In this paper, we investigate the relationship between household drinking water quality and irrigation and child nutrition using primary household survey data and microbiological water sample testings in two rural districts of Ethiopia. Anthropometric measures such as height-for-age z-scores (HAZ), weight-for-age z-scores (WAZ), and weight-for-height z-scores (WHZ) were used to measure stunting, underweight, and wasting, respectively. Our survey results show that 41% of the children are stunted, 26% underweight, and 8% wasted. More than 58% of household's stored drinking water samples were also contaminated with Escherichia coli bacteria. The multivariate regression results suggest that irrigation farming and on-premises water sources are significantly associated with lower HAZ, while uncontaminated household stored drinking water quality is correlated with higher WAZ. The results also reveal that dietary diversity score and the number of antenatal care visits by the primary caretaker are statistically significant predictors of child nutritional status. These findings, however, cast doubt on the hypothesis that irrigated agriculture exclusively has a positive effect on child nutrition outcomes.

在本文中，我们使用主要的家庭调查数据和埃塞俄比亚两个农村地区的微生物水样本测试研究了家庭饮用水质量与灌溉和儿童营养之间的关系。人体测量指标（例如，年龄高的Z分数（HAZ），年龄重的Z分数（WAZ）和体重高的Z分数（WHZ））用于测量发育迟缓，体重不足和消瘦， 分别。我们的调查结果显示，有41％的儿童发育迟缓，26％的体重过轻和8％的儿童浪费。超过58％的家庭存储饮用水样本也被大肠杆菌污染菌。多元回归结果表明，灌溉农业和内部水源与较低的HAZ显着相关，而未受污染的家庭存储的饮用水水质与较高的WAZ相关。结果还表明，饮食多样性评分和主要看护人的产前检查次数是儿童营养状况的统计显着预测指标。然而，这些发现使人们对灌溉农业仅对儿童营养结果产生积极影响这一假设产生了怀疑。