Transitioning from a Human Right to an Infrastructure Service: Water

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Policy Analysis

Transitioning from a Human Right to an Infrastructure Service: Water, Wastewater & Displaced Persons in Germany Jessica A. Kaminsky, and Kasey M. Faust Environ. Sci. Technol., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b03594 • Publication Date (Web): 02 Oct 2017 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on October 3, 2017

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Environmental Science & Technology

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Transitioning from a Human Right to an Infrastructure Service: Water, Wastewater & Displaced Persons in Germany

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Jessica A. Kaminsky1* and Kasey M. Faust2

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1

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Washington, Seattle, Washington. 201 More Hall, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States

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Telephone +1.206.543.1543. Fax +1.206.221.3058. E-mail [email protected]

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2

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University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

*[email protected], Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of

[email protected], Assistant Professor, Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, The

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ACS Paragon Plus Environment


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ABSTRACT

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Water and sanitation utilities across Europe have recently been challenged to provide services to asylum

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seekers and refugees fleeing complex humanitarian disasters. We explore public perceptions regarding

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how secondary disaster impacts – or, mass migration into an undamaged area – has impacted the utilities.

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We show that the hosting population is typically willing to provide water and sanitation services to

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displaced persons for a set period of time, even if the displaced persons are unable to pay (water and

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sanitation as human rights). However, as time passes, displaced persons are eventually expected to pay

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for access (water and sanitation as infrastructure services). Drawing from statistical modeling of survey

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data from German residents, we find the average length of time for this transition in 2016 Germany was

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2.9 years. The data also show statistically significant demographic and locational attributes that influence

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this timeframe, indicating the normative length of the transition from a right to a service is contextually

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dependent. Regardless, this is a significant period of time that the public expects utilities to provide

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services to unexpected displaced persons. To be able to meet this kind of demand, utilities, engineers,

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and policy makers must consider the potential for displaced populations in their regular, long-range utility

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planning.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank the many individuals who took the time to answer our questions and share their perceptions and

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knowledge with us. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation

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under Grant No. 1624417 and 1624409.

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INTRODUCTION

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Due to instability in the Middle East, European nations have recently and suddenly received large

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numbers of refugees and asylum seekers1. As these displaced persons stream into Europe, the engineering

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community has become increasingly aware of the impacts this suddenly increased population has on

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critical infrastructure systems. In terms of system performance, these infrastructure impacts have the

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potential to be either positive or negative depending on a number of contextual factors2. For example, for

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the water and wastewater infrastructure systems of primary interest to this paper, unexpectedly increased

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population may require new construction to meet the demand for services, or to prevent reduced level of

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services for the hosting community. In contrast, the new populations may instead improve the technical

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performance of otherwise oversized infrastructure systems in previously shrinking cities3. In a parallel

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dichotomy of impacts, assuming the availability of raw water an increased population has the potential to

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lead to increased utility revenues. However, providing this increased supply of water and wastewater

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requires upfront financial resources for construction, management, or treatment process requirements

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such as chemicals and energy2. In the current European situation, meeting these upfront costs is difficult

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as displaced persons are frequently not able to pay for access to water or wastewater services as they first

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arrive. Regardless of their previous circumstances and future potential, they have fled a complex

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humanitarian disaster and temporarily depend on aid from others to meet essential needs.

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For infrastructure in humanitarian response, one international definition of what counts as essential is

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encapsulated in the SPHERE Handbook4. This handbook has been developed from a long collaboration

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of international organizations, such as the International Red Cross, that provide humanitarian aid after

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disasters5. It establishes a set of minimum standards for the provision of select infrastructure services

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such as shelter or water and sanitation4. However, these minimum standards for water and wastewater do

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not meet the technical engineering codes required by most highly developed utilities. For example,

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Water Supply Standard 2 deals with water quality, and specifies a chlorine residual as a proxy for

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microbiological quality, but does not (for example) require log reduction in coliforms. Still, the SPHERE



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Handbook standards clearly establish standards for water access, quantity, quality, and the provision of

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facilities for storing water, doing laundry, etc. as an essential part of humanitarian response. Indeed, and

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as detailed in the literature review, the international community broadly agrees that access to water and

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sanitation are fundamental human needs in both day-to-day and disaster response contexts. This framing

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establishes access to clean water and adequate sanitation as universal human rights6.

