OBJECTIVE
Water and Climate Change: Voices from Below
A Word from Professor Satyajit Singh
While three quarters of the earth’s surface is made up of water, it should be borne in mind that 97% is sea water and about 2% locked in polar ice caps. This leaves only 1% of the total water resources of the world to be shared by approximately 8 billion people. In the last 70 years, water consumption has increased by four times and is projected to increase by another 20-30% by 2050 due to the rising demands of agriculture, industry and urbanization. To top this, the 2021 IPCC Report points out that global warming would exceed 2 degree Celsius in the 21st century. Climate projections further estimate that some regions may get warmer by as much as 10 degree Celsius by 2100 resulting in a further imbalance between water availability and need. Climate change is already resulting in significant hydrological changes bringing major risks for economy and society. This is happening directly due to alterations in hydrometeorological processes that determine the water cycle. And indirectly through risks leading to unpredictable agricultural and energy production.
A combination of increased demand for water and climate change impacts health, food security and further accentuate regional and social inequalities. The increase in water scarcity has a direct bearing on access the poor have to this resource, especially the indigenous, dalit and other backward communities. Further, water scarcity has a significant bearing on women, especially the girl child, as they are required to spend a large time fetching water for their families, sometimes putting them out of school. As a consequence of scarcity and climate change, claims over water by powerful sectors including commercial farming, industrialization and urbanization is only get stronger. Given the way these contestations over water unfold, the poor only get further alienated from this important resource that is critical for life and livelihoods.
Most studies on climate focus on carbon. While there are studies on water and climate, a lot of these concentrate on climate models and macro level climatic change and broad changes in water availability across regions. There are micro studies on climate and water, once again most of these falls within the category of project evaluations of multi-lateral, inter-governmental, government and NGO funded projects. While these studies are important, they are based on specific projects and their success or failures. Hence, these are not necessarily representative of all concerns and issues of those who live in precarity due to climate and water face. It is important to underline that water intersects with life and livelihoods in various ways, and these manifest in diverse ways in different agro-climatic zones and in varied ways across different livelihoods. Our approach here was to bring out the voices of the poor that have so far been unheard of in this crisis, generate local data and perspective, and bring to the fore diverse local voices to be heard by policy makers and development partners. The study provides a Southern perspective on adaptation and mitigation strategies on water and climate. By focusing on local institutions, conservation strategies, regulatory mechanisms, distribution of water across sectors that are necessitated due to climate change and water scarcity the study contributes to collective action, institutional development and policy changes.
COLLABORATION:
The study was conducted in India and designed as an extended research practicum for UCSB students who have taken a course on Water Politics. The study was in partnership with WaterAid India (an international NGO). WaterAid was a natural choice as it brought in both local and policy perspectives on water and climate change. WaterAid’s field level partners were enthusiastic in their response and excited to partner in the study. In addition, research scholars from Delhi University participated in the study. The field partners included Aga Khan Development Network, Barh Mukti Andolan, Central Himalayan Rural Action Group, Centre for Advance Research & Development, Pragati Jubak Sangha, Prahit Samaj Sevi Sansthan, Pramath, Regional Centre for Development Cooperation, Swami Vivekanand Youth Movement among others. Students were paired with each of these organizations for about six months of the study period (extended from the initial expected duration of three months due to the disastrous second wave of Covid across India).
STUDY SITES:
The study sites that were selected were representative of different agro-climatic zones and key concerns related to increased vulnerability and threats to livelihoods due to water scarcity induced by climate change. These range from depleting ground water resources, impact on indigenous agriculture and women, saline ingress due in coastal areas due to overconsumption of water, increasing chemical contamination of ground water, hydrological impact of village water ponds drying up, using non-functional bore-wells as groundwater recharge sources, how dalit communities manage in flood prone areas, the changes in the agro-pastoral economy of the adivasis, and how small towns are struggling with competing demands of agriculture and provision of safe drinking water. These studies were situated in the Upper and Middle Himalayas, Coastal areas – eastern and western, Semi-Arid zones, Flood Plains, Forests areas as well as Agricultural Plains. The studies were across eight different states and union territories of India, including Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Ladakh.
