, such as in Cochabamba or Lima

- "Quality of Service" section could use some buffing and maybe examples

- Notably, there are no stand-alone sections on: urban water supply and sanitation OR a section talking about the poor health consequences of Latin America's water

- The "Strategies to Improve Services" section could use references, as it only has one

Edits:

Water supply and sanitation in Latin America is characterized by insufficient access and in many cases by poor service quality, with detrimental impacts on public health. Water and sanitation services are provided by a vast array of mostly local service providers under an often fragmented policy and regulatory framework. Financing of water and sanitation remains a serious challenge.

 (5/19/22) 

- potential plan is to include little section on the cited health effects that this polluted water has in Latin America (DONE)

- time spent in getting drinking water is another important thing to add (DONE)

- another potential plan is to add the differences between the urban and rural experiences (DONE)

- use Inseguridad Economica to talk about how only 20% is treated despite there being infrastructure for 35% - add that in somewhere (DONE)

Edits:

Health Effects
Studies in Latin American cities have shown that consuming water that has not been treated with adequate sanitation services introduces many human health issues to the public, especially to residents of poor and informal settlements. Low-income urban residents consuming polluted water are more likely to become ill with "poverty diseases" such as gastrointestinal and infectious water-borne diseases, as well as chronic diseases that degrade human health over time. Consumption of contaminated water and lack of access to clean water are also associated with health disorders that stem from emotional and physical stress and water-use conflicts. One of the most notable disease outbreaks in Latin America was the region's 1991-1993 cholera epidemic.

One study in the shantytowns of Lima, Peru reported that approximately 15% of these poor settlements have in-house water provisions, which forces these residents to obtain water from informal water vendors not administered by local governments or utility companies. The quality of this water is unhealthy, their origin and state of sanitization is unclear, and this water has reportedly contained visible contaminants. Coupled with unsanitary storage tanks that further contaminate this water, water-borne gastrointestinal diseases affected 22% of this poor urban population at the time of the study. Other studies in Argentina have reported that formal provisions of potable water by municipal governments have been found to contain dangerous levels of contaminants and bacteria. 10% of the country's population are exposed to consuming arsenic found in the water they consume, principally in areas that lack water treatment infrastructure.

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Despite the ostensibly high levels of tariffs and cost recovery estimated based on the sample of utilities analyzed, utilities do not generate sufficient revenue to finance a substantial share of their investments internally, or to be credit-worthy enough to mobilize commercial, long-term credit. The reasons include low levels of operational efficiency, as detailed further below, poor recovery of bills, poor procurement practices and political corruption.

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 (5/20/22) 

Edit to "Access" section of article:

Many scholars have found that while 20% of potable water is effectively treated in Latin America, there is sufficient infrastructure to treat 30% to 35% of water.

Edits:

(5/21/22)
 * Targeting subsidies better and improving cost recovery. Implicit and explicit subsidies through low tariffs mostly benefit the better-off. Increasing tariffs is often a necessity. But in order to make this more equitable, such measures would have to be complemented by actions to enhance collection efficiency, reduce the incidence of illegal connections, increase the share of metered connections (see water meters), revise tariff structures and introduce means-tested subsidies where feasible.

Comparing Rural and Urban Populations
- add information comparing rural and urban contexts with water supply and water sanitation with differing statistics that this "Inequities" article talks about:

- 37.64% of rural population has access to in-home drinking water, while urban population has 86.7% coverage

- 38.78% of rural population lacks any water supply services, while urban population is at 7.02%

- 23.58% of rural population has easy access to potable water, while urban population is at 6.28%

- 51 million people in rural regions lack any water supply services, while urban population is at 26 million

- what is true for both rural and urban populations is that poor households always pay more, in proportional terms, than wealthy households to obtain potable water. This increased cost is combined with the fact that poor residents must pay more for medical treatment from drinking contaminated water and may spend hours to retrieve water from distance sources

There is a significant disparity in access to water and sanitation services between the rural and urban populations of Latin America. While there are inequities to water services between low- and high-income households in Latin American cities, urban regions often receive better water supply and sanitation services because of better political recognition, much greater population, and more developed infrastructure than rural communities. A study of households in eleven countries in the region between 1995 to 1999 showed that while 86.7% of the surveyed urban population had access to in-home drinking water, only 37.64% of the rural population had this service. Similarly, 7.02% of urban households lacked any water supply services, while 38.78% of the rural population did. There is a significant gap in access to clean water in Latin America between rural and urban regions: 26 million urban residents lacked any water supply services, compared to 51 million rural residents who lacked this. The study did show, however, that 23.58% of rural households had easy access to potable water, while only 6.28% of urban households did.

What is true for both rural and urban populations in Latin America is that poor households always pay more, in proportional terms, than wealthy households to obtain potable water. This increased cost that poor households are burdened by is combined with the fact that they must also pay more for medical treatment from drinking contaminated water and may spend hours to retrieve water from distance sources.

 (5/26/22) 

Next Edits that Should be Made:

- add many more citations because this article is really lacking in them

- rewrite the second "Solutions" bullet point with more updated information on that 0.31% of countries' 2010 GDP + clean up the "Targeting Subsidies" bullet point"

- MAYBE add an "enhancing informality" bullet point in the solutions section

Edits:

Even for those having access to water supply, poor quality of service is often experienced, in the form of intermittent supply, low pressure and poor drinking water quality.

At the level of national governments, responsibility for policies in water and sanitation is typically fragmented between various Ministries, making the development of coherent policies in areas such as transfers to local service providers a challenging undertaking.

The level of transfers from national governments is highly variable and often far from sufficient to increase coverage and improve service quality. Expanding access to water and sanitation services, especially to the poor, while ensuring that these services are accessible, efficient, and sustainable. Low-cost technologies such as condominial sewers can play an important role in that respect, as can legalizing land tenure and finding innovative ways to provide services to those without land titles. Strengthening the capacity of service providers. This is essential, especially given the high turnover of senior staff in municipal utilities as a result of frequent changes in municipal governments. It is important to make municipal service providers more autonomous, to insulate them as much as possible from political influence, and to provide training and a career path for utility employees.

Other private utility companies have raised costs of water use to unaffordable levels for low-income residents.

The strengthening of local and national information systems and impact evaluations is therefore a priority for the region.

Many scholars cite the 2011 report by the Development Bank of Latin America that Latin America could close its water infrastructure gap by 2030 if its countries invest 0.31% of 2010 GDP to the water sector. All of the countries’ annual investments of 0.31% of 2010 GDP - which is considered feasible by scholars - could reduce the infrastructure gap among households to access basic clean water services.