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Functionally, however, the engineering and policy communities more often think of water and wastewater

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as a service, or as the provision of a commodity. For example, this might be volumes of drinking water

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provided, or volumes of wastewater removed. There is a market price for treatment and transport, and

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these costs must be met in order for the utility to be able to continue providing services. While

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governments often subsidize this cost through taxpayer or donor funds, it is increasingly common around

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the world for households and businesses to directly pay water and wastewater tariffs that are tied to the

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volume of water they use or wastewater they produce, and for services to be cut off if payments are not

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made7.

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Given these contrasting but fundamentally linked epistemologies of water and sanitation, we seek to

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understand how the German public—who have received the largest number of refugees and asylum

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seekers in the ongoing crisis1,8 - reconciles and rationalizes these two normative perspectives. We

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hypothesize that populations hosting asylum seekers perceive a temporal transition between water and

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wastewater as a right to water and wastewater as a service, and seek to understand demographic and

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locational factors that shape public perceptions of this transition. For engineers, policy makers, and water

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utility staff, this knowledge suggests that there is a potential resilience gap during this transition time

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(Figure 1) when utilities are widely expected to provide water and sanitation services to the displaced

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population as their right, irrespective of their ability to pay. In other words, to maintain status quo

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performance (shown by the dashed line in Figure 1), the hosting population and utility must provide water

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and wastewater services to the displaced population. Otherwise, we would expect the system

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performance to drop (shown by the solid line in Figure 1) until the displaced population became able to


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pay for infrastructure services. While this provision of services to the displaced population is a normative

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expectation, the measures needed to meet it are technical and economic. As such, while the hosting

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public’s perception of this potential resilience gap is certainly not the only factor required in policy,

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planning, design, or construction that can anticipate challenges, understanding that perception is a step

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towards enhanced utility resilience due to the intrinsic relationship between public perceptions and policy. Influx of displaced persons

Higher Performance

potential resiliency gap

Water and Wastewater System Performance

Status quo performance Post-event performance, without human rights response

Access to water and wastewater is perceived to be a Service

Right

Service

Lower Performance Shorter

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Time

Longer

Figure 1. System resiliency & the transition from a right to a service

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LITERATURE REVIEW

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In this literature review, we frame large disaster migrations as a type of extreme event in terms of its

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potential impacts to the recipient built environment. From this theoretical perspective, we link issues of

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utility resilience to providing access to water and sanitation to displaced persons. Given the high

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likelihood of vulnerability among the displaced populations, utilities experiencing disaster migration must

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engage with the international conversation on water as a human right. Specifically, the utilities and

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funding host communities must determine how long to provide water and sanitation infrastructure

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services to a new and vulnerable population that is at least temporarily unable to pay. In this paper, we

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understand this timeframe as a transition between understanding access to water and sanitation as a right

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to understanding it as a service that households must pay for or do without.

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Utility Resilience

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For the built environment, such as water and sanitation utilities, resilience means the ability to respond or

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adapt to extreme events9–13. For example, this includes the need to identify the critical services provided

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by the infrastructure system, the thresholds beyond which it may fail, how long the system may take to

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recover from an extreme event, and if the system can adapt in response to that extreme event14. Most

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typically, the extreme events that impact infrastructure physically destroy built assets. For example, the

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average annual normalized economic damage from hurricanes in the US Gulf and Atlantic coasts from

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1900 to 2005 was $10 billion USD15. These impacts are known to fall most heavily on vulnerable

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members of society who are more likely to be impacted by disasters due to a constellation of political,

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social, and economic factors16. For example, homes located in a flood zone are more likely to be

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impacted by flood damage; these properties are accordingly less expensive and therefore tend to be

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inhabited by people with fewer economic resources. Regardless of who is impacted, however, post-

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disaster it is of vital importance that critical infrastructure services are restored as quickly as possible; this

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leads to considerable challenges for utilities, the construction industry, and regulating governments17–20.

