Strategies for Achieving Sustainability of Water Supply Systems in Rural Environments with Community Management in Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, thank you very much for the opportunity to read this paper on an important topic. I read it with interest. However, the presentation of the paper has flaws. The research aim is not clarified at the beginning. You do not properly address the literature on community-based water supply. The methods section is insufficient to explain the validity of your research design. We do not learn wether this is a comparative study as you single out two federal states, Ceará and Espírito Santo. Readers not familiar to the Brazilian context are not informed about the socio-economic characteristics and rural development in this two states. Why are they selected? What is the benefit of chosing these two states? How are the experts in water and sanitation recruited among the VIII National Seminar and III Latin American Rural Water and Sanitation Meeting? The meeting was in 2016, so the data appears outdated? What are the professions of these experts?

Please go deeper into the literature to identify the nature of the problems you are addressing, and provide some theoretical foundation. Do you argue from a common property theory perspective, from political economy, from institutional perspectives, do you consider water a human right? Also, apart from the legal framework, please provide more factual context to the Brazilian situation.

Please see more comments in the attached.

What is your contribution to the literature?

This does not appear as a fully fledged research article. Please consider publishing as a working paper.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

At times, the language is imprecise and lacks meaningful connection between sentences. It is not enough to write "... has been discussed in the literature" without providing refeences (l.5 on page 11). There is a lack of attention to proper punctuation and spacing.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We are grateful for your work and dedication to our study. We welcome all comments and will be happy to consider them to make the manuscript even more accurate. Soon we will send the manuscript with the changes made.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This well-structured and well-written paper contributes a useful multi-level framework for assessing and planning management of community-managed rural water supply systems (CMWS).  The authors use a combination of methods that draw on reviews of the existing literature, lessons learned from successful experiences in two Brazilian states, and the assessment by eleven water system management experts interviewed at a Water Management conference. The main contribution of the paper is to systematize information to suggest specific strategies at national, state, and community levels to address factors that have been identified as critical to the success of CMWS.

 

The figures and tables are mostly clear and straightforward (but Figure 1 on p. 4 repeats the last two Critical Factors).  Taking as a point of departure the critical factors in rural CMWS derived from a literature review, they develop a comprehensive set of specific strategies needed to address each of these factors at three levels:  national; state/municipal; and community.  (My recommendation would be to refer to state/municipal levels rather than local policy levels, to avoid confusion since communities are the most local level analyzed.) 

 

At an international Water Management conference held in Brazil in 2016, the authors recruited eleven water systems management experts who participated in simple face-to-face interviews in which they provided yes/no answers to signal their acceptance or non-acceptance of each of 19 specific strategy proposals – 5 at the national level; 12 at the state/municipal level; and 2 at the community level.  They excluded only one of the strategies that did not garner agreement from at least 80% (9 of 11 informants):  “Define the composition of a national council that acts on issues related to water for human consumption; and rural water and sanitation.”  It would be helpful to have some insight as to why this one strategy generated so much disagreement compared to all the others.  It would also be helpful to have more information about how the experts were selected, what proportion they represented of the conference attendees, and any potential sources of bias in their selection – especially since they expressed such overwhelming agreement with the authors’ proposals.

 

With a few additional details about the expert interviewee selection process, and other minor editing, I find this paper to be a useful contribution for this publication.

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We are grateful for your work and dedication to our study. We welcome all comments and will be happy to consider them to make the manuscript even more accurate. Soon we will send the manuscript with the changes made.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors propose a manuscript titled “Strategies for achieving sustainability of water supply systems in rural environments with community management in Brazil”

The review/article is a crucial document to solve a deep problem on water use/management in rural areas in Brazil. It is well structured and written. policy documentation on urban-rural concept, including the accessibility to resources, and human rights. In particular in this country there is a large deficit in the coverage of water and sanitation services, especially in rural areas. In this way to access to water, the legal framework addresses the development of decentralization actions and co-participation in management, and is emerged as the social tool in which the community effectively participates in decision-making.The authors highlight that no strategic plan exists to for these critical factors and proposed an action plan with multiscale intersectoral management strategies to guarantee water security for rural populations. Below are indicated some few revisions useful for a further improvement the manuscript.

1. Introduction

·      I suggest to improve with some crucial references choosing among that exist for the Brazilian territory;

·      It should evaluate the social, economic, cultural, institutional, and environmental aspects, as well as community participation, educational actions, and model management, as observed in other world countries (e.g. Pisani et al. 2021, add other references), evaluating also the wild local plants resources undemanding to water (e.g. Accogli et al. 2023  add other references from Brazil).

