Sustainability Assessment of the Rural Clean Water Supply System in Hai Phong City

Since the end of 2019, 92.1% of rural households in Hai Phong city had been able to access and use clean drinking water, which meets national standards as a result of developing a clean water supply system consisting of 205 plants with various management models. The authors applied the desk-study method to collect and review literature research, select a group of six criteria, and then applied the criteria to assess the system's sustainability based on Likert's 3-point scale. The results show that criteria scores ranged from 1.9 points to 2.5 points, while the total score of the whole system is 12.9 points reaching an average sustainability level. The authors propose that in order to improve the sustainability of the clean water supply system in the rural areas of Hai Phong city in the future, management agencies and investors need to apply a solution of propagating rural people to increase their usage volume of clean water, which will help to increase the actual operating capacities of the plants, thereby increasing the revenue and profits of plant investors.


Introduction
The goal of ensuring clean water for people in general and especially rural people, in particular, has become one of the United Nations millennium development goals since 2000 (UNICEF & WHO, 2015). This goal was concretized in the National Strategy and Program on Rural Water Supply and Sanitation up to 2020 in Vietnam with the goal that "All rural people have access to clean water according to national standards with a quantity of at least 60 liters/person/day" (Prime Minister, 2000). Using clean and hygienic drinking water is one of the essential living needs to ensure the quality of life of all people. Therefore, it is necessary to manage rural

Research methods
The authors applied the desk-study method to review studies and documents related to sustainability assessments of rural clean water systems. The terms "sustainability of rural water supply", "sustainable criteria to assess rural water supply", and "factors affecting the sustainability of rural water supply" were used to search documents in ProQuest's database, Google Scholar, and Research Gate. The collected relevant documents were synthesized and analyzed to find a group of representative criteria suitable for assessing the sustainability of the rural clean water system in Hai Phong city.
In addition, the authors synthesized the specialized reports of the People's Committee of Hai Phong city and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Hai Phong city to collect secondary data on the operation status of the system of rural water supply plants in the city. The collected data were synthesized, analyzed, and represented by the authors through tables and graphs to illustrate the research content. The descriptive statistical method and comparative statistics were used to evaluate the overall sustainability of the rural clean water supply system in Hai Phong city.

Selection of criteria to assess the sustainability of the rural clean water supply
The formation, operation, and exploitation of rural clean water systems involve all actors in the system: from state management agencies, governments at all levels, investors, and households living in the area. Due to the characteristic of the water supply service as an essential public service that serves the daily lives of the people, the sustainability of the system is set as a top goal.
Many studies have mentioned good criteria that are the basic factors determining the sustainability of water supply systems. Accordingly, studies referring to the sustainability of clean water systems in rural areas all agreed that the sustainability of a system is reflected in its ability to provide water continuously over time, and not having negative impacts on the environment. However, Brikké & Rojas (2001) extended the definition of the sustainability of rural clean water systems when it comes to sustainability in terms of governance, operations, maintenance, cost, and community management. Peter & Nkambule (2012), Ibrahim (2017), andJimenez-Redal et al. (2018) generalized these criteria into technical, social, environmental, financial, trust, and organization of the sustainability factors. In addition, many studies were concerned with the availability of the services, the satisfaction of water users, and the level of household payment for clean water (Montangero, 2009). Inheriting the above research results, the study of Domínguez et al. (2019) came up with 17 criteria with 95 quantifiable sub-criteria to assess the sustainability of the clean water system in Colombia. The tool's completeness was represented by its extensive attributes and metrics that provide a powerful analytical framework of the state of the system, help identify improvement strategies, and monitor the management of the system over time.
In Vietnam, Hoang Thai Dat & Manh Quan Phuc (2007) addressed a group of six criteria to assess the sustainability of the water supply in Bac Giang province. In 2012, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the state management agency of the rural clean water sector, also issued a set of criteria for evaluating the sustainability of a water supply system according to Criterion 8 in the Clean Water Monitoring and Evaluation set by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (2012) with five sub-criteria. In this study, the authors selected a group of six criteria as described in Figure 1 and scoring system as described in Table 1. The set of six sustainability assessment criteria showed the synthesis and inheritance of the standard views on sustainability of water systems as stated above by international scholars and organizations. Then, the average score for each sustainability criterion of the rural clean water supply system of Hai Phong city was calculated following the formula presented in Table 2.
The total sustainability score of system was determined by the following formula: where E is the total score representing the system's sustainability and Vi is the score of   If the E score ≥ 15 points, the system operates sustainably. If E reaches 12-15 points, the system operates fairly sustainably. If the E score is 6-12 points, the system does not operate sustainably.