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In this paper, we consider a different kind of extreme event that impacts infrastructure systems – that is,

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extreme population movement into a region where the built environment has not otherwise been

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physically impacted by a disaster. The particular population dynamics that we consider here – movement

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from the Middle East to Europe, peaking around 2015 – were triggered by complex humanitarian

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disasters of violence and poverty21. These various events did not damage the European infrastructure.

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However, the infrastructure has certainly been impacted by the sudden population influx, in a secondary

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but no less real impact of the triggering disaster events.

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In Germany, one of the most visible examples of the impacts of extreme migration has been the sudden

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need for housing for displaced persons. For example, the Brookings Institution reports that German

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federal government expects to reimburse the German federal states 500 million euros in both of 2017 and

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2018 for the development of new housing facilities for refugees22. Accordingly, post-disaster housing


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efforts have been the focus of increasing research attention23. Underground, the water and sanitation

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systems that serve the displaced population have also, if less visibly, been impacted. In the German

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context of interest to this study, part of the reason the impacts to water and sanitation infrastructure have

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been less visible than the housing impacts is that previously shrinking demand and excess infrastructure

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system capacities24 have enabled utilities to stretch to meet the need. In other words, the happenstance

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patterns of recent demand and infrastructure policy, combined with the German utilities’ proactive

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response to the disaster migration, have enabled German cities to provide displaced persons with access to

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water and wastewater. This in turn has enabled the hosting cities to avoid the waterborne disease

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epidemics that are the unavoidable consequence of any dense population living without access to clean

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water25,26.

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To avoid leaving the scope of such consequences to chance, in this paper we argue that utilities should

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consider possible disaster migration in routine planning and construction efforts, much as they currently

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consider more typical population growth or shrinkage27. This may include elements such as disaster risk

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reduction efforts28, creating or identifying new interconnections between systems to increase operational

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flexibility, or even the construction of what would otherwise seem to be excess capacity11. Another

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element of this planning is understanding how such efforts would be paid for, given that displaced

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persons may never materialize or may be utterly without resources if they do arrive. This latter point

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links our discussion of utility resilience to global conversations on the human right to water and

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sanitation.

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From A Right to a Service

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After the Second World War, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the Universal

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Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)29. This declaration is linked to centuries old political thought

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stemming from the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the American Declaration of

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Independence30. Still, the document established that the ways nations treat their nationals was a matter

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for international concern, and thereby enabled international enforcement mechanisms such as the



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European Court of Human Rights. Broadly, the UDHR has been understood as asserting the rights of the

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individual over those of the state.

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Infrastructure services are, perhaps unsurprisingly, not explicitly mentioned in the UDHR. However, that

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document itemizes rights such as Article 25 (“the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and

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well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary

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social services”29) that would seem impossible to meet without either a pristine environment or the water

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and wastewater infrastructure services of interest to this analysis. Still, it was not until the 1972

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Stockholm Declaration31,32 that issues of water appeared in the global rights discourse. Subsequently, the

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Vancouver Conference on Human Settlements and the Mar del Plata Conference on Water Resources

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advanced the conversation to specifying the goal of the provision of clean and adequate water to all33;

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these conferences clearly blended water and sanitation services with ideas of justice. Since this time a

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series of global, quantitative goals for the provision of water and sanitation to all people have been set

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(and, to date, missed). The most recent version of these global goals is outlined in the Sustainable

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Development Goals and target “universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for

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all” and “access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all” by 203034. The emphasis in

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these definitions on water quality, affordability, and equitable access can be read as consciously linking

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these engineering goals to the human rights discourse35. In sum, while issues of water and sanitation are

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not explicitly listed in the original declarations of human rights, the international community has since

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recognized that those human rights cannot be achieved while neglecting issues of water and sanitation,

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and has committed itself to the goal of ensuring water and sanitation for all. This position is canonized in

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the UN Resolution on The Human Right to Water and Sanitation6.

