Abstract:
Study of consumer satisfaction toward the drinking water sources is one
of the efficient methods to improve the water resource management. Therefore the
study was aimed to evaluate the consumer satisfaction on drinking water sources in
two divisional secretariat (DS) divisions namely Vengalacheddikulam from
Vavuniya district and Uva Paranagama from Badulla district belong to dry zone and
intermediate zone of Sri Lanka, respectively. With the available literature, question-
naire was designed for the collection of primary data from randomly selected 25 re-
spondents from each district while other needed secondary data were obtained from
other relevant institutions. In addition, key person interviews (KPI) were carried out
in parallel. The collected data were analyzed using the Microsoft Excel. The results
revealed that the factors like education level (0.15, 0.46), monthly income (0.49,
0.825), employment (0.35, 0.824) and satisfaction (0.48, 0.87) have positive correla-
tion with selection of water source such as well, pipe borne water, reverse osmosis
water and spring, while age and gender of the respondents have negative correlation
in the study area Vengalacheddikulam and Uva Paranagama respectively. Within the
selected DS divisions, similar values of correlation coefficient between the cost of
water and the selection of water source (0.4) were observed whereas it was deviated
considerably for the factors like education, income, employment and satisfaction
since people in the dry zone are willing to select RO water without considering much
of other physical factors in order to avoid water related health issues. Considering the
intermediate zone, correlation coefficient of 0.825 between monthly income and se-
lection of water source is clear evidence for influence of economic status in water
security. Further, KPIs confirm the prevalence of hardness especially in the dry zone
of Sri Lanka. Moreover, government intervention in terms of subsidy for water treat-
ment with adequate community involvement in operation and maintenance of water
resources would be a sustainable measure to improve consumer satisfaction on drink-
ing water sources.