Results and Discussion
The clean water supply system in Hai Phong city According to the review results of the rural state budget system of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Hai Phong city (2019), currently, the city had 215 facilities providing clean water to rural areas ( Table 3). These facilities were built in the period from 1997 to 2016 under the National Target Program on Rural Clean Water and Sanitation.
Small-capacity water plants were built in seven suburban districts, with an average of 1.5 water supply plants in each commune. This rate was especially high in An Lao, Kien Thuy, and Thuy Nguyen districts (Table 4). Meanwhile, Cat Hai island district had only two water plants built, not enough to supply all the communes in the area.
Under the policy of socializing of the National Target Program on Rural Clean Water and Sanitation, the rural clean water supply plants in the area were built from capital contributed by different investors. Therefore, the water supply plants in the area also had differences in their operational management models. As shown in Table 5, the plants were managed by private enterprises and individual business households dominated in quantity compared to the cooperative model and the Commune People's Committee model.
However, up to the present time, the inspection of the Department of Agriculture and Vietnam Journal of Agricultural Sciences      The sustainability of the clean water supply system in Hai Phong city

Sustainability of the water input sources
The lack of planning for the rural clean water system had led to the fact that the water input sources of more than 46% of the water plants in the area were heavily polluted or at risk of pollution, and this risk was mainly concentrated in the area of the two districts Thuy Nguyen and An Lao ( Table 7). The reason was that the majority of the plants get their water input from sources like irrigation canals, which contained a lot of waste because these canals had not been invested in regularly for renovations (Bich Hoa, 2016). This had a great influence on the quality of the output water, especially in the context that the water treatment systems of the plants were not advanced and modern.

Sustainability of plant capacities
According to each plants' registration, most of the plants had small design capacities of 200-500 m 3 /daily. However, a majority of them were operating at an actual capacity of less than 50% of their designed capacity ( Table 8).
The reason was attributed to the insufficiency or degradation of the plants' treatment systems, which include sedimentation tanks, storage tanks, and chlorine pumps, etc. On the other hand, water loss still occurred due to the use of unqualified, old, and outdated water measuring equipment, which also affected the operating capacities of these plants (Nhat Minh, 2015).

Sustainability of the operation staff
The classification of the water supply plants in the area shows that most of the water plants were managed and operated by investors who were private enterprises or individual business households. Interviews with representatives of the water plants in the research area showed that the water plants were managed according to the traditional model with 3-5 staff. These personnel were not well trained in the management of the water plants but were often relatives of these investors who had taken advantage of opportunities to create jobs. Therefore, it could be seen that the management and operation of the plants are not methodical and effective. The average score for this sustainability criterion reached 2.1 points ( Table 9).

Sustainability of financing
Due to the regulation that each region has only one water supply unit, small capacity water plants could not expand their operational areas, but could only provide water services in a specific area. On the other hand, for current customers, not all of them have been using clean water from water plants as the main source of their domestic household water but only using a minimum amount of the water supplied (Nguyen Thi Thu Quynh et al., 2018). This affected the revenue of the water plants which may not increase but may also decrease. Moreover, compliance with regulations on selling clean water at a pre-determined price set by the City People's Committee made the water plants not only passively run their business but also not ensure their expected profit. Survey results of the owners of water plants in the research areas show that most of the water plants that are in operation could only collect recovery costs, the rest of them had to stop operation or converted to transfer stations. On the other hand, 39 plants were operating with an actual capacity greater than the designed capacity (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Hai Phong city, 2019). This implies that their revenue was higher than expected, and they were profitable in the clean water service business ( Table 10). The average rating of this criterion was 1.9 points.

