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This article describes the conceptual advantages of including economic incentives in the basket of policy alternatives available for motivating improvements in water quality. With a particular focus on Asia, we discuss the incentives available for encouraging reductions in point and nonpoint source pollutants in urban, rural, and peri-urban settings. Several countries in Asia are implementing some form of economic incentives, either directly, in the form of effluent taxes or subsidies, or in combination with regulatory measures that help to ensure water quality standards are achieved. We also describe the importance of institutional capacity and political will in support of economic incentives, and the increasing usefulness of incentive programmes as economies develop and expand. The discussion includes several examples of programmes in China and Thailand, along with observations from India, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of irrigation delivery services and agricultural extension services on crop choice in southern Tajikistan. This analysis is motivated by the government's recent efforts to address the country's severe malnutrition problem by supporting changes in irrigation service delivery and agronomy to increase diversity in agricultural production and consumption, in an environment where the cultivation of cotton had, until recently, been mandatory. Water management in Tajikistan has largely been transferred to the community through the creation of water users' associations (WUAs), which were established between 2011 and 2013. While all WUAs received training to improve irrigation delivery services, some also received training in cultivating alternative crops and improving cultivation practices through agricultural extension services. Through specific empirical analysis conducted on a primary panel dataset of 1855 farms in southern Tajikistan, we identify the extent to which improvements in irrigation services, and agronomy training through extension services affect decisions pertaining to cultivated areas of cotton and wheat (the traditional crops) and the cultivated area and number of (newer) high-value crops. We also examine the effect of water delivery and agricultural extension services on crop diversity and cropping intensity (how often land is used in a calendar year). We find that improvements in irrigation delivery services affect cultivated areas of cotton and wheat. Cultivation of high value crops is significantly influenced by agricultural extension services. While cropping intensity depends on water delivery services, crop diversity depends on extension services. From a policy perspective, these results highlight the importance of agricultural programs for stimulating agricultural value added in landscapes historically characterized by limited crop choice and a collapse of the agricultural sector.

This paper examines whether there are systematic differences in the historical behaviors of households that are affected and unaffected by chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Sri Lanka pertaining to their water source choices, water treatment practices, and agrochemical use. This analysis is motivated by the Sri Lankan government's largest policy response to this epidemic – to encourage communities to switch from untreated well water to publicly provided alternatives. We use recall methods to elicit information on the drinking water source and treatment choices of households over an 18-year period from 2000– 2017. Our analysis is based on a survey of 1497 rural ground-water dependent households in the most CKD-affected areas of the 10 districts of Sri Lanka with the highest prevalence of CKD. Our main findings are that (a) households that have ever used a pump to extract (typically deep) drinking water from a household well are more likely to be affected by CKD; (b) we fail to find a relationship between disease status and households' use of buckets to extract (typically shallow) groundwater from their wells; and (c) those who have ever treated their shallow well water by boiling it are less likely to be affected by CKD. We also find that a greater share of CKD affected households historically used agrochemicals, used wells that were geographically removed from surface water sources, and displayed lower proxies of wealth. The implications of these findings are fourfold. First, since the systematic differences in the historical patterns of water sources and treatments used by CKD affected and non-affected households are modest, the sources of water and the treatment practices themselves may not be the sole risk factors in developing CKD. Second, although we find a negative association between boiling water and the probability of CKD, it is not obvious that a public policy campaign to promote boiling water is an appropriate response. Third, the hydrochemistry of deep and shallow well water needs to be better understood in order to shed light on the positive relationship between deep well water and disease status, and on why boiling shallow but not deep well water is associated with a lower probability of CKD. Fourth, there is a need for a deeper understanding of other risk factors and of the efficacy of preventative programs that provide alternative sources of household drinking water.

In recent years, the Government of Nepal has increased the amount of revenue it collects from hydropower operations and then distributes among districts and regions of the country. Larger, wealthier districts, which receive larger amounts of general revenues from the central government, also receive larger allocations of hydropower revenues. The per capita shares of hydropower revenue are notably larger in the Central andWestern Regions, which are home to most of Nepal's hydropower facilities. Thus, the revenue sharing program does not favor poorer districts and regions with little hydropower development. Further, the hydropower revenue allocations to all development regions are small portions of the general revenues they receive. Consequently, the program is unlikely to have a substantial impact on economic development in poorer districts and regions.

