Goal 6.1: Universal and equal access to drinking water at an affordable price
Goal 6.1 of the SDG proposes that “by 2030 we achieve universal and equal access to drinking water at an affordable price and for everyone”. To increase the proportion of the population who have a guaranteed drinking water supply, one of the main indicators of goal 6.1, we need to increase sources of drinking water, transport infrastructure is built, and also regulation and distribution, and that water is sanitised adequately to prevent health risks, while satisfying the daily needs of people. All of this by 2030. And all of it needs to be complementary and coordinated with the need to establish sustainability, a very important factor to keep in mind, particularly now, when the struggle against climate change takes its slow course, while water sources, which are very sensitive to climate change, gradually reduce.
We also need to create fair and realistic tariff policies, in which ability to pay depending on income allows access for the population without excluding any sector nor those whose marginalised situation cannot afford to pay for all these services, a situation which requires an effort for cooperation and solidarity both nationally and internationally.
This goal is illustrated by the two projects in which the author has taken part in conjunction with FCAS and AECID. The former, illustrated by the information graph above, consists in giving a small rural, indigenous group in Guatemala (mam ethnic group) access to drinking water and controlled sanitation. Originally this people got water from springs at some distance, over 20 minutes there and 20 back again, over rough and wild terrain in the Volcanic Range in Guatemala. Water management in the indigenous rural world in Guatemala always falls to women.
The previous studies of alternatives and project viability (technical, environmental, economic and legal) detected problems for finding the best system. The two previous projects studied involved pumping water from distant springs and then transporting it to the end users, or the drilling of a deep well with pumping installations, a control tank and a distribution network. But both options came up against the harsh reality of a small community of 47 families, with very low income, whose economy centred mostly on subsistence farming, which meant that the future technical and economic sustainability of either project was not possible (due to electricity and maintenance costs).
But in a region where average yearly rainfall is over 1,000 mm, with two very separate seasons, dry and rainy, the most viable solution was to build collecting systems for each family unit. These systems involve collecting rainwater from the roofs of houses using a simple system of collection and transport pipes, which include a bypass for the elimination of the first rainfall which is dirty and the placing of sand filters, allowing the rainwater collected to build up in 15 m3 deposits which can be used year-round.