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It is in this context that we place our study of vulnerable, displaced persons moving to cities with highly

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developed infrastructure systems. While these cities certainly contain long-standing homeless

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populations that do not have adequate access to water and sanitation services, the legal framework in the

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German cities this work is situated in requires the German state to provide decent housing, including


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access to water and sanitation facilities, to asylum seekers while asylum applications are processed and

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per German social benefits once applications are approved22,36. Beyond the German context, we would

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argue that regardless of legal requirement any highly developed city hosting asylum seekers or any

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category of displaced persons would strive to ensure water and sanitation services, with motivations likely

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ranging from felt moral imperatives to the more pragmatic avoidance of waterborne disease epidemics.

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However, water and sanitation services are not free, and are typically paid for through a combination of

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government funding and volumetric user fees7. As such we would expect that at some point, displaced

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persons would be integrated into the infrastructure as service epistemology, and to begin paying for water

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and sanitation services as do other members of the hosting population. In the German policy context,

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displaced persons who are legally recognized as refugees may be granted both the right to work and the

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right to the standard German social benefits, which include a housing stipend for apartment rental and

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utility costs36 regardless of whether or not the displaced persons have yet found work. In other words, the

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conception of water and sanitation access in emergency response and recovery necessarily shifts over

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time from a right to service. In remote refugee camps, the timeframe of this shift demonstrably stretches

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over the decades refugees have been in residence with water and sanitation services supported by

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humanitarian organizations37,38. In less remote contexts with at least perceived opportunities for social

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and economic integration of the displaced populations, this timeframe may be significantly shorter.

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As such, in this paper we seek to understand what that timeframe is, and if host community demographics

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and locational factors shape public perceptions of the transition from a right to a service, specific to the

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2016 German context we collected data in. As described previously, this knowledge is practically

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important for the resilience of the utilities that physically provide water and sanitation, and to the policy

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makers who regulate those utilities

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towards the quantification of resilience.

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. In addition, it contributes to the limited41,42 literature working



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MATERIALS AND METHODS

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Survey analyses and statistical modeling methods enable this study. To operationalize the exploration of

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transitioning from right to service, we asked a representative sample of the German public to answer

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questions regarding the provision of access to water and wastewater to displaced persons who are unable

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to pay. For example, we asked the German public if water and wastewater services should be provided to

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the displaced population, and if so how long services should be provided. The responses to these

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questions were modeled statistically along with a variety of demographic and locational factors to capture

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heterogeneity across the respondents; this research method is described in detail below. If our hypothesis

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of a transition from a right to a service is supported, we would expect to see that respondents are willing

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to provide these services to displaced persons for a set period of time, but not indefinitely.

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Survey Development and Deployment

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A survey was deployed in August 2016 to the general public in Germany after the peak of the influx of

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displaced persons, which occurred at the end of 2015 and continues in 2017. This survey sought to assess

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the perceptions, awareness, knowledge and attitudes toward the provision of infrastructure services for

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incoming displaced persons in hosting communities. The survey was conducted in German, deployed as

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an online survey via Qualtrics, LLC43, a web-based survey software. Prior to deployment, the survey

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underwent content review by eight subject matter experts with expertise spanning survey analyses, civil

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infrastructure, human-infrastructure interaction, public perception modeling, and German language and

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culture. Additionally, a pilot survey was deployed to 15 individuals who were not included in the final

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sample pool to assess the correctness of data collected, German word choice, and accessibility of

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questions regarding whether individuals with limited knowledge of the water and wastewater systems

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could easily answer posed questions. The survey underwent Institutional Review Board review at the

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University of Texas at Austin and the University of Washington in July 2016. Participation was

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voluntary, with all respondents over the age of 18. The final sample consisted of 416 valid responses

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spanning 16 states in Germany, providing a 95% confidence with a +/- 5% margin of error.


