Performance Monitoring of Rural Community Water System

Community water systems form an essential infrastructure component in many rural areas of the developing world including Panama and Nicaragua. These water networks in rural towns of Panama and Nicaragua provide drinking water to the community residents and are typically relied on for all water uses. Communities develop water committees in order to manage these systems, but internal and external complications affect the performance and reliability of these water systems over time. In order to ensure improved reliability of this water supply infrastructure, the performance must be monitored and compared to an assessment of the external complications. The performance was evaluated through dual water quality and quantity monitoring programs, and the external complications were assessed through a survey of social, technical, environmental, economic, and political (STEEP) indicators. These monitoring programs and STEEP assessments were employed in five different communities in rural regions of Panama and Nicaragua where a project partner was in existence.;The pressure transducers installed in the water storage tanks as part of the water quantity monitoring gathered water level data to calculate a Full/Empty Ratio and delivery efficiency, etadelivery, based on events of failure. The water quality testing through each water system was compared to World Health Organization standards for drinking water and compliance percentages were calculated as the quality efficiency, etaquality. The STEEP indicator results from each community water system were correlated with the performance monitoring efficiencies. Negative correlations were determined between the STEEP indicators and the system efficiencies prompting recommendations to improve the STEEP survey and enhance the performance monitoring programs.