Providing safe drinking water to poor families is a critical development issue of India. To address the common outbreaks of water borne diseases, the Naandi foundation together with Water Health India initiated the pilot rural Community Safe Water Scheme that combines cost-effective water purification technology with community-driven and performance-based approach. This case illustrates that with awareness raising campaigns, rural households are willing to pay for clean drinking water.
Due to substantial population growth putting increased pressure on the water resources, their quality has started to deteriorate. This is perceived as a serious issue since water is inseparably linked with the socio, economical and cultural aspects of livelihoods. Action was taken through an integrated lake conservation programme, aiming to improve water quality. The most important lesson learnt is that awareness raising, education and stakeholder participation are essential.
Groundwater depletion is a serious issue in India. The government has approached the issue of declining groundwater levels largely through regulatory means. For the policy to be successful, it is crucial that users understand groundwater occurrence, cycle, and limited availability. Much effort has thus been placed on engaging farmers and communities. This case study demonstrates the importance to work with capacity building and social mobilization rather than physical solutions.
Poor management and planning during the construction of the Bargi Dam created severe social issues. The affected people took action by coming together forming a Union, making demands for fishing rights and protesting against the complete filling up of the dam. These demands were eventually met. This case illustrates the need for proper dialogue and participation with the affected people during the plan stage of any development projects to prevent problems during execution.
The management of water resources in Bangladesh involves a centralised, heavy engineering approach in order to control floods and install irrigation, however, there is now a pressing need for ensuring social justice and equity in water resource development. Recognising the role of water in poverty alleviation, action has been taken to implement a 25-year National Water Management Plan. Although this is one important step, it is evident that many issues require more work.
With the collapse of the USSR, the water sector seized to be subsidised leading to deterioration of basic infrastructure. Action was taken to partially transfer the responsibility for operation and maintenance of irrigation systems to water users. Nonetheless, this has had limited success because it has been seen as an additional cost rather than benefit. This illustrates that for this to work, the returned benefits need to be higher than the costs.
In Kyrgyzstan, lack of drinking water and access to sanitation is a pressing problem which reinforces social vulnerability and poverty. Financed by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, actions have been taken to improve access to drinking water and sanitation by the Ministry of Health. These projects had a high level of community involvement which increased the sense of ownership.
Desires to maximise irrigated agriculture during the Soviet era has resulted in degradation of water resources. After independence, most countries in the region adopted national policies dealing with water supply and sanitation. Furthermore, since 2002, Global Water Partnership in Caucasus and Central Asia (GWP CACENA) promotes and supports introduction of IWRM. The main lesson learnt is that an IWRM approach should include any essential infrastructure needed for development.
For many businesses, issues of water scarcity are becoming increasingly relevant to their activities, manifested as increased costs or difficulties to obtain water as users compete for rights. To understand water dependencies in time and space, many companies apply the measure of water footprint, estimating water use throughout the value chain. Using this measure can give important insights into variation between countries in terms of how much of the water relates to production.
The Toledo River basin is increasingly contaminated due to unsustainable agricultural practices, Action was taken through a UNESCO-IHP project aiming to perform an integrated environmental assessment of agricultural and farming production systems located in the Toledo River Basin. By using a multi-criteria approach, it was possible to highlight the interactions and use of natural capital, human-driven resources, and ecosystem services supporting agricultural and farming production systems.