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Specifically of interest was the attitude of the general public towards the provision of water and wastwater

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service to displaced persons with the inability to personally pay for the service due to varying

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cisumstances arising from displacement (e.g., assets unavailable, lack of financial means, etc.). Survey

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respondents were asked, “We should provide water (wastewater) service to incoming displaced persons

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who are unable to pay for water (wastewater) service for a specified amount of time: (1) Yes, we should

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provide water (wastewater) service to incoming refugees for a defined amount of time, not indefinitely;

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(2) No, we should not provide water (wastewater) service to incoming displaced persons who are unable

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to pay for the service for a specified amount of time, service should be provided indefinitely; (3) No, we

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should not provide service to incoming displaced persons who are unable to pay for water (wastewater)

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service for any amount of time.”

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Following this question, respondents were asked to provide the length of time in years, via a slider or text

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entry, that they believed water and wastewater services should be provided to displaced persons who are

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unable to pay for such services. Respondents were asked to select/enter “0” if they did not believe

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water/wastewater service should be provided at all, and to max out the slider bar at 20 years if the

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respondent believed water or wastewater services should be provided indefinitely. It should be noted that

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all respondents who answered “(1) Yes, we should provide water (wastewater) service to incoming

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displaced persons for a defined amount of time, not indefinitely” provided answers greater than 0 and less

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than or equal to 12 years, removing the possible error of an individual believing that the provision of

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service for a defined amount of time should be more than 20 years. A neutral or “I do not know” option

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was not provided for the questions of interest to force a stance, avoiding decision paralysis bias 44.

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Random Parameters Tobit Model

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Supporting our research approach, in aggregate the majority of respondents believe the provision of water

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and wastewater service for displaced persons is a right for a limited amount of time (see Discussion

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section below, and Tables 1 and 2). In addition, we seek to understand the contributing demographic and

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location parameters associated with the length of time to provide such services. As such, a statistical



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model is used to determine those influential factors that affect the length of time water or wastewater

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service should be provided in the instance a displaced person is not able to pay using a tobit modeling

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framework first introduced by Tobin45. In order to account for the unobserved heterogeneity (i.e., those

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unobserved factors that may vary across observations) associated with influential parameters, the random

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parameter tobit model is used. It should be noted that respondents who stated that the water or

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wastewater should be provided “indefinitely” were removed from the statistical model as outliers.

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To formulate the random parameter tobit regression model, the standard tobit regression model is used to

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left-censor the data at zero (i.e., those who do not believe water or wastewater should be provided free of

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charge to displaced person for any period of time) as follows45,46:

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∗ = + ℎ ~0, = 1, 2, … = ∗ ∗ > 0 = 0 ∗ ≤ 0

1

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where is the number of observations, is the number of years water/wastewater service should be

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provided to displaced persons unable to pay (the response variable), is the vector of explanatory

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variables (socioeconomic and locational characteristics), is the vector of estimated parameters and is

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the normally and independently distributed error term with a mean of zero and a constant variance, σ .

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To account for heterogeneity, Greene47 developed estimation procedures (simulation based maximum

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likelihood estimation) for incorporating random parameters in tobit (censored regression) models. To

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incorporate random parameters into the tobit models, estimable parameters can be written as: = + "

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where, " is randomly distributed term (all random parameters are normally distributed). The tobit model

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then becomes:

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(2)

∗ | " = +

(3)

$$ = ∑∀ & '* (" ) ∗ | " "

(4)

With the corresponding log-likelihood: +


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where g(.) is the probability density function of the " , and P(.) is the probability for the tobit model.

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Maximum likelihood estimation of the tobit model (Eqn. 1) is undertaken with simulation approaches

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using Halton draws, a technique developed by Halton48 to generate a systematic non-random sequence of

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numbers. Bhat49 demonstrates that Halton draws provide a more efficient distribution of the draws for

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numerical integration than random draws.

