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Economics of Drinking Water Safety Planning in Palau: an advocacy tool. Tasleem Hasan* & Federica Gerber**. * Water Services Coordinator, Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission, Mead Road, Suva, Fiji Islands. (E-mail: tasleem@sopac.org )
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Economics of Drinking Water Safety Planning in Palau: an advocacy tool Tasleem Hasan* & Federica Gerber** * Water Services Coordinator, Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission, Mead Road, Suva, Fiji Islands. (E-mail: tasleem@sopac.org) ** Resource & Environmental Economist, Natural Resource Economics, Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission, Mead Road, Suva, Fiji Islands. (E-mail: federica@sopac.org)
Outline • Objective • Overview - Drinking Water Safety Planning • DWSP in Palau • Economics • Recommendations and Conclusion
Objective • To showcase the economic assessment of the Koror-Airai drinking water safety plan, illustrating the potential returns from implementing the plan and associated improvement schedule. • To advocate for the benefits of drinking water safety planning
Drinking Water Safety Planning Risk assessment and risk management approach to ensure safe drinking water supplies Catchment to consumer approach Pro-active approach promoted by WHO as opposed to traditional reactive approach, which has limitations.
Day 1 at 11.00am Day 1 at 1.00pm
Day 2 at 10.00 am results are read. Its all good, no contamination. But seeing the sequence of events we know:
BUT the community has consumed the contaminated water. RESULT – people get sick Toilet
So instead of only relying on end-point water quality testing implement drinking water safety planning. In the example shown what could that be: Source water protection – do not allow pigs near the intake zone Water operators training, regular inspections, standards operating procedures etc.
DWSP in Palau Pacific Region
Palau is being supported by SOPAC and WHO to implement the DWSP approach, among other countries • The drinking water safety plan for the Koror-Airai water supply has been developed along with an improvement schedule • Important thing to note is that the PLAN is not the end, the PLAN should be implemented and reviewed and the risk assessment and risk management should become part of day-to-day operations • Federica will now use economics to demonstrate the benefits of implementing the drinking water safety PLAN for the Koror-Airai water supply
Definitions & Methodology • Economics concerns the efficient allocation of scarce resources • Economics work at SOPAC is primarily for advocacy • Data is collected in situ during 1 week • Cost Benefit Analysis or CBA is used as well as with or without analysis • Discounting is used to account for future values • Sensitivity analysis is used to account for data inconsistencies • Report in press and summary has been presented to country counterparts
Major Potential Benefits of DWSP Other benefits include: investment planning, greater risk assurance and more integrated approach
Findings from Palau • Estimated total present value of cost of establishing and implementing the K-A drinking water safety plan: US$ 0.2 million • Estimated total present value of benefits over time is expected to be US$ 1.34 million • Expected net present benefits: US$ 1.11 million • Benefit: cost ratio of 6: 1 i.e. US$6 payoff for each dollar invested
Future Work & Recommendations • Koror-Airai DWSP improvement schedule should be implemented as planned and reviewed periodically as required • DWSP approach should be replicated across the water supplies in Palau • Quantitative outcomes to be used to advocate continued DWSP investments at national and regional levels • Water demand management practices as a component of the Koror-Airai DWSP should be improved • Access to data relevant to water economics should be improved
Concluding Remarks • CBA shows that the benefits are greater than the costs of DWSP improvement with an estimated benefit: cost ratio of 6: 1 • Critically important benefit reduced water-induced gastrointestinal diseases • Advocacy support to further the work on DWSP in Palau and in the Pacific • Drinking Water Safety Planning is the way to go!
Vinaka Vakalevu • Acknowledgement: • Navneet Lal (SOPAC Library) for assisting with the graphics