Everyday risks and access to water and sanitation in Lilongwe urban and peri-urban areas

<p>The household survey INHAbIT Cities - UNHIDE (Investigating Natural, Historical and Institutional Transformations in Cities &nbsp;and&nbsp;Uncovering Hidden Dynamics in Slum Environments)&nbsp;focuses on urban risks and sanitation in Lilongwe. The aim was to&nbsp;assess&nbsp;access to basic services and risks&nbsp;perception of urban dwellers living&nbsp;in areas characterised by different conditions of access to water and sanitation and other basic services. Lilongwe was a small town of less than 20,000 inhabitants in 1966 and only started growing after it became the capital in 1975. Its&nbsp;population has reached approximately 1 million inhabitants, living in 58 administrative units, called areas. Infrastructures and service provision is concentrated in the&nbsp;central areas&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;where parliament, ministries, government offices, embassies, hotels and the commercial area were located - &nbsp;while low income areas suffer the most from infrastructure and basic services deficits. To illustrate,&nbsp;while some areas access water through in-house connections, others are served through water kiosks, characterised (in some areas) by high rates of discontinuity. Similarly,&nbsp;everyday risks are unevenly distributed across urban spaces: as shown in the survey perception of risks varies drastically from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and depending on the quality and availability of services provided.&nbsp;Data for this survey were collected between February and April 2015 by a team of local researchers, who administered the questionnaire in local language.</p> <p>Publications linked to this survey are:</p> <p>Rusca M., Alda Vidal C., Hordijk M., Kral N., (2017) Bathing without water, and other stories of everyday hygiene practices and risk perception in urban low-income areas: the case of Lilongwe, Malawi, Environment and Urbanisation Vol 29, Issue 2, pp. 533 &ndash; 550.&nbsp;</p> <p>Tiwale S.,&nbsp;Rusca M<strong>.</strong>, Zwarteveen M.,&nbsp;The power of pipes: mapping urban water inequities through the material properties of networked water infrastructures. The case of Lilongwe, Malawi, Water Alternatives, Water Alternatives 11(2): 314-335.</p> <p>Rusca M.&nbsp;(2018): Visualising urban inequalities: the ethics of videography and documentary filmmaking in water research,&nbsp;<em>Wires Water</em>,&nbsp;<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1292">https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1292</a></p>