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INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW
Globally, there is a recognition that by 2025, 2.8 billion people in 48 countries of the world will face water stress (GWP/OECD 2015). By 2050, the number of countries facing water stress or scarcity could rise to 54, with a combined population of 4 billion people - about 40% of the projected global population of 9.4 billion (Gardner-Outlaw & Engleman 1997). Data from the Global Water Availability Model (GWAM) is noted by Hejazi et al. (2014) to further increase to 44% by 2095. In East Africa, Rowell et al. (2015) note that a number of climate models estimate an East African paradox. This paradox predicts an increase in rainfall over the coming decades which could lead to subsoil saturation, increased evapotranspiration and flooding. Mitigation measures to combat water scarcity require both changes to social norms such as wise water management as well as technology adaptation (Godfrey et al. 2010). Water scarce countries such as Australia have attempted to adapt their approach to water supply provision by focussing on climate resilient water systems (Amarasinghe et al. 2016). However, challenges in the provision of climate resilient water supplies include limited data on the cost effectiveness of these interventions and restricted published information on the means of policy modifications. Watts et al. (2012) developed a methodology to test the drought resilience of two contrasting English water resource systems. The paper concluded that a combination of significant behaviour change to reduce consumer demand combined with engineering measures were required during a peak drought period to ensure the continuity of supply. This however assumes that water supply planners have selected the most appropriate water supply option at the outset.
In the case of many developing countries, water supply coverage levels remained low during the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) period. In order to boost coverage, water supply planners and policy makers selected low cost ‘point source’ water supply options to boost minimal water supply coverage in the attempt to achieve the global MDG targets. Hutchings et al. (2016), in a study of rural wells with hand pumps in Bihar, India, note that there is a need for a move from a binary understanding of access to water supply to a holistic measure of service level that is...