Discussion Paper No. 337 of 2024 on Enhancing Rainwater Harvesting for Water, Food, and Health Security in Kenya

Abstract

Adoption of rainwater harvesting technologies has been low at household and community levels in Kenya. Besides, rainwater harvesting and storage is one of the strategies earmarked towards water security. The study provides evidence that rainwater harvesting promotes water and food security but fails to support the likely incidental effect on waterborne health risks. It reveals that adoption of rainwater harvesting technology increases with household wealth, time taken to collect water, amount of rainfall, age of household head, female gender as head of household, and post-secondary education. However, rainwater harvesting decreases with water demand, household size, rented dwellings, urban areas, employed heads of household, and number of roundtrips. Further, distance to water sources and marital status were not significant. The study recommends mandatory requirement of rainwater harvesting systems in all rental housing plans, investment in rainwater harvesting research, development, and innovations to establish appropriate domestic rainwater harvesting technologies that can serve large-sized and poor households for their high demand for water and limited ability to buy. Further, the selection criteria for potential adopters may consider household characteristics, rainwater technology characteristics, and water water-specific characteristics representing climatic and ecological factors.