OUR APPROACH:
RESEARCH:
The study’s approach is to generate local voices that are usually not heard in the on-going water and climate change crisis. It aims to gather diverse evidence of disruptions in livelihoods and collect different emerging adaptation initiatives. Following Amartya Sen, we adopt a position for research that puts the poor at the center of this exploration (Sen, 1993). Similarly, Robert Chambers asks ‘Can we know better? Reflections for Development’ (2017), put a focus on the use of participatory and immersive research methodologies that emphasize co-production in both research design and output. We asked our local research partners – NGOs who work directly with ‘those who are left behind’ – to frame the study questions on issues and concerns that matter at the local level. It was very important for the study team that the co-produced knowledge is used locally to help alleviate climate distress. In order to make better policies, our emphasis has been for a nuanced understanding of marginality, vulnerability, precarity and exploitation; to facilitate collective action, and social and institutional transformation; and foster policy engagement to design adaptive climate policies that mitigate risks and also proactively address existing social and institutional vulnerabilities.
We kicked off in mid-February with a week long orientation workshop with scholars from Sussex, Australia and India helping the students understand the basics of participatory and immersive research. Two stalwarts of rural research in India, Robert Chambers and Jean Dreze, were among those who interacted with the students. This was a demand driven study, where field-based groups determined the ambit of the study based on local concerns and available data. It was perceived that a co-production of knowledge would ensure that the findings generated will be used by the field-based groups and the local people towards mitigating affects due to water scarcity and climate change. Following this, UCSB and the field groups designed the study methodology and assisted the local group during the participatory exercises using communication tools including Zoom and WhatsApp. UCSB was responsible for literature review, collecting comparative analysis and finalizing the writing of the research report. At the same time, the students shaped the studies based on their own interests – gender, agriculture, inequality, pisciculture, indigeneity, caste, watersheds, groundwater and the like. The idea was largely dependent on existing local data with field partners. These were to be be supplemented with interviews with key local stakeholders, civil society groups and government functionaries. Most of these interviews were facilitated by local partners remotely, with UCSB students participating remotely. These study designs were shared at the India Public Policy Network Conference (late March) where senior representatives from the World Bank, state government, civil society organizations were present. Two senior scholars, one from Cambridge University, and another from Ambedkar University, Delhi, gave insightful comments to the study teams on the research design.
The study generated local voices, helped us think through institutions, regulatory and governance structures and mechanisms of collective bargaining determining the allocation of water. It provided local mitigation and adaptation perspectives to the challenges of climate change. Given that the local partners have been working with local communities for some time and have office bearers belonging to the local communities, they are sensitive to local customs, practices and traditions. The study is not an anthropological one on the customs, traditions and practices of the local communities, rather on how people relate to water and climate change. Information collected pertains to the communities, but their agrarian and water practices. The focus has been on collective practices rather than individual narratives.
The local group identified an area of study, within the rubric of water and climate change, that it considers useful to the institution as well as to the local community. This ensured that the study partners are not subjects of the study but equal partners. The local partner shared preliminary data and organized immersive and participatory exercises with the local constituents, ensuring that women and the poor had adequate representation. Utmost precaution was taken to ensure that local subjects as well as research intermediaries’ health will not be compromised during the course of this study. During the second wave, all field activities was put to a stop for 10-12 weeks.
We had a half-day workshop to provide additional inputs to the students on their respective draft reports in late September. During Fall and Winter (2021-22), we will have a synthesized report, a methodology paper, a workshop with policy makers in India on lessons learnt, and a blueprint on the way ahead for our study partners. UCSB will work with WaterAid to disseminate the findings in the policy space as well as academic platforms.
Key participants in the study:
Sitara Slee; Megan Yeager; Rachel Dice; Pailyn Kelley; Hallie Georguson; Molly McAnany; Nick Bissonnette; Annie Lovell; Kunzes Dolma; Pankaj Jha; Avantika Singh; Debabrata Das; Kartik Joshi; Himanshu Singh; Abhishek Likam; Jagganath Chatterjee; Shivani Sharma & Dennis Chauhan