THE CASE OF KAMASHI ZONE OF BENISHANGUL GUMUZ REGIONAL STATE

Abstract

Supplying water for a community is very essential and especial emphasis is to be given to remote areas where the community is suffering a lot. To do so evaluating the sustainability of schemes already implemented and to look forward to what actions to be taken is necessary. In this study the water supply schemes in Kamashi zone of Benishangul Gumuz I Regional State was seen from the documents available about the water supply situation in the area. As can be seen from maps showing the distribution of water supply systems most of the systems are concentrated around urban centres. From the study it was see - n that . the most frequently failing parts of schemes are the 0-ring, U-seal and crack on PVC pipes for the hand pumps and unavailability of night storage to accommodate the freely flowing water during non-service hours for developed springs. As was seen, the challenges and problems identified as aggravating the failure of water supply schemes are: poor organizational structures and low profile of O&M, lack of spare parts within the local market, lack of trained personnel, inaccessibility of many of the community villages, non-involvement of the users, inappropriate tariff collection systems and loose contact between the central bureaus in the region and sector bureaus at Woreda level. The average number of users on hand pumps is 325 households and the actual yield of the pumps for which field measurement was taken is 0.161itres per second and for springs it was 0.1 Olitres per second. The average distance of households from the water sources they are using as taken as a sample for Belojiganfoy Woreda town is 656.2 metres which is much higher figure. From physical and chemical water quality analysis made in lab and which was taken from FHI the water quality approximately fulfills the WHO standards except for some parameters like nitrate, nitrite, Iron and Manganese. Key words: sustainability, hand pump, community participation, Operation and Maintenance, Spare parts, Kamashi