Household Water Containers: Mitigating risks for improved Modular, Adaptive, and Decentralized (MAD) water systems

While the literature on the design and operation of safe water sources in low-income communities is huge, little attention has been paid to the design of systems for the safe transportation and storage of water by households between source and point of use. The design of water containers like the near-ubiquitous “jerry can” in relation to how they are used and the potential risks incurred has received little attention. This is despite, as we explain, the strong influence that water container design has on hazards associated with fetching and storing water. This paper advances the argument that MAD (“modular, adaptive and decentralised”) approaches to rethinking water containers are possible and points to examples that have been trialled in different locations around the world. Placed in a broader theoretical framework, the objects that are used as water containers can even be viewed as “engines of history” through which human communities interact with the (water) environment and can create off-grid infrastructures. Key suggestions for design improvement include recognizing the role of water containers in heterogenous networks and in wider socio-technical systems that can reinforce marginalization, and the critical need for localized, community-collaborative co-production.