| Popis: |
Rural areas largely lack access to improved drinking water-sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) facilities in India. This requires documentation and knowledge of WaSH practices at the local level for better understanding and for sustainable development. In this paper, a global positioning system (GPS) based household survey was carried out in 67 villages of Phagi tehsil using individual questionnaires to evaluate the existing WaSH conditions spatially at the panchayat level. Three sub-indices were used for assessment and risk areas mapping with the integration of advanced computing methods. Support Vector Machine Regression (SVMR) was used to find the correlation and for predicting the WaSH conditions. Results indicate the improvement in the availability of toilet facilities due to government efforts however toilet usage is least in the study area. Data shows that only six panchayats have almost zero open defecation practices among the 32 panchayats of Phagi tehsil. The findings highlight that presence of toilets, water availability in toilets and high literacy rate could lead to an increase in toilet usage. Groundwater quality data analysis reflects the unsuitability of water for drinking purposes in the area. WaSH index scores infer that panchayats like Mandawari, Mendwas, Chandma Kalan, and Rotwara display the worst condition and fall in the high-risk category. Moreover, SVMR results reveal that WaSH scores are mainly affected by open defecation (r = 0.94) and toilet water availability (r = 0.92). The findings demonstrate that the WaSH index can be used as a monitoring tool by local policymakers to shrink the WaSH gaps. |
