Climate variability and its impact on sanitation facility choice: Evidence from Ethiopia

TY - UNPB

T1 - Climate variability and its impact on sanitation facility choice: Evidence from Ethiopia

AU - Gebru, Bahre

AU - Elofsson, Katarina

AU - Amuakwa-Mensah, Frank

AU - Marbuah, George

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - Climate change is expected to induce climate variability. This paper aims to investigate how climate variability affects households’ decisions on sanitation facilities that differ in how much they rely on water to function. We use household-level panel data from the Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey and location-matched, high-resolution weather data to construct climate variability variables. Using a panel fixed effects regression model, we find that increased precipitation variability is associated with a significant shift away from using improved sanitation facilities, in shared ones, toward unimproved sanitation facilities. Temperature variability, however, has the opposite impact. Both precipitation variability and temperature variability have heterogeneous impacts: the effect of precipitation variability is significant only in maleheaded households, while temperature variability particularly encourages the use of shared improved facilities in towns and urban areas. One explanation for the impact of precipitation variability is that heavy rain reduces access to piped water and sanitation networks due to physical damage. Moreover, climate variability reduces incentives to purchase water and water-related infrastructure. This occurs because precipitation variability restricts access to inputs post-flooding, while temperature variability aids the breakdown of solids in septic tanks, which would otherwise require a larger volume of water. These findings could help policymakers and practitioners implement evidence-based sanitation interventions to increase access to improved sanitation facilities.

AB - Climate change is expected to induce climate variability. This paper aims to investigate how climate variability affects households’ decisions on sanitation facilities that differ in how much they rely on water to function. We use household-level panel data from the Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey and location-matched, high-resolution weather data to construct climate variability variables. Using a panel fixed effects regression model, we find that increased precipitation variability is associated with a significant shift away from using improved sanitation facilities, in shared ones, toward unimproved sanitation facilities. Temperature variability, however, has the opposite impact. Both precipitation variability and temperature variability have heterogeneous impacts: the effect of precipitation variability is significant only in maleheaded households, while temperature variability particularly encourages the use of shared improved facilities in towns and urban areas. One explanation for the impact of precipitation variability is that heavy rain reduces access to piped water and sanitation networks due to physical damage. Moreover, climate variability reduces incentives to purchase water and water-related infrastructure. This occurs because precipitation variability restricts access to inputs post-flooding, while temperature variability aids the breakdown of solids in septic tanks, which would otherwise require a larger volume of water. These findings could help policymakers and practitioners implement evidence-based sanitation interventions to increase access to improved sanitation facilities.

KW - Climate variability

KW - Ethiopia

KW - Panel fixed effects

KW - Precipitation variability

KW - Sanitation facility

KW - temperature variability

M3 - Working paper

VL - Working Paper 382

BT - Climate variability and its impact on sanitation facility choice: Evidence from Ethiopia

PB - African Development Bank

ER -