Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras, is located in a central mountainous region having a tropical climate within the Choluteca river basin. Major rivers supplying the capital city are the Choluteca and Guacerique rivers, which then fill the Concepción and Laureles storage reservoirs. With an urban population of approximately 900,000 and another 400,000 living in the surrounding neighborhoods, Tegucigalpa is being confronted with an array of imposing integrated urban water management (IUWM) challenges. Potable water coverage is poor, with around 40% of the city's residents without access to a piped water supply, relying instead on more costly water trucks and bottled water.
Furthermore, the capital city lies within a geographic depression amongst the surrounding mountain range, making the city prone to flooding and landslides; both occurred simultaneously in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch passed through Tegucigalpa, killing 180 people and leaving many more displaced. Other critical IUWM issues include: inadequate water quality and quantity levels; deteriorating watersheds, rivers, and storage reservoirs; inefficient water use; rapid and poorly planned urbanization; intensive competition between industrial and domestic water users as well as irrigation demands; and industrial and domestic effluents discharging into the rivers, tributaries, and reservoirs without treatment.
Overcoming these challenges has been difficult for SANAA (Servicio Autonomo Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillados), the state-run water and sewage utility in Tegucigalpa. SANAA's funding and roles are becoming uncertain as Honduras continues to decentralize SANAA's functions and transfer SANAA assets to municipalities. The decentralization process began with the 2003 Water Framework Law and further progressed with the passing of new legal and institutional initiatives such as the General Water Law (2009) and subsequent National Water Authority.
The General Water Law and the National Water Authority are efforts to address IUWM challenges in Tegucigalpa and throughout Honduras. The National Water Authority replaces the General Directorate of Water Resources and will continue with an oversight function of the decentralized institutional framework including the work of SANAA.
Social and economic factors Over the last few decades, Honduras and the capital city of Tegucigalpa have urbanized faster than any other Central American country or city. Much of this is due to the fact that Honduras had until then remained one of the least urbanized countries in the Americas, making it ripe for high rates of urbanization. Between 1985 and 1990, the urbanization rate was at 5%; although it has decreased, forecasts from the United Nations Population Division estimate rapid urbanization through 2010.
Tegucigalpa's population density in 2001 was at 99 persons per hectare. However, the distribution of inhabitants varies greatly throughout different areas of the city. In general, people avoid living on steep hillsides where landslides are of considerable concern or in the river valley where flooding is a constant danger.
On the economic side, structural shifts from agricultural to industrial bases have necessitated movements to an urban setting for much of the population. Between 1983 and 2003, the percentage of Honduras’ population employed in agriculture declined from 43% to 34%. This has increased pressure on water supplies and decreased the quality of treatment. Tegucigalpa also struggles with costly inefficiencies across its water resources, stormwater management, sanitation and solid waste services. A recent World Bank estimate has shown that the total economic cost to the city to exceeds US$60 million per year.
Compared to other countries in the Americas, GNP per capita is low but increasing and will likely continue to grow. The struggling US and global economies are having a substantial negative impact on the local economy, as remittances, exports and foreign direct investments are contracting. Real GDP growth was projected to fall to around 2.0 percent by end-2009 while per capita income stands at US$1,700.
Geography and climate Tegucigalpa is located in a central mountainous region within a mild tropical zone. There are two primary seasons during the year: a wet season from May to October, and a dry season from November to April. Temperatures are moderate, with average lows around 60 °F and average highs around 70 °F. Rainfall averages range from 0.2 inches in February to 7.30 inches in September with annual rainfall averages from 36 to 39 inches.
By comparison, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States) statistics show average rainfall throughout the rest of Honduras at about 60 inches per year while in Central America, the average is much higher at 94 inches per year. Rainfall averages in the whole of Latin America are 61 inches annually.
Infrastructure
Water supply Tegucigalpa, which suffers from ongoing water supply challenges, receives water from major rivers that run through the city. The Choluteca and Guacerique rivers supply water to the Concepción and Laureles reservoirs providing Tegucigalpa with a combined flow of 2 cubic meters per second (m3/s). The system is predominantly gravity-fed, with limited pumping to strategically placed elevated tanks to increase water pressure in some areas.
Water is also taken from the Picacho and Sabacuante tributaries. In Tegucigalpa, there are more than 500 perforated wells, which yield between 1–3 liters per second (L/s) of groundwater. Some have greater yields of between 2 and 20 L/s.
Water use & availability World Bank research indicates that the annual water availability in the natural watershed of Tegucigalpa is 175 (m3/year/inhabitant), concentrated over a six-month rainy season. Year-to-year storage capacity has not kept up with population growth, which has increased sevenfold in the last 50 years. In 2006, water use in Tegucigalpa was 227 liters per capita per day (L/c/d), and by comparison, it is 545 L/c/d in smaller municipal systems.
