Is poverty in a country influenced by its water resources? Do scarce water resources condemn necessarily that country? Many disclaim that a water crisis is emerging. A global crisis. But it is at local level, often the region of a country, this issue must be considered.
Where there is water shortage, there is still a kind of poverty. A lack of water leads to low industrial production, and an agriculture with hard development because irrigation is not or partially insured. The water availability is also essential for livestock and fishing, however small it may be. It also determines the personal feeding resources of a households as trees and home garden. And when resources are far, it takes tome to collect water which reduce time of the household for productive purposes.

To assess the impact of water scarcity on human populations, the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) in Wallingford and the University of Keele have developped since 2000 the Water Poverty Index. Its has been designed as a monitoring tool, based on 5 components:

So its includes both physical and -in a stronger way than the the Falkenmark Index (or ‘water stress index’)- socio-economic factors associated with water scarcity, as water poverty is linked to the human development. As a better water management can make a key contribution to poverty reduction, the WPI was designed to assess and monitoring the progress of the water sector at a municipality or district scale.

“The Water Poverty Index (WPI) was developed by a team of researchers, practitioners and stakeholders, led by CEH, to help to determine priorities for action and to monitor progress towards targets. The WPI is a holistic water management tool that is mainly relevant at the community level, but can also be applied at any spatial scale up to the basin or national levels.”
“This enables national and international organisations concerned with water provision and management to monitor both the resources available and the socio-economic factors which impact on access and use of those resources.”

The Water Poverty Index:an International Comparison

The Water Poverty Index: an International Comparison - Keele URL / Ref.:KERP 2002/19; Oct.2002

The Water Poverty Index - Centre for Ecology and Hydrology URL

Water scarcity: fact or fiction? Frank R. Rijsberman; 2007 - Science Direct URL

End Water Poverty Campaign website

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