rwpfunctionality

This package offers users comprehensive documentation on surveys conducted to assess water point functionality and management committees. These surveys were carried out across nine countries in both sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The data was published alongside the article “Rural water point functionality estimates and associations: evidence from nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia” (Murray et al. 2024).

Installation

You can install the development version of rwpfunctionality from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("openwashdata/rwpfunctionality")

Alternatively, you can download the dataset as a CSV or XLSX file from the table below.

dataset	CSV	XLSX
rwpfunctionality	Download CSV	Download XLSX

Project goal

Sustained functionality of rural water systems is a global challenge. Addressing premature failures and unreliable performance of water points is crucial to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which calls for universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all (Safely Managed Drinking-Water 2017). As of 2020, 771 million people lacked a basic water service (“Progress on Household Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, 2000-2020” 2021). Yet even for those with water services, unreliable water infrastructure that provides intermittent supply, or is broken down or abandoned, contributes to unsustainable and unsafe water access worldwide (Allaire et al. 2018; Burt et al. 2018; Klug et al. 2018; Valcourt et al. 2020).

Data

The dataset includes observations of water point functionality and management committee questionnaires. Displayed on the map are the locations of the water points.

The package provides access to one single dataset.

library(rwpfunctionality)

The rwpfunctionality dataset has 52 variables and 1793 observations. For an overview of the variable names, see the following table.

rwpfunctionality

variable_name	variable_type	description
id	double	Row number assigned during processing
country	character	Name of the country
admin1	character	Administrative unit 1
admin2	character	Administrative unit 2
admin3	character	Administrative unit 3
instance_wp	character	Survey ID
subdate_wp	character	Submission date
latitude_wp	double	Latitude
longitude_wp	double	Longitude
elevation_wp	double	Elevation
commid_wp	character	Community ID
dataorg_wp	character	Code for country program
timepoint_wp	character	Data collection time point
cwfunded_wp	character	Charity water-funded water point
cwid	character	Charity water point ID
wptype	character	Water point type
pumptype	character	Pump type
drillmethod	character	Methodology used to dig the well or borehole
piped_source	character	Source of piped water
piped_pump	character	Infrastructure through which water travels from the source to the storage tank
rehabyn	character	This water point has undergone rehabilitation with the assistance of an outside organization since its construction
qtyhh_wp	double	Number of households served by this water point, either presently or during its last operational period
whomanage_wp	character	Primarily responsible for managing this water point
wp_age	double	Years between the reported construction year of the water point and the year of the survey
rehab_age	double	Years between the reported most recent rehabilitation year of the water point and the year of the survey
qtypeople_wp	double	Number of people served by this water point, either now or the last time it was working
wateravailable	character	Water availability from this water point
functional3	character	Functionality rating for water point: ‘Abandoned or not functional’ means no water available >1 year or no water available today OR (water available, but insufficient quantity AND downtime reported in prior 2 weeks), ‘Partially functional’ means water is available with sufficient quantity - 20L in 5 min - but downtime reported in prior 2 weeks or water is available, but insufficient quantity - 20L in 5 min - and no downtime reported in prior 2 weeks and ‘Functional’ means water is available, sufficient quantity is available - 20L in 5 minutes - and no downtime reported in prior 2 weeks
whynowatertoday_wp	character	Reason for unavailability of water from this water point today
whynowatertoday_wp_other	character	Other reason for water not being available today
minutesfill20l	double	Time required to fill the 20 liters container
brokendays_wp	double	Number of days it took to repair water the point last time it broke down
qtymonthsnowater_wp	double	Number of months in the past year when water was not available from this water point because it was dry
downtime2weeks	character	Water has not been available from this water point for a full day or more due to breakdown, seasonal dryness, or lack of fuel or electricity in the past two weeks
lockedfullday_wp	character	Service has been turned off or the water point has been locked in the past year by the management for reasons other than breakdowns
pumpstrokes	double	Number of pump strokes needed until water begins to flow
photo_wp	character	Photograph of the water point
grant_number_wp	double	Water grant number
wc_present_wp	character	Existence of water committee in this community that manages water points used for drinking
paytocollect_wp	character	Obligation for people to contribute money to collect water in this community
balance_any_dollars_wp	double	Amount of money saved by the committee (converted to USD)
improved_wponly_wp	double	Number of improved water point types used in the community
qtyhh_c_wp	double	Number of households in this community
wc_admin_index_wp	character	Administrative index for water committee: ‘Inadequate’ means WC hasn’t met in >6 months, ‘Minimum’ means WC has reported to have met within 6 months, ‘Moderate’ means WC has reported to have met within 6 months, and has at least 1/3 female members and ‘Advanced’ means WC has reported to have met within 6 months, has at least 1/3 female members, AND has record of a meeting within previous 6 months
wc_finance_index_wp	character	Finance index for water committee: ‘Inadequate’ means WC does not collect fees, ‘Minimum’ means WC reports a fee collection system, ‘Moderate’ means WC reports collecting fees and reports having savings and ‘Advanced’ means WC reports collecting fees and reports having savings, can demonstrate a fee collection or balance, and reports that money is kept in a cash box, bank account, mobile money, or borehole banking
wc_maint_index_wp	character	Maintenance index for water committee: ‘Inadequate’ means WC cannot identify a person for water point maintenance, ‘Minimum’ means WC can identify a person for water point maintenance , ‘Moderate’ means WC can identify a repair person and that person has had training. Plus, the community has access to tools and spare parts and ‘Advanced’ means WC can identify a repair person and that person has had training. Plus, the community has access to tools and spare parts AND reported that someone has performed preventive maintenence within the past year
wc_mgmt_index_wp	character	Overall management index for water committee: ‘Inadequate’ means WC is inadequate in any of the above indices, ‘Minimum’ means WC meets minimum level in all above indices, ‘Moderate’ means WC meets moderate level in all above indices and ‘Advanced’ means WC meets moderate level in all above indices AND advanced level in at least one of the above
wc_savings_wp	double	Existence of money saved from water committee to repair water points
wpqty_wp	double	Number of drinking water points in this community, working or not
pop_1000	double	Population aggregated for a 1-km radius around the water point (data from from https://www.worldpop.org/)
annual_rain	double	Average annual mm of precipitation for administrative unit 2 (average from 1991-2020, from https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/)
season	character	Season of data collection, according to hostorical rainall amounts (from https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/)