Sustainability of technology
According to the inspection report of the Hai Phong Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (2019), most of the water plants in the province had outdated water treatment technology (accounting for 24%) or only had suitable technology to produce water which meets the QCVN02 standard (accounting for 67%) (Figure 2). At their current level of technology, these plants were not eligible to upgrade and improve the treatment system to ensure the quality of the output water meets the QCVN01 standard for drinking water. The average score for this criterion was 2.4 points.  The reason for the outdated technology was that many of the plants had been in operation for a long time (since the 1999-2003 period), so they were now out of date and in various stages of deterioration. Unfortunately, due to the unfavorable financing situation, the revenue was not enough to cover costs, so they did not have enough accumulated capital to invest in renovating and upgrading works.

Sustainability of water availability
Water availability reflects the ability to supply water stably to serve the regular and continuous needs of the people. Survey results showed that, in addition to the 38 plants that have stopped operating, there were still three plants operating in moderation ( Table 11). The proportion of water plants supplying infrequent and continuous water supplies accounted for 40%. Only 40% of the plants were capable of supplying water regularly and continuously. The average score for this criterion was 2.2 points.
Thus, the synthesis of the assessment results according to all six criteria for the sustainability of the system of water plants in the area showed that the total score of all six criteria was only 12.9 points, corresponding to the level of fair sustainability. Among the six criteria, the highest sustainability criteria was the water input source and technology, while plant capacity and financing criteria were the two lowest (Figure 3). However, the assessment report of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Hai Phong City (2019) on the sustainability statuses in the operation of the rural clean water plants in the Hai Phong city was much more optimistic as described in Figure 4.    Solutions to improving the sustainability of Hai Phong's rural clean water system Based on the analysis above, it can be said that the sustainability of Hai Phong's rural clean water system was not in as good condition as expected. The lowest sustainability scores were related to the plant capacity, financing, and operation staff criteria as addressed in Figure 3. Therefore, in the future, a number of solutions should be done in order to improve the sustainability of the systems.
First, toward the financing and plant capacity criteria: the state management agency on rural clean water as well as the water supply plants need to strengthen propaganda to the local people about the importance of clean water and the need to appropriately increase in their clean water level usage, which in turn increases the demand for water and increases the actual capacities of the plants. Because an increase in the operating capacity also contributes to increases in revenue and profits, plant owners will then have the ability to reinvest in technology upgrades and improve the regular water supply capacities of the plants in the future, eventually ensuring enhanced sustainability in providing safe clean water services for daily life and improving the quality of life of people in rural areas in Hai Phong city. Second, toward the financing criterion: water quality should be ensured to gain the trust of consumers and encourage households to consume more water. Thus, this needs to be guaranteed not only through the commitments of the water supply plants but also through regular checks of the plants by the water management agencies.
Third, toward the operation staff: the water supply plants should improve the working capacity of the operation staff. The operation staff should be regularly trained in terms of not only technical practices in water treatment management but also good practices in providing customer service for water consumers.

Conclusions
The synthesis and evaluation of the current situation of the entire rural clean water system in Hai Phong city according to the six selection criteria revealed that the sustainability of the system was at a reasonably sustainable level. Many of the sustainability criteria are not yet guaranteed. The sustainability criteria scores ranged from 1.9, for plant capacity and financing, to 2.5, for water input source, with the total score of the whole system was 12.9 points out of 18.0 points. Based on this situation, we propose that in order to improve the sustainability of the clean water supply system in the rural areas of Hai Phong city in the future, management agencies and investors need to apply some solutions, including: (1) strengthening propaganda to the people about the importance of clean water and using appropriate amounts of water to increase demand and increase the actual capacity of plants; (2) ensuring the water quality, and (3) improving the working capacity of the operation staff.