After Tajikistan emerged an independent country, major land reforms took place. Large collective farms were broken up into smaller (dekhan) private farms. This created a vacuum, because there was no provision to manage competing needs of water among private farms. Water user associations were created with the efforts of the government, and several international donors, to manage distribution of water between private farms and to share in maintenance of smaller canals. In this paper we provide a brief description of the creation of water user associations, as well as their roles and responsibilities. We then describe the opportunities for increasing livelihoods, and contributing to increased agricultural productivity. Can these WUAs improve access to and distribution of water? Would better irrigations services increase cropping areas? Would yields of cotton improve? Can these be an improvement in crop diversity? We identify the key existing gaps in knowledge, that would provide an understanding of the impacts of these associations on wellbeing. We also describe some of the challenges that may limit the efficacy of these associations. Are these institutions likely to be able to cover their operational costs? Can these institutions serve well as cropping decisions change? Are these institutions likely to represent the needs of female farmers? We identify the key factors that need to be examined more closely, that provide an understating of the resilience of these associations. The answers to these questions would provide important information for policies to support and strengthen water user associations in Tajikistan.

AbstractA national campaign of well testing through 2003 enabled households in rural Bangladesh to switch, at least for drinking water, from high-arsenic wells to neighboring lower arsenic wells. We study the well-switching dynamics over time by re-interviewing, in 2008, a randomly selected subset of households in the Araihazar region who had been interviewed in 2005. Contrary to concerns that the impact of arsenic information on switching behavior would erode over time, we find that not only was 2003–2005 switching highly persistent but also new switching by 2008 doubled the share of households at unsafe wells who had switched. The passage of time also had a cost: 22 per cent of households did not recall test results by 2008. The loss of arsenic knowledge led to staying at unsafe wells and switching from safe wells. Our results support ongoing well testing for arsenic to reinforce this beneficial information.

Safe emptying and disposal of fecal sludge from pit latrines in rural areas has become a priority for the Government of Bangladesh. In this paper, we calculate the volume and characterize the hazards of managing sludge to identify technologies for safely emptying rural single pits. In Bhaluka subdistrict, an estimated 15,000 m3 of sludge is produced annually. Physical, chemical, and microbial analysis of samples of sludge taken from pit latrines indicate that the sludge has a high moisture content of around 90%, a C:N ration of 10:1, and a helminth presence of 41 eggs/g. In a field test of alternative emptying technologies, simple pumps such as the gulper emerged as feasible for use in rural areas, due to the liquid nature of the sludge, narrow roads, and limited incomes of rural households. The results suggest that current practices of emptying liquid sludge manually without any protective equipment poses risks to those who handle sludge, and the process needs to be semi-mechanized with immediate effect. These results are being used by the Bangladesh government to design policy for sludge management. In the near future, an organized service that safely empties single pits and transports sludge for treatment needs to be urgently designed.

Motivation: Proper management of fecal sludge has significant positive health and environmental externalities. Most research on managing onsite sanitation so far either simulates the costs of, or the welfare effects from, managing sludge in situ in pit latrines. Thus, designing management strategies for onsite rural sanitation is challenging, because the actual costs of transporting sludge for treatment, and sources for financing these transport costs, are not well understood. Methods: In this paper we calculate the actual cost of sludge management from onsite latrines, and identify the contributions that latrine owners are willing to make to finance the costs. A spreadsheet-based model is used to identify a cost-effective transport option, and to calculate the cost per household. Then a double-bound contingent valuation method is used to elicit from pit-latrine owners their willingness-to-pay to have sludge transported away. This methodology is employed for the case of a rural subdistrict in Bangladesh called Bhaluka, a unit of administration at which sludge management services are being piloted by the Government of Bangladesh. Results: The typical sludge accumulation rate in Bhaluka is calculated at 0.11 liters/person/day and a typical latrine will need to be emptied approximately once every 3 to 4 years. The costs of emptying and transport are high; approximately USD 13 per emptying event (circa 14% of average monthly income); household contributions could cover around 47% of this cost. However, if costs were spread over time, the service would cost USD 4 per year per household, or USD 0.31 per month per household—comparable to current expenditures of rural households on telecommunications. Conclusion: This is one of few research papers that brings the costs of waste management together with financing of that cost, to provide evidence for an implementable solution. This framework can be used to identify cost effective sludge management options and private contributions towards that cost in other (context-specific) administrative areas where onsite sanitation is widespread.

The government of Bangladesh is increasingly paying attention to the safe collection and disposal of fecal sludge from pit latrines in rural areas. In this paper, we report on current sludge disposal practices from single-pit latrines, by conducting a survey of 1,091 households with pit latrines in a rural subdistrict of Bangladesh. Almost all households were using their pits, and 90% reported that hiring pit emptiers to empty the pit for reuse was the dominant pit management practice. However, 90% of households also reported that the sludge from these pits would be disposed of in the vicinity of their homes, by digging wide and shallow troughs in the soil to absorb the sludge. These results indicate an urgent need to design an organized service that safely transports fecal sludge away for treatment. The National Committee for Fecal Sludge Management, constituted by the government of Bangladesh, is using these results to design policy for sludge management.