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Marginal effects are presented, quantifying the impact of each parameter on the dependent variable (i.e.,

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length of time water or wastewater service should be provided to displaced persons in the instance of the

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inability to pay). The reported values are the average marginal effect of each parameter due to a unit

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change in the independent parameter46, with a positive value indicating an increase in the length of time a

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respondent believe water/wastewater services should be provided to displaced persons, and a negative

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value decreasing the time period.

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Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research

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Future research should expand this work to consider contexts other than Germany. In support of this, we

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note that both demographic and locational factors are statistically significant in our results. In addition,

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qualitative research is needed to explore and problematize the statistical relationships observed in the

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survey data. In a related limitation, the research design presented here does not explore the scale or scope

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of services that host populations perceive as appropriate to provide to displaced populations. This

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combined future work would enable the engineering community to understand the shape14 of the

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resilience curve sketched in Figure 1, and thereby be better equipped to build resilient utility systems.

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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

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Survey Results

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Aggregated from the survey responses, Table 1 summarizes the aggregate respondent perceptions

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regarding the provision of water and wastewater service for displaced person who are unable to pay.

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Table 1. Respondent attitudes towards providing water and wastewater service for displaced persons who are unable to pay

Provide water service for a prespecified amount of time Provide water service indefinitely, for as long as need No, do not provide water service

Provide wastewater service for a prespecified amount of time

Provide wastewater service indefinitely, for as long as need

No, do not provide wastewater service

65.2%

0.0%

0.6%

0.0%

12.9%

0.0%

0.0%

0.0%

21.3%

303 304

Table 2 summarizes the further exploration of those respondents who believe that water or wastewater

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service should be provided for a pre-specified period of time.

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Table 2. Respondent stated length of time to provide services to displaced persons who are unable to pay

Percentage of Respondents

Water: Years of provision of service (St. Dev)

Wastewater : Years of provision of service (St. Dev)

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Provide for water and wastewater services 88.0% 2.92 (2.16) 2.92 (2.16) for the same amount of time Provide water service for a longer period 5.8% 4.92 (3.90) 3.38 (3.40) of time Provide wastewater service for a longer 6.2% 3.57 (3.05) 5.14 (3.42) period of time Figure 2 shows the distribution of responses for perceptions regarding the provision of water and

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wastewater service to displaced persons unable to pay for the service.


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Figure 2. Respondent distribution for length of time to provide water and wastewater service to displaced persons who are unable to pay

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The results of the random parameter tobit models seeking to better understand the influential parameters

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impacting the length of time respondents believe water (Table 3) and wastewater (Table 4) services

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should be provided are shown below. Table 5 summarizes the parameters influencing each service, with a

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“+” indicating that the parameter has a positive impact on the length of time the service is provided and a

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“-“ indicating that the parameter has a negative impact on the length of time the service is provided.

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Interestingly, both locational and sociodemographic parameters were revealed as influential in impacting

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the perceived amount of time water (wastewater) services should be provided to displaced persons. The

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locational parameters may be capturing local culture or perceived system capabilities, as well as may aid

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utilities in understanding the local expectations of the communities to provide services to displaced

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persons. Select sociodemographic parameters (education, household size, marital status often capturing



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dual incomes, and household income) often are indicative of wealth and the perceived capabilities to

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provide such services or not.

