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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.〔 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.〔 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. ==Social and economic factors== Over the last few decades, Honduras and the capital city of Tegucigalpa have urbanized faster than any other Central American's country or city. Much of this is due to the fact that Honduras had remained one of the least urbanized countries in the Americas making it ripe for high rates of urbanization. Between 1985 and 1990, the urbanization rate was at 5% and although it has decreased, forecasts from the United Nations Population Division estimate rapid urbanization through 2010.〔 Tegucigalpa's population density in 2001 was at 99 persons per hectare. However, the distribution of inhabitants varies greatly throughout different areas of the city. In general, people prefer to live on steep hillsides where landslides are of considerable concern or in the river valley where flooding is a constant danger. On the economic side, structural shifts from agricultural to industrial bases have necessitated movements to an urban setting for much of the population. Between 1983 and 2003, the percentage of Honduras’ population employed in agriculture declined from 43% to 34%.〔 This has increased pressure on water supplies and decreased the quality of treatment. Tegucigalpa also struggles with costly inefficiencies across its water resources, stormwater management, sanitation and solid waste services. A recent World Bank estimate has shown that the total economic cost to the city to exceeds US$60 million per year.〔 Compared to other countries in the Americas, GNP per capita is low but increasing and will likely continue to grow.〔 The struggling US and global economies are having a substantial negative impact on the local economy as remittances, exports and foreign direct investments are contracting. Real GDP growth was projected to fall to around 2.0 percent by end-2009 while per capita income stands at US$ 1,700. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Water management in greater Tegucigalpa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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