The La Palma - Tres Puertas water supply system is located in a rural area of the Restrepo Municipality in Valle del Cauca Department, Colombia. This system provides water to 1800 people living in 7 villages. It was built 30 years ago by the Coffee Committee but improved in 2004, when the PAAR Program increased the quantity of water via an additional water supply pipe from another stream. Water could then be supplied four times a week, compared to just two times a week previously.

People who live in the settlements served by the water supply system have developed agricultural activities in and around the household: in 83% of the households there is one productive activity at least, like gardening or keeping livestock. Those activities demand water and people use the water supply system to satisfy these needs. In 18% of households, people use the water supply for livestock, 25% irrigate crops and 39% use water for both keeping livestock and irrigate crops. The system supplies 98% of domestic water needs. This situation of mixed use results in high levels of water consumption: whereas 30% of households have consumptions under 40 m3 every two months (133 lpcd) (typically domestic users), 53% have consumptions between 41 – 100 m3 every two months (137 – 333 lpcd) indicating that they use the system to support livelihoods, and 17% register consumptions over 100 m3 every two months (> 333 lpcd) linked to developing commercial activities.

In the villages, 37% of household heads are farm owners and 22% work for other farm owners. These occupations depend directly on the water supply system. Most of the people served by this system have incomes between US$ 90 / month and US$180 / month. Such low incomes limit the capacity to pay of users to pay for the service. At the moment the fee is US$ 1.4 per month, for those who have water consumptions up to 25 m3, and US$ 0.07 for each m3 extra. The water supply system has many technical and management problems, that make it difficult to provide the service. Water pipes are obsolete and the community organisation is weak, with all the responsibility assumed by its president. Community participation is low and the environmental authority provides little support. There is no control of a multi-national that plants commercial trees up to the border of the stream in one of the micro-catchments, upon which the water supply system is dependent. This has apparently caused serious impacts on the quality and availability of water.

This investigation analysed this water supply system as a “de-facto” multiple uses system, and identifies proposals in order to improve the service. This proposals are related to water resource conservation, reducing loss of water in the system, improving the use of water in domestic activities, using alternative sources of water, improving the quality of drinking water at home, efficient use of water for productive activities (irrigation and keeping livestock), improving management and implementing different fees for the different users of the water supply system.