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Table 3. Random parameter tobit model for length of time water service should be provided to displaced persons who are unable to pay

Independent Variable Constant Highest level of education is school diploma or less (1 if true, otherwise 0) Gender (1 if male, otherwise 0) Marital status (1 if married, otherwise 0) Household size (1 if two or fewer people reside in household, otherwise 0) Length of time living in city (years) Geographic parameters Residing in Hesse (1 if true, otherwise 0) Residing in North Rhine-Westphalia (1 if true, otherwise 0) Log likelihood at convergence AIC Number of observations

Parameter (t-statistic) 2.75 (13.47)

St. Dev. (t-statistic)

Marginal Effects

-0.97 (-6.95)

fixed

-0.937

-0.28 (-1.98) 0.58 (4.18)

2.10 (20.10) 1.97 (20.05)

-0.266 0.561

-0.55 (-3.67)

1.12 (13.31)

-0.524

0.01 (0.38)

0.04 (19.53)

0.001

-0.38 (-1.65)

2.02 (8.87)

-0.369

-0.15 (-0.88)

1.26 (8.29)

-0.144

-611.21 1256.4 298

327 328 329

Table 4. Random parameter tobit model for length of time wastewater service should be provided to displaced persons who are unable to pay

Independent Variable Constant Highest level of education is school diploma or less (1 if true, otherwise 0) Gender (1 if male, otherwise 0) Marital status (1 if married, otherwise 0) Household income (1 if greater than €50,000, otherwise 0) Household size (if two or fewer people reside in household, otherwise 0) Geographic parameters Residing in Baden-Württemberg (1 if true, otherwise 0) Residing in Hesse (1 if true, otherwise 0) Residing in Lower Saxony (1 if true, otherwise 0) Residing in North Rhine-Westphalia (1 if true, otherwise 0) Log likelihood at convergence AIC Number of observations

Parameter (t-statistic) 2.75 (12.75)

St. Dev. (t-statistic)

Marginal Effects

-0.93 (-5.94)

fixed

-0.876

-0.26 (-1.72) 0.36 (2.28)

1.57 (14.13) 2.26 (19.94)

-0.243 0.338

0.21 (1.19)

0.583 (4.26)

0.197

-0.66 (-4.08)

1.90 (20.94)

-0.628

0.10 (0.39)

1.16 (4.86)

0.095

-0.42 (-1.63) 0.36 (1.29)

1.90 (7.46) 0.18 (2.72)

-0.400 0.337

0.22 (1.11)

2.23 (12.45)

0.206

330


-616.57 1271.1 298

Page 17 of 22

331 332 333


Table 5. Summary of parameters influencing the perceived length of time water and wastewater service should be provided to displaced persons who are unable to pay

Independent Variable

334

Provision of water service

Highest level of education is school diploma or less (1 if true, otherwise 0) Gender (1 if male, otherwise 0) Marital status (1 if married, otherwise 0) + Household size (1 if two or fewer people reside in household, otherwise 0) Length of time living in city (years) + Household income (1 if greater than €50,000, otherwise 0) NS Residing in Hesse (1 if true, otherwise 0) Residing in North Rhine-Westphalia (1 if true, otherwise 0) Residing in Baden-Württemberg (1 if true, otherwise 0) NS Residing in Lower Saxony (1 if true, otherwise 0) NS *NS indicates the parameter was not statistically significant in the respective model

Provision of wastewater service + NS + + + +

335 336

The results support the premise of our analysis. Most respondents identified a temporal transition point

337

when water and sanitation transitions from a right to a service that must be paid for. Table 1 breaks down

338

responses regarding if and how long respondents perceive it is appropriate to provide services for

339

displaced persons who are not able to pay for water and sanitation services. As shown in that Table,

340

21.3% of respondents are willing to provide those services to the displaced persons indefinitely (or,

341

understand water and sanitation only as a human right), 12.9% of respondents are not willing to provide

342

these services to the displaced persons at all (or, understand water and sanitation only as an infrastructure

343

service to be paid for), and 65.2% of respondents are willing to provide services to the displaced persons

344

for a limited period of time (or, believe access to water and sanitation transitions from a right to a

345

service).

