Abstract

MORALES JUAREZ, H.  and  MENDEZ GARCIA, E. Ma. Del C.. Geodemographic analysis of domestic water service in the municipality of Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca. Invest. Geog [online]. 2022, n.108, e60529.  Epub Sep 12, 2022. ISSN 2448-7279.  https://doi.org/10.14350/rig.60529.

In Mexico, municipal water services consider the supply and sanitation of domestic water including access, collection, distribution, use, and treatment. With regard to regulations, the municipality is the basic unit in the provision of this public service, so municipalities have in charge of offering continuous water supply and sanitation across their territorial political jurisdiction. However, there are various water management and access modalities within each territory. In general, urbanized areas have public infrastructure to receive a continuous supply from municipalities. In contrast, populations in urban outskirts and rural areas do not receive this service, so they resort to other self-management systems to solve water supply in their communities. In this way, the complete picture of water services is distorted, showing a biased reality where the lack of water services in suburbs or rural localities with no official access to public water services is hard to discern. Given this situation, it is important to analyze the municipality through a sectoral approach since it is necessary to identify and characterize water management from the geodemographic scale, understood as population and territory.

The objective of this study was to analyze the coverage of domestic water public services and the other forms of access to water throughout the municipal area, according to the different types of population in which localities are classified. To this end, we followed a step-wise and systematic procedure to gather the necessary data and information on the research subject.

Based on the application of quantitative and qualitative research techniques, the methodological approach was organized into four stages: diagnosis, design, description, and analysis. Based on the information obtained, the territory of the municipality of Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca, was structured from 153 localities: 81 neighborhoods, 41 residential compounds, 11 municipal agencies, 16 police offices, and a rural core. Non-participant observations were made through a surveillance trip through the study area. From this, we concluded that in-depth surveys and interviews should be carried out considering the organization of inhabitants within localities. In this way, both surveys and in-depth interviews were addressed to key informants, including City Council officers and local representatives because they have records and experience in managing water services in their communities. A total of 153 surveys were conducted for neighborhood presidents, municipal agents or police officers in these communities. Meanwhile, 68 interviews were conducted with key informants in localities with lack of water supply from municipal services, as well as with City Council officers. Finally, we triangulated quantitative and qualitative information obtained from two categories of analysis: geographical disaggregation and its geodemographic dynamics.

The results showed the existence of four types of local water management sources: a) the government, b) independent water systems (IWSs), c) water delivery trucks, and d) private wells. It was identified that, given the lack of municipal water services, the local society is organized to get water supply by means of IWSs. However, this self-management modality is limited by the territorial conditions because the distance, the irregular topography and the sparsely distributed households represent geographic limits. As a result, the population living in urban outskirts and rural areas is forced to self-supply water from delivery trucks or private wells. With regard to the communities with self-supply from delivery trucks, the central issue is geodemographic. In this case, the necessary population does not exist and the geohydrological conditions of the land are unsuitable for constructing dikes or artesian wells, so the population gets water from delivery trucks. In the communities that extract water from wells, a large part of the water extracted is not only for household use but also for farming activities. It is worth noting that most households are used on a temporary basis, so managing any other type of water supply would be unsuitable.

Keywords : Organization for water; public supply; sanitation; geographic distribution.

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