Desenvolvimento de um modelo de priorização para implantação de sistemas de abastecimento de água em comunidades rurais

Abstract

Ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all is one of the sustainable development goals adopted by the United Nations. In rural areas, issues related to sanitation pose greater challenges, requiring approaches and solutions adapted to the peculiarities of this context. Due to the need for immediate and practical solutions for water supply in rural areas, the construction of water supply systems with shared management in rural communities is a viable alternative. Given the reality of high demands and limited resources, determining criteria for prioritizing basic sanitation programs is of paramount importance. This work aims to develop a prioritization model for implementing shared water supply management systems in rural communities. The model will be based on data from the municipality of Campina Grande, Paraiba. First, an overview of water supply in the rural areas of the municipality was conducted. Selection criteria were applied to filter the localities based on specific restrictions. Priority ranges — low, medium, high, and very high — were defined for the prioritization criteria using an exploratory analysis of the interquartile range. The relative importance of each criterion was determined using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Finally, the rural communities of Campina Grande were ranked. The selected criteria and their respective weights were quantity and proximity of households (34.9%), availability of water sources (27%), hospitalizations due to diseases related to inadequate sanitation (20.5%), social organization (12.4%), and environmental factors (5.2%). Based on the model application, 28 rural communities in Campina Grande were identified and ranked for the installation of water supply systems, where 43% have low priority, 39% have moderate priority, and 18% have high priority.