ASSESSEMENT OF THE CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS OF DRINKING WATER SUPPLY IN CASE OF WOLKITE TOWN, GURAGE ZONE, AND CENTRAL ETHIOPIA.

Abstract

Ethiopia has enormous water potential but still faces a range of challenges in drinking water supply. People in the study area are still without access to improved water sources, and even more are without access to consistently safe drinking water. In order to address the problem of drinking water various efforts were carried out by the involvement of different stakeholders. Therefore, The main objective of this study was to assess the challenge and prospect of drinking water supply in Wolkite town, Central Ethiopia. To realize this objective, both primary and secondary data were produced by utilizing qualitative and quantitative data. A total of 51 households were selected from three villages by using systematic random sampling. To gather the required information from selected respondents, questionnaire, key informant’s interviews, and focus group discussion were conducted. Descriptive survey statistics such as frequency and percentage was used to analyze quantitative data. The qualitative data obtained from interviews and FGD was analyzed by describing and interpreting the deeply the situation of challenges of drinking water supply. The major finding of the study indicate that the major causes of the water scarcity in the area was due to limited or few pipeline that caused by fast expansion of the town, which the few old existing pipelines cannot support. The survey result indicate that slow down progress in all domestic and commercial activities and exposed to water born disease due to drinking of unsafe water from open wells were major impact of shortage of drinking water in the study area