346

Table 2 explores the length of the temporal transition described by respondents. Of those respondents

347

who indicated they would be willing to provide water and sanitation for a limited period of time, 88% felt

348

water and sanitation should be provided for the same amount of time. In this sample, the mean of this

349

length of time was 2.9 years. The remaining 12% were roughly evenly split between preferring to



350

provide water or sanitation for a slightly longer period. The demographic factors (Tables 3-5) also tend to

351

treat water and sanitation similarly. For example, respondents who hold more than a high school

352

education, are female, married, and live with no more than one other person are more likely to support

353

providing water and sanitation services for a longer period of time. In contrast, the locational factors in

354

the model are less consistent across water and sanitation infrastructure. It is possible this is due to local

355

infrastructure system capacities, history, or messaging from the utilities; future research should explore

356

the reasons behind the differing significance and directionality of the locational factors.

357

It is also worth considering what our results mean for populations other than displaced persons, and how

358

results fit with the literature on human rights. It seems reasonable that most people would be unwilling to

359

provide water and sanitation services for a very wealthy person who simply preferred not to pay, despite

360

the public health benefits of doing so. In contrast, the same wealthy person who was displaced by a

361

disaster and temporarily unable to access her wealth seems a more likely candidate for humanitarian aid,

362

though possibly not for the multiple years allocated to the more typical asylum seekers in Germany by our

363

survey respondents. Generalizing these hypotheticals with the empirical survey data, we refer to the

364

philosophically important distinction between the capabilities and the functionings of individuals50. This

365

longstanding distinction is embedded in the Human Development Approach51 that has shaped much of

366

modern development theory and practice. Here, the philosophers tell us that there is a difference between

367

being able to choose (capabilities) and choosing (functioning). For example, a famine victim who is

368

starving to death is importantly different than an activist who chooses to be on a hunger strike. Neither of

369

these individuals is eating, but one of them is choosing the condition. Similarly (though likely less

370

idealistically than our hypothetical activist!), our hypothetical wealthy person chooses not to have water

371

and sanitation services; a displaced person who is unable to make that choice is thereby entitled to public

372

assistance to ensure her human rights are met. This also seems to explain why our survey respondents

373

feel the right to such assistance for access to water and sanitation is temporally limited. Over time we


Page 18 of 22

Page 19 of 22


374

would expect the typical displaced person to gain the functionings (or, the ability to choose) related to

375

water and sanitation; at that point, they are expected to choose to pay their own way.

376

We would expect that other factors such as institutional structure52, socioeconomic demographics and

377

scale of the displaced populations, host nation history, the nature of events driving the mass migration,

378

and local pre-migration water and sanitation coverage rates might also influence this timeframe; future

379

research should explore these and other factors across a variety of contexts. Additionally, future,

380

qualitative research should explore and problematize this proposed explanation of the statistically

381

described trends. Regardless, the 2.9 years of service described by survey respondents is a substantial

382

length of time that the German utilities are expected to provide services to a significantly sized and

383

unexpected population.

384

Utilities cannot instantly plan and construct new infrastructure in response to emergency events. As

385

such, the ability to handle this kind of extreme event is a challenge to utility resilience that must be

386

prepared for through regular utility planning efforts. Given anticipated trends in urbanization and climate

387

change, planning infrastructure to handle this type of extreme event may ultimately become the norm53–55.

388

This suggests that utilities need to have a reserve of physical, economic, and organizational capacity

389

available in case they experience this kind of mass migration. German policy already provides for

390

permanent housing structures in case of asylum applications; the recommendation here is to extend these

391

permanent provisions to extra capacity in water and sanitation infrastructure. Contexts without a history

392

of maintaining permanent infrastructure for displaced populations may find this to be politically

393

challenging. In addition, while this paper has provided engineers and policy makers a first data point on

394

the length of time this reserve capacity should serve, recommendations for the type and scale of the

395

reserve capacity (e.g., number of people, percentage capacity, etc.) cannot be developed from this study’s

396

methodology and must be left for future work. In the meantime, we suggest historic data as one way to

397

determine likely scales of impact, and anticipate that locally acceptable scales and metrics will be deeply

398

contextual.



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Transitioning from a Human Right to an Infrastructure Service: Water

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