@article{Osei-Asare:9520,
      recid = {9520},
      author = {Osei-Asare, Yaw Bonsu},
      title = {Household Water Coping Behaviour and Costs in the Volta  Basin of Ghana},
      address = {2004},
      number = {306-2016-4859},
      series = {AAAE Conference Proceedings No.1},
      pages = {12},
      year = {2004},
      abstract = {Ghana is abundant in water resources but frequently  experiences seasonal and periodic water scarcities.  Households therefore adopt coping strategies and various  activities to ensure continuous flow of adequate safe water  at the household level. These strategies involve  opportunity costs and some amount of financial outlay.  Using revealed preference data for 20 randomly selected  rural communities in the Volta basin of Ghana this paper  employs the coping costs approach to derive the costs of  coping with water insecurity. Explicit costs in the form of  investments in water storage facilities and costs of water  treatment are estimated. Implicit costs (opportunity cost  of time) associated with water collection, which varies by  season and ecological zone, is valued using the average  basic hourly wage of rural women engaged in agriculture.  The results of the study show that costs of coping with  water insecurity are higher in the dry season and for  forest ecology households. The often-stated claim that  rural households cannot and should not pay for the full  cost of water delivery is not supported by this study. The  paper concludes that rural consumers are paying at least as  much as their urban consumers for unimproved water. Hence,  this paper is of the view that rural consumers have the  ability to pay for improved water but may not be willing to  do so probably due to their perceptions and attitudes  concerning the public good nature and benefits of improved  water supply.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/9520},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.9520},
}