Paulos Abigail Harvey, Carroll David A, Powers Julie, Campolo Jake, Kim Daehyun Daniel, Cohn Avery, Pickering Amy J
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA.
Nat Commun. 2025 Apr 12;16(1):3486. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-58780-9.
In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), over 75% of households lack on-premises water access, requiring residents to spend time walking to collect water from outside their homes - a time burden that falls disproportionately on women and girls. Climate change is predicted to alter precipitation and temperature patterns in SSA, which could impact household water access. Here, we use spatial first differences to assess the causal effects of weather on water fetching walk time using household survey data (n = 979,759 observations from 31 countries) merged with geo- and temporally-linked precipitation and temperature data over time periods ranging from 7 to 365 days. We find increases in precipitation reduce water fetching times; a 1 cm increase in weekly rainfall over the past year decreases walking time by 3.5 min. Higher temperatures increase walk times, with a 1°C increase in temperature over the past year increasing walking time by 0.76 min. Rural household water fetching times are more impacted by recent weather compared to urban households; however, electricity access in rural communities mitigates the effect. Our findings suggest that future climate change will increase the water fetching burden in SSA, but that co-provision of electricity and water infrastructure may be able to alleviate this burden.
在撒哈拉以南非洲地区（SSA），超过75%的家庭无法在家中获取水源，这使得居民需要花费时间走到家外取水——而这一时间负担对妇女和女孩的影响尤为严重。预计气候变化将改变撒哈拉以南非洲地区的降水和温度模式，这可能会影响家庭用水获取情况。在此，我们使用空间一阶差分法，利用家庭调查数据（来自31个国家的979,759条观测数据）与时间跨度为7至365天的地理和时间关联的降水及温度数据，评估天气对取水步行时间的因果效应。我们发现降水量增加会减少取水时间；过去一年每周降雨量每增加1厘米，步行时间就会减少3.5分钟。气温升高会增加步行时间，过去一年温度每升高1摄氏度，步行时间就会增加0.76分钟。与城市家庭相比，农村家庭的取水时间受近期天气的影响更大；然而，农村社区的电力供应可以减轻这种影响。我们的研究结果表明，未来的气候变化将增加撒哈拉以南非洲地区的取水负担，但电力和供水基础设施的共同提供或许能够减轻这一负担。