Water resources fall short of the City's demand; recent estimations have shown the city's water supply has a deficit of about 60 million m3/year or about 2 m3/s, mostly during the dry season (close to 50% of total demand). As a result, severe water restriction programs are imposed during most summers, leading to highly discontinuous water service.
A large percentage of Tegucigalpa's poorest households (38%) do not have access to SANAA's piped water services, where, by contrast, only 2% of the wealthiest do not have access to SANAA's piped water. Use of bottled water is quite important in Tegucigalpa as a whole, but only 12% of the poor use this option, as compared to 70% of the more affluent. Water storage towers filled by SANAA trucks are not widely used by the poor because the water is expensive. Only 3% of households report obtaining water from the water towers.
Sanitation and water treatment Sanitation services throughout Tegucigalpa and surrounding areas are poor. Even though SANAA estimates that 70% of the city is connected to the municipal sewer system, the coverage area is very low in outlying neighborhoods and service quality is not good. Those not connected to the sewer system utilize either a latrine or septic tank. Choluteca, Chiquito, and Guacerique rivers are adversely affected by ongoing urbanization of Tegucigalpa, and so by consequence, the Laureles and La Concepción storage reservoirs have become quite contaminated. (Source: Grant funding request for the Water Partnership Program) The estimated total length of the sewerage system is approximately of 840 km. Tegucigalpa has 2 wastewater treatment plants operating with a total capacity of about 400 L/s; however, these plants treat less than 17% of total wastewater.
This is a problematic situation and further exacerbates the City's environmental problems. In particular, one of the two wastewater plants within the city was funded by the EU and built by an Italian/Honduran consortium using an aerobic treatment system with capacity to treat 100 L/s in a preliminary treatment phase and in a second treatment phase, the plant can treat another 100 L/s. This plant is currently managed by an Italian firm and it was expected that the plant would be transferred to the city of Tegucigalpa after the transition of management roles from SANAA to the municipality is completed. There were problems with the plant however, due to the plant's design and furthermore, SANAA was set to possibly reject the transition of the plant and associated management roles. The SANAA Director stated that the treatment plant did not meet the expectations outlined in the contract.
Water challenges Despite the announcement in his inauguration from then-President Manuel Zelaya that his government would invest 1% of the general budget in the protection of natural resources, water remained absent from that promise. The manager of SANAA, Mr. Jorge Mendez, speaking at the U.S. Embassy on the management of water and sanitation, stated that, "Honduras has moved rather poorly on the issue." Mr. Mendez asserted that Honduras is well behind in achieving the objectives set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS). He urged his country to give the same level of importance to water supply challenges that is given to sanitation and that the two issues need to be worked on in parallel or neither challenge would be met.
The June 2009 coup d'etat, in which the Honduran military removed President Zelaya by force, did not have a severe effect on urban water management in Greater Tegucigalpa. Notably though, international developments banks suspended ongoing projects during this political instability. Also a challenge, the mayor of Tegucigalapa and Honduran President represent opposing parties and this creates a lack of political will in addressing the political divide between SANAA and the municipality of Tegucigalpa. Lack of political will and a lack of proper capacity to adequately address urban water challenges further exacerbate the difficult challenges that the capital city must confront.
Insufficient water availability The 2004 calculated volume of water flowing from the Choluteca, Chiquito, and Guacerique rivers to the Laureles and La Concepción reservoirs was not enough to meet the demand of the more than one million inhabitants living in the capital city. A 2002 World Bank study suggested that the average water availability deficit was approximately 18% in the wet season, and rose to 45% during the dry season.
Local news stories from the past ten years are full of periodic coverage of forced rationing and shortages caused by seasonal drought, weather patterns (e.g. El Nino), and natural disasters (e.g. Hurricane Mitch). Supply problems are further complicated by other important factors, including: urban and agricultural contamination of watersheds; competition between agricultural uses (i.e. irrigation) and urban uses (i.e. domestic, industrial, commercial water users); and Honduras’ dependence on hydroelectric power for more than two thirds of total national power generation.
Supply issues are especially a problem in the outlying barrios surrounding Tegucigalpa, representing about 38% of the population. This poorer sector of population lives on steep hillsides where the piped water system cannot reach. These communities therefore receive water from SANAA water trucks that fill storage tanks that is then later sold at inflated prices.
Inefficient water use The current water tariff system favors waste over conservation, and is structured to subsidize large water consumers, particularly middle-class and wealthy households. Problems with the tariff structure stem from an absence of household water meters. SANAA estimates that in a city of approximately 200,000 households, there are only 62,000 water meters, and of those, only 23,000 are functional.