Identification of pathways that lead to continuous or intermittent water supply by conducting a qualitative comparative analysis of rural water utilities in China

Ensuring a continuous water supply (CWS) for households is beneficial for the current global drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene agenda. Despite improvements in water supply, intermittent water supply (IWS) remains prevalent in rural areas. To determine the factors that lead to different water supply modes for villages, we select 38 village-level water utilities covered by the Chinese Safe Drinking Water Project for fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to identify causal configurations (‘pathways’) that lead to IWS or CWS across systems. Six configurations of water supply mode are identified on the basis of the outcomes of each case. Among these, three configurations for adopting CWS are determined. Configuration 1 features water utility with government subsidy and bills using a water meter. Configuration 2 features water utility with small population coverage, government subsidy, and villager participation in the management. Configuration 3 features a water utility collectively managed and owned by a rich village and water-saving initiatives. Configurations that lack meter-based bills, government subsidies, and water-saving initiatives are the main paths for IWS. Results highlight the uniqueness of the configurational approach in understanding different water supply patterns across various cases and emphasise the importance of government subsidies, villager participation, water-saving programmes, and water meter-based billing to achieve CWS.