Water-User Preference Influencing Household Water Availability In Obunga Informal Settlement Of Kisumu City, Kenya

Abstract

Approximately 80% of the estimated 844 million people without access to a basic water service live in rural areas and urban slums particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This is in disregard of the fact that access to water service increased from 81% to 89% during the last one and half decades. In Kenya, majority of urban dwellers live in water stress informal settlements. Theorists and scholars have linked availability of domestic water with water user preferences or practices, although the same has not been documented among households living in informal settlements in Kisumu. The purpose of the study was to investigate water user preferences influencing household water availability in Obunga informal settlement of Kisumu City, Kenya. Specific objectives were to investigate the effects of the preferences for water use in gardens, laundry and toilets, washing, direct heating system, drinking, cooking, and personal washing, on the frequency, quantity, and reliability of water supply among households in the slums. The study adopted Ex post facto research design on a target population of 2,507 households from the four administrative units in Obunga informal settlement, whereby through stratified sampling technique 331 respondents were sampled using questionnaire administration. Purposive sampling method was used to select 3 key informants for key informant interview using interview guides. Qualitative data was analyzed through thematic analysis, while descriptive statistics and chi square test were used to analyse quantitative data on study variables by the use of statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS). The study found that most households in Obunga informal settlement have poor water-user preference, although majority of them have moderate availability of water. The findings also showed that households with good availability of water have poor water user preference while those with poor availability have good water user preferences. Differences in household water user preferences (χ2o = 58.450 > χ2c (4, .05) = 9.488) were found to be too large to be explained by chance: hence the alternate hypothesis that household water-user preference in the slums is dependent on the availability of water was rejected. It is therefore concluded that availability of water is not related to household water-user preference, and that household water-user preference gets poorer as the availability improves. The study recommends that households in the slums should be sensitized to improve their attitudes towards use of clean water so as to enhance availability of the commodity.