5.
Community Participation and Awareness
Detailed Explanation:
● Community-Based Water Management (CBWM): According to Dr. Smita Mohanty,
CBWM is essential for decentralized and sustainable water governance. Local
communities, especially at the panchayat and municipal levels, play a pivotal role in
planning, implementing, and maintaining water-related infrastructure.
● Social Capital and Water Stewardship: Mobilizing community social capital—like
self-help groups (SHGs), youth clubs, and local NGOs—fosters collective responsibility
and water stewardship, where users actively monitor and manage water sources.
● Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA): Dr. Mohanty highlights PRA techniques as tools to
assess water usage patterns, identify local water stress points, and co-create solutions
with the community.
● Behavioral Change Communication (BCC): Awareness campaigns are most effective
when grounded in BCC strategies that utilize Information, Education and
Communication (IEC) materials in local languages, school curriculums, and public
media platforms to create long-term attitudinal shifts in water usage.
Relevant Indian Policies/Schemes:
1. Jal Shakti Abhiyan (2019):
○ Focus: Rainwater harvesting, rejuvenation of water bodies, reuse of treated
wastewater, and afforestation.
○ Emphasis on people’s participation through Jan Andolan (mass movement)
model.
2. National Water Mission (NWM):
○ Part of NAPCC; Key Goal: “20% improvement in water use efficiency.”
○ Campaigns like “Catch the Rain, Where it Falls, When it Falls” encourage
localized water storage and citizen involvement.
3. Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM):
○ Though primarily sanitation-focused, it links with water use behavior change,
particularly around hygiene and greywater reuse.
International Frameworks:
1. UN Water Action Decade (2018–2028):
○ Objective: Strengthen community involvement in water security, sanitation, and
hygiene (WASH) through multilateral partnerships.
2. Global Water Partnership (GWP):
○ Promotes Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) emphasizing
stakeholder inclusivity at every level—local, regional, and national.
6. Climate-Resilient Water Strategies
Detailed Explanation:
● Adaptive Water Management (AWM): Dr. Mohanty defines this as a dynamic policy
framework that adjusts water allocation and use in response to changing climatic
variables—particularly rainfall variability, drought recurrence, and extreme events.
● Eco-restoration: The paper emphasizes ecological rejuvenation of natural hydrological
systems—lakes, rivers, wetlands—as a long-term resilience strategy. Key techniques
include:
○ Riparian buffer restoration
○ Wetland revival for flood control
○ Bioengineering for embankment stabilization
● Watershed Management: Micro- and macro-watershed approaches help capture surface
runoff, prevent erosion, and enhance aquifer recharge, particularly in semi-arid zones.
● Decentralized Infrastructure: Dr. Mohanty supports community-owned rainwater
harvesting systems, check dams, and percolation tanks to ensure local water security
under climate stress.
Key Indian Policies/Schemes:
1. Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABHY) – 2019:
○ Funded by World Bank.
○ Focus: Participatory groundwater management in seven water-stressed states.
○ Uses Water Security Plans (WSPs) and promotes demand-side management
(DSM).
2. Namami Gange Programme:
○ Beyond pollution abatement, it includes riverine eco-restoration, biodiversity
protection, and floodplain zoning.
3. Amrit Sarovar Mission (2022):
○ Goal: Rejuvenation of 50,000 water bodies to improve local water availability.
○ Focuses on climate-proofing rural water resources.
4. MGNREGA – Water Conservation Works:
○ Funding for check dams, contour trenches, bunds, and ponds as part of livelihood
generation and climate mitigation.
International Policies/Models:
1. UNESCO-IHP (International Hydrological Programme):
○ Supports Ecohydrology—integration of ecological and hydrological principles for
sustainable water and ecosystem health.
2. World Bank’s Water Scarce Cities Initiative:
○ Urban-focused resilience: non-conventional water resources (like treated
wastewater reuse), water-loss reduction, and stormwater harvesting.
3. Paris Agreement (2015):
○ Urges countries to integrate climate-adaptive water strategies within Nationally
Determined Contributions (NDCs), especially in agriculture and urban planning.
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