Assessment of water demand management practices for selected water authorities in Tanzania: case of Moshi and Mbeya urban water supply and sewerage authorities

Water Demand Management (WDM) is a key focus area for most water utilities Moshi and Mbeya authorities surveyed suffer to manage water demand , the reasons include limited physical coverage, dilapidated physical infrastructure, high levels of UFW, and low customer education among others. The objective of the study was to identify the current technical and socio economic aspect of WDM practices, community perception, gaps and constraints and then to propose WDM strategy. The study covered two authorities Mbeya and Moshi authorities. The methodology used was survey to water authorities, interviewing staffs and water consumers with the help of questionnaire, literature review. Data were analyzed by the use of Microsoft Excel. Moshi UWSA serves 95% of the population which is 150,000 with a 15,791 number of customers. Mbeya UWSA serves 93% of the population which Results indicate O&M problem where unaccounted for water is high which is 32.5% and 32% while meter usage is 100% and 70% for Moshi and Mbeya respectively. The time that water supply is available is 23hrs in Moshi with good water quality while in Mbeya is 21hrs with high turbidity value where sources have higher than the standard which is 15 NTU. More than 50% of consumers from both towns are not educated regarding to WDM. Major obstacles and constraints observed are poor tariff setting, public perception and lack of awareness, poor technology, and financial problems. Finally, WDM strategy was proposed and recommended to be adopted, the strategies is categorized into two parts, water demand reduction strategies; and supply rationalization strategies