Elsevier

Public Health

Volume 137, August 2016, Pages 59-61
Public Health

Short Communication
Extreme water conservation in Alaska: limitations in access to water and consequences to health

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2016.06.002Get rights and content

Highlights

  • In rural Alaska, 22% of occupied homes lack in-home piped water.

  • Residents must haul water home resulting in severely limited water for basic hygiene.

  • Estimates of water use are 1.5 gallons/capita/day equivalent to living in a desert.

  • Limited water quantity is associated with increased respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal infections.

  • Installation of pipes in community water systems is extremely expensive therefore important to consider alternative technologies to increased water quantity.

Section snippets

Ethical approval

None sought. This paper reports on findings of other published studies or studies in press.

Funding

None declared. This paper reports on findings of other published studies or studies in press.

Competing interests

None declared.

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There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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    Indeed, communities in rural Alaska are particularly expensive to serve given their remote locations and extreme climate and weather conditions. In 2012, the capital costs to construct piped water systems for unserved communities in Alaska was estimated to be $300 million (Thomas et al., 2016a). Unlike communities without access to in-home water and sanitation services in many low- and middle-income countries, many households in rural Alaska have access to high-quality healthcare through the Alaska Tribal Health System.

  • A community approach to promote household water security: Combining centralized and decentralized access in remote Alaskan communities

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    However, washeterias are not always available when residents need them, some shower and laundry services are unaffordable, and many of the facilities need critical repairs. Several case studies in remote ANCs have described the limited quantity of water used in unplumbed households, around 1.5–2.5 gal/c/d (5.7–9.5 l/c/d), less than the 4.0 gal/c/d (15.0 l/c/d) recommended by the Sphere Handbook (Sphere [42] for a refugee camp [14,16,18,45,46]. Limited access to water results in water rationing and reuse of dirty washbasin and laundry water [45].

  • Recognizing the dynamics of household water insecurity in the rapidly changing polar north: Expected uncertainties in access, quality, and consumption patterns in Niugtaq (Newtok), Alaska

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    Although the sample size specific to Niugtaq is small, the results are reflective of my larger dataset representing over 120 individuals and 9 remote communities in Northwestern and Western Alaska. Further, the estimates of treated water consumption presented here are consistent with findings in other remote Alaska Native communities (Eichelberger, 2010; Thomas et al., 2016). Current research being undertaken by the author will increase this sample size and enable statistical analyses of trends identified here.

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