Water management in greater Tegucigalpa

Tegucigalpa
Nickname(s):  Tegus Tepaz Cerro de Plata (Silver Mountain)
Country	Honduras
Department	Francisco Morazán
Municipality	Distrito Central
Founded	1578
Capital	1880
Merged as Distrito Central	1938
Government
• Type	Democratic Municipality
Area
• City	800 km2 (290 sq mi)
Elevation	990 m (3,250 ft)
Population  (2006)
• City	894,000
• Metro	1,324,000

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 piped water supply thus relying on more costly water trucks and bottled water.^[1]

Furthermore, the capital city lies within a geographic depression amongst the surrounding mountain range making the city prone to flooding and landslides with both occurring 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 sewerage 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.^[1]

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.^[2]