Main Source of Water for Drinking and for Other Domestic Use

The 2010 PHC collected information on water for drinking or for domestic use as captured in table 8.10. 

Water for drinking

The most common sources of drinking water for households in the District are, borehole/pump/tube well (29.5%), river/stream (21.7%), pipe-borne water outside dwelling (12.7%), protected well (12.5%), public tap/stand pipe (10.6%) and sachet water (8.6%). All other sources accounted for less than four percent with tanker supply/vendor provided and rain water as sources of drinking water virtually non-existent. 

Table 8.10 suggests that about 24 percent of households in the Mpohor District obtain their sources of drinking water from unprotected or unimproved sources, mainly rivers/streams. This proportion is high given the efforts undertaken in the last two decades to improve households’ access to potable water sources to improve water-borne diseases as well as reaching the MDGs. In terms of locality, the data show sharp differences between the urban and the rural households in the sources of drinking water. Protected well: urban (43.7%) and rural (1.5%); river/stream: urban (0.1%) and rural (29.3%); public tap/stand pipe: urban (1.7%) and rural (13.8%); borehole/pump/tube well: urban (24.3%) and rural (31.4%): sachet water: urban (25%) and rural (2.8%) and pipe-borne outside dwelling: urban (2.4%) and rural (16.3%). All other sources recorded marginal variations in terms of rural/urban distributions.

Table 8.10 shows that water for drinking and other uses from unprotected/unimproved sources is even problematic in the rural parts of the Mpohor District. Here, over 3 in 10 households used unimproved sources for drinking and domestic uses.

Water for other domestic use

Similar to water for drinking, the households in the District have common sources of water for other domestic uses. These sources account for over 97 percent of all water sources for domestic purposes. Borehole/pump/tube well (29%), river/stream (25.7%), protected well (18.4%), pipe-borne water outside dwelling (12.3%), public tap/stand pipe (9.5%) and unprotected well (2.3%). All other sources accounted for less than three percent with pipe-borne water inside dwelling taking 1.6 percent. 

In terms of locality, the census recorded marked differences between the urban and the rural households in terms of the sources of water for domestic uses. Protected well: urban (60.2%) and rural (3.8%); river/stream: urban (0.1%) and rural (34.7%); public tap/stand pipe: urban (1.2%) and rural (12.5%); borehole/pump/tube well: urban (32.1%) and rural (28%); pipe-borne outside dwelling: urban (2.6%) and rural (15.7%) and unprotected well: urban (1.0%) and rural (2.8%). All other sources recorded marginal variations in terms of rural/ urban differentials (Table 8.10).

Toilet Facilities

An efficient and hygienic method of human waste disposal available in a dwelling unit is a critical indicator of the sanitary conditions of the unit as captured in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG7).

From Table 8.11, the most popular toilet facilities in the District are public toilet (54.2%), pit latrine (28%), no facility/bush/beach/field (7.3%) and KVIP (5.7%). These facilities together are used by over 95 percent of the households with less than five percent for all other facilities with “other” recording the least proportion of 0.3 percent. This pattern is repeated in the rural-urban distributions albeit pit latrine (31.2%) and no facility/bush/beach/field (8.6%) recorded higher proportions in rural areas than urban (19%, 3.9%) areas. Besides, public toilet (60.2%) and KVIP (8%) recorded higher percentages in urban areas than rural (52% and 4.8%) respectively.

Bathing Facilities

The main types of bathing facilities used by households are shown in Table8.11. The leading types are, shared separate bathroom in the same house (26.9%), own bathroom for exclusive use (22.1%); shared open cubicle (21.8%) and bathroom in another house (6.3%). These facilities together are used by over 81 percent of the households with about 19 percent for all other facilities and “other” recording the least proportion (0.2%). This pattern is replicated in both urban and rural areas except with bathing in River/Pond/Lake/Dam where rural areas (4.1%) recorded higher proportions than urban (0.1%) households. 

Method of Waste Disposal

Solid Waste

In the District, majority of households dump their refuse either in an open space (64.6%), indiscriminately (11.6%), container (10.7%) or buried by household (6%) (Table 8.12). Rubbish is collected in only 2.4 percent of households. The rest are either burned or dumped through other methods. A higher proportion of both urban (60.6%) and rural (66%) households dump their rubbish in open space. Indiscriminate dumping of refuse is more common in rural (14%) than urban (4.9%) communities while dumping in container is largely an urban (20%) phenomenon than rural (7.4%). 

Liquid Waste

Methods of liquid waste disposal are presented in Table 8.12. It could be noted from the table that liquid waste is usually thrown onto the compound (40.6%), into a gutter (26.9%) or street/outside (24.9%), these together account for over 92 percent. Only five percent of households dispose of liquid waste either through a drainage system into a gutter (2.3%) or through the drainage into a pit (2.7%). Throwing liquid waste onto the compound is common in both urban (40%) and rural (40.9%) households. While throwing of liquid waste into the gutter is dominant in urban (39.8%) than rural (22.3%) communities, throwing of liquid waste onto the street/outside is more popular in rural households (27.6%) than urban (17.2%) households.