I would also consider these crucial aspects:

·      Is it possible to hope for water reservoir centres?

·      What strategies from a technical point of view are suggested?

·      Is rainwater harvesting an adoptable strategy in relation to the ongoing desertification process?

 

Add a reference:

ü Accogli, R.; Tomaselli, V.; Direnzo, P.; Perrino, E.V.; Albanese, G.; Urbano, M.; Laghetti, G. Edible Halophytes and Halo-Tolerant Species in Apulia Region (Southeastern Italy): Biogeography, Traditional Food Use and Potential Sustainable Crops. Plants 2023, 12, 549. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12030549

ü Pisani, D., Pazienza, P., Perrino, E.V., Caporale, D., De Lucia, C. The Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services of Biodiversity Components in Protected Areas: A Review for a Framework of Analysis for the Gargano National Park. Sustainability 2023, 13, 11726. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111726

 

 

2. Materials and Methods and 3. Results and discussion 

Well done. No specific observations

 

Conclusions

 

need to be implemented with two words about the future research to be undertaken related to the scarcity of water, hence the desertification process, including political issues.

Please check whole manuscript, there are some minor English mistake.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We are grateful for your work and dedication to our study. We welcome all comments and will be happy to consider them to make the manuscript even more accurate. Soon we will send the manuscript with the changes made.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, thank you for your improvements to the paper. It reads better now

Nevertheless, there are a some issues that need to be resolved in order to make the paper publishable, in my opinion:

- Your engagement with the literature on community-managed water supply (CMWS) is, unfortunately, still superficial. Sources [19-23] are fine but aren't there more, largely theoretical contributions? Please engage deeper with the global literature on the topic. For instance, you write: "Nevertheless, there is a gap in the literature concerning integrated and coordinated strategies and actions to solve/mitigate the critical factors commonly associated with CMWS in several countries [24]" and then cite one paper on dairy development in Kenya. A gap in the literature should not be diagnosed by referring to more than one paper, surely?

- Your methods are not self-explanatory. Please justify expert opinion and small sample (11) by referring to social science literature

- In the conclusion, you should normaly start with summarizing your research question and aim of the study, then describe your results with one or two paragraphs, point towards limitations and possibilities for other research, and give recommendation for action, if you see fit.

- Your conclusion is astonishing: "In addition to adopting strategies such as the instrumentalization of sustainable universalization of access to water in rural communities, there must be an interaction between the stakeholders, state, environmental governance, and civil society to tackle this problem." -- isn't this exactly the objective of community-managed water supply approaches, to ensure the interaction between stakeholders, state and civil society?

- The newly added sections need to be proofread. I spotted some errors.

Thank you for once more making an effort to improve the paper.

Some expressions are not idiomatic "The CMWS has occurred as a resource for government of private management." (it is not a resource, it is an approach to management of natural resources); "This study brings a methodological outline of the research that brings the discussion of the critical factors for achieving sustainability of supply systems in rural communities that had the participation of 88 specialists [17]." (2x brings, style)...

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thanks again for all the dedication to our manuscript.

We are pleased that the changes were relevant to improving the manuscript. About the comments made:

• "Sources [19-23] are fine but aren't there more, largely theoretical contributions? Please engage deeper with the global literature on the topic."

We followed the suggestion and added new references in the introduction. Nine more studies with international indexes were added.

• "Your methods are not self-explanatory. Please justify expert opinion and small sample (11) by referring to social science literature."

The number of respondents reflects the conditions in which our study was conducted. The interviews were conducted at an event that brought together rural water and sanitation specialists.

As a parameter for selecting the interviewees, the ten years (minimum) of experience - rural water supply - planning, project, and post-construction support - and the level of education and the interest of the specialists in the subject of this study were considered.

Despite being a limited number of interviews, the opinions obtained through the forms are of significant relevance. More details have been added to the text of the article.

• "In the conclusion, you should normaly start with summarizing your research question and aim of the study, then describe your results with one or two paragraphs, point towards limitations and possibilities for other research, and give recommendation for action, if you see fit."

We follow the suggestion and restructure our conclusions.

• "The newly added sections need to be proofread. I spotted some errors."

The newly added sections have been revised, as well as the entire text. Some changes were made to improve the English language.

 

We are available for any questions,

The authors.

 

 

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, thank you for following the suggestions and improving the article in another round. I think it can be published now.