Domestic water accessibility and its effect to households livelihood: a case of Maswa District, Shinyanga Region, Tanzania
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Date
2025-06-25
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Science Domain International
Abstract
Water supply is an essential requirement for people and it has intrinsic connection with lives and
livelihoods. Water shortage affects households’ labour because of much time and energy spent on
obtaining it. Unavailability of safe and clean water has several implications, among them include
waterborne diseases, labour, income and time. The study was carried out to explore information on
domestic water accessibility and its effects to households Livelihood in Maswa District of Tanzania.
Specifically the study intended to get information related to sources of water for domestic use and
its accessibility, who are mostly responsible for collecting water, time spent seeking for water and
challenges related to unsafe and clean water 120 respondents were engaged in this study. Data were collected through the use of structured questionnaire and focused group discussions (FGDs).
Descriptive statistics and content analysis techniques were applied in analyzing the data. Results
from the study show that unavailability of safe and clean water affects income through consuming
time and loss of labour during fetching water. In addition, water related diseases consumes labour’s
time and money for caring patients. Moreover, most of labour used in fetching water was mothers
and daughters. Consequently, women face many challenges which are associated by carrying
water on their heads at a distance and time wasted during fetching water. The challenges
particularly time waste during fetching water hinders women’s participation to other income
generating activities. The study concludes that sources of water such as traditional dug wells and
hand dug wells at the river bed represent the most important water sources for rural households in
the study area. Moreover, women face a number of challenges related to water shortage and time
spent fetching water. The study recommends that authority’s responsible for facilitating Water
supply systems both at National and Regional level should Increase mechanisms which will enable
large population to access water within acceptable distance in order to reduce women and children
burden of carrying water at a distance.
Description
Asian Journal of Environment & Ecology Volume 24, Issue 6, Page 336-345, 2025; Article no.AJEE.139340
Keywords
Domestic water, Accessibility, Traditional dug wells, Challenges, Maswa District, Tanzania