Drinking Water for the Third World

The proportion of Third World urban residents with access to safe drinking water has not increased appreciably in the past three decades. This article describes findings from a door-to-door survey of Imphal in northeast India, identifying problems that are widespread in the developing world:. Imphalʹs piped water supply system is deficient; a majority of residents procure drinking water from a variety of sources; and more than half the residents spend over a fifth of their incomes for water. While expanding the centralized piped water network would be consistent with the existing paradigm, the Imphal case highlights the potential of culturally accepted, community-based, water supply alternatives. I argue that planners and policymakers in the Third World should seriously consider such alternatives, which could provide feasible, sustainable means of addressing the global drinking water shortage at least in the near term, with currently available resources.