Evaluation of village piped water: a case study in southern Thailand

This study was conducted in a district of southern Thailand to evaluate village piped water (VPW) systems with respect to the process of planning and operation. Of 67 villages in the district, 31 were installed with one or more VPW systems using water obtained from artesian wells and distributed through the pipe with neither prior filtering nor chlorination. Seven systems were found to have stopped functioning for more than 6 months. The direct causes of failure were lack of participation from the villagers, mechanical problems and serious conflicts among the leaders. Of the running systems, only 4 were operating with meters for individual households. The charge rates were probably too low to cope with sustainable maintenance costs. The water had rust, unpleasant odors, slightly salty taste and oily surface in 50, 33, 29 and 4% of the systems respectively. Among VPW users, 8% drank water from shallow wells and 77% drank unboiled water. It was concluded that VPW in the study area was not effective for several reason. Prior assessment of management feasibility and proper community education were lacking. The running costs were probable too high, not well recognized and not covered. This led to failure in gaining participation from the villagers, which eventually led to failure or potential failure of the system and waste of capital investment. These pitfalls should be prevented prior to installation of any VPW system in the future.