Decision support system tool for the evaluation of sustainability of rural water supply services

This study formulates a DSS tool that can aid the rural water supply engineer and planner in decision making regarding the sustainability of rural water supply services. Three modules that comprises functionalities for data input, data analysis and display of results are employed in the computer program, developed by the author using visual basic. The DSS tool identifies the sustainability status of a particular water supply service and further goes to identify the factors behind it. The DSS tool further scrutinizes between different water supply sources in a district to decide which type of water source is sustainable in that particular district. The DSS tool is applied on specific sites at Ethiopia. The results show increased social participation contributing to increased sustainability, schemes with distribution are more sustainable than isolated on spot schemes and increased cost recovery of the services contributing to increased sustainability of the rural water supply services.