Examples

Pie Chart of Water Points Functionality

What are the statuses of the water points? Are they functional?

library(dplyr)
library(ggplot2)

# Define custom colors
custom_colors <- c("lightblue", "orange", "purple")

# Create the pie chart
rwpfunctionality |>
  count(functional3) |> 
  ggplot(aes(x = "", y = n, fill = functional3)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity") +
  coord_polar("y", start = 0) +
  scale_fill_manual(values = custom_colors) +  # Set custom colors
  labs(title = "Functionality rating for water points", fill = NULL,
       x = "",  # Empty x-axis label
       y = "Count")  # y-axis label

Based on this pie chart, it could be interesting to redefine the category “Partially functional” to gain insights and precision on this aspect of the data. Most water points are functional: 1333 of 1793.

Water Points Types

What are the different types of water points?

# Create a horizontal bar plot of water point types
ggplot(rwpfunctionality, aes(x = wptype)) +
  geom_bar() +
  labs(title = "Distribution of Water Points Types",
       x = "Water Point Type",
       y = "Frequency") +
  coord_flip()  # Flip coordinates to make it horizontal

This plot provides insight into the distribution of different types of water points present in the dataset. Understanding the prevalence of each type is valuable for various purposes, such as evaluating the functionality of each type to inform future development projects. For instance, it helps identifying which types are more common and could potentially inform decisions on prioritizing maintenance or constructing more efficient or suitable water point types.

References

License

Data are available as CC-BY.

Citation

To cite this package, please use:

citation("rwpfunctionality")
#> To cite package 'rwpfunctionality' in publications use:
#> 
#>   Götschmann M, Murray A, Stone G, Yang A, Lawrence N, Matthews H,
#>   Kayser G, Schöbitz L (2024). "rwpfunctionality: Water point
#>   functionality in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia."
#>   doi:10.5281/zenodo.10878634
#>   <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10878634>.
#>   <https://github.com/openwashdata/rwpfunctionality>.
#> 
#> A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is
#> 
#>   @Misc{gotschmann_etall:2024,
#>     title = {rwpfunctionality: Water point functionality in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia},
#>     author = {Margaux Götschmann and Anna L. Murray and Gabriela Stone and Audrey R. Yang and Nicholas F. Lawrence and Hannah Matthews and Georgia L. Kayser and Lars Schöbitz},
#>     year = {2024},
#>     doi = {10.5281/zenodo.10878634},
#>     url = {https://github.com/openwashdata/rwpfunctionality},
#>     abstract = {Water point monitoring data associated with the paper "[Rural water point functionality estimates and associations: evidence from nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023WR034679)" (Murray, Anna L et al., 2024).},
#>     keywords = {open data,washdata,water points,functionality,rural water supply,water committees,Ethiopia,India,Malawi,Mali,Mozambique,Nepal,Niger,Rwanda,Uganda,management,open-data,r,wash,water,waterpoint},
#>     version = {0.0.1},
#>   }

Allaire, Maura, Haowei Wu, and Upmanu Lall. 2018. “National Trends in Drinking Water Quality Violations.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (9): 2078–83. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1719805115.

Burt, Zachary, Ayşe Ercümen, Narayana Billava, and Isha Ray. 2018. “From Intermittent to Continuous Service: Costs, Benefits, Equity and Sustainability of Water System Reforms in Hubli-Dharwad, India.” World Development 109 (C): 121–33.

Klug, Tori, Katherine Shields, and Jamie Bartram. 2018. “A Categorization of Water System Breakdowns: Evidence from Liberia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda.” Science of The Total Environment 619620 (April): 1126–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.11.183.

Murray, Anna L., Gabriela Stone, Audrey R. Yang, Nicholas F. Lawrence, Hannah Matthews, and Georgia L. Kayser. 2024. “Rural Water Point Functionality Estimates and Associations: Evidence From Nine Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.” Water Resources Research 60 (2): e2023WR034679. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR034679.

“Progress on Household Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, 2000-2020: Five Years into the SDGs.” 2021. In UNICEF DATA. Https://data.unicef.org/resources/progress-on-household-drinking-water-sanitation-and-hygiene-2000-2020/.

Safely Managed Drinking-Water. 2017. Https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/9789241565424.

Valcourt, Nicholas, Jeffrey Walters, Amy Javernick-Will, Karl Linden, and Betelhem Hailegiorgis. 2020. “Understanding Rural Water Services as a Complex System: An Assessment of Key Factors as Potential Leverage Points for Improved Service Sustainability.” Sustainability 12 (3): 1243. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12031243.