Political

The Water Footprint Manual (2009) by the Water Footprint Network (WFN) is a comprehensive and up-to-date outline of the method of water footprint assessment. It introduces how water footprints can be calculated for individual processes and products, as well as for consumers, nations and businesses.

The concept is introduced as a comprehensive indicator of freshwater resources appropriation, as against the traditional and restricted measure of water withdrawal. The hidden water use behind products are measured over the full supply chain and water consumption volumes are measured by source and polluted volumes by type of pollution. All components of a total water footprint are specified geographically and temporally. Blue water (surface and groundwater), green water (rainwater stored in the soil as soil moisture) and grey water (polluted water) footprints are defined and are included along with the indirect water use in measuring the overall water footprints.

This  report by the World Bank discusses the climate changes in India and the disasters associated with these climate changes such as floods and droughts and their negative impact on agriculture, food production, livelihoods, security and the condition of the vulnerable groups in the country. The report goes on to discuss the policies undertaken by the Government of India to deal and adapt with these changes and the challenges faced in implementing these policies.

This report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) highlights the phenomenon of climate change and argues that water storage will be a key strategy for climate change adaptation in the coming years.

The report discusses the importance of the Hindu Kush Himalayan ranges as an important source of water to a large section of the population and warns of the impending crisis of water scarcity and food insecurity in the regions of Asia, if water harvesting and conservation efforts are not undertaken. The document argues that water storage thus becomes a central issue, which is very complicated to implement, particularly in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.

The Joint Convergence Guidelines issued by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) in April 2009, attempts to bring about inter-sectoral convergence in the various watershed management programmes being implemented by the different departments under the MoRD. In particular, it deals with the convergence between the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) being implemented by the Department of Rural Development (DoRD) and the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) being implemented by the Department of Land Resources (DoLR).

Institute of Rural Research and Development (IRRAD) organised "Jal Chetna Yatra" where three groups started the yatra from three different blocks of Mewat on 19th March, sensitizing the community towards water issues and collect at the district headquarters on 22nd March, World Water Day.

Click on the attachment to read the entire report.

We are a group of engineers driven by a common aim of empowering engineers and technicians at grass root levels through training and knowledge transfer. We have for this purpose decided to manage a webpage to reach out to the professionals at municipality and panchayath level. The path is as follows.

These two documents enlist best practices in urban water management, based on the experiences of Biome Solutions, and are relevant for households in a gated layout/group housing complex, where the water sourcing, supply and management is in the hands of the layout and there is no connection to the the local water supply authority.

Based on the annual costs of imported (purchased) water, pumping (energy), water supply infrastructure and borewell maintenance, wastewater treatment, human resources, rainwater harvesting maintenance, sinking fund (cost of replacement of infrastructure), this spreadsheet-based toolkit by Biome Solutions, helps calculate the total cost (in Rs/KL) of water.

Based on user-entered data on domestic water demand, waste water discharge, rainfall availability and recharge, extent of reuse of treated waste water, this spreadsheet-based toolkit developed by Biome Solutions allows you to juggle around with the relevant data fields, and figure out various ways in which you can bring down your overall groundwater draft (and hence ecological footprint) as low as possible, and gives a snapshot result of your overall household-level water input and output situation.