The Multiple Benefits of Low-Cost, Decentralized Solutions for Water Treatment and Supply in Rural India

Background
Access to clean water and sanitation is a central pillar of sustainable development. Wetlands and ponds offer a low-cost, low-energy and low maintenance, nature-based solution for decentralised water treatment. This is especially true in rural communities where low population densities and limited sanitation infrastructure exist. Well-designed constructed wetlands and associated “finishing” ponds can provide multiple community benefits, including economic benefits such as sufficient treatment of grey water for aquaculture (fisheries & plant products), biofuel, crop irrigation and for recharge of groundwater supplies for drinking. Local management activities can also enhance nutrient recovery through plant and fish harvesting. Alongside this, constructed wetlands and ponds can provide an aesthetically-pleasing area for people to rest and play and also reverse the trend of declining wetland habitats for wildlife. Dis-benefits can include increased habitat for vector–borne diseases, as well as unintended disruptions to socio-ecological relationships at the community scale.
JHI, CEH and the University of Stirling are collaborating with ATREE, Bengalaru (co-supervisor Dr Durba Biswas) and IIT Roorkee (co-supervisor Dr Himanshu Joshi) and other Indian partners in several innovative schemes being implemented in rural India to enhance water quality and availability. The effectiveness of these schemes for delivering sufficient supply of clean water for a range of purposes, under changing environmental conditions (e.g. dry vs monsoon periods) is unknown. The effectiveness and benefits will also vary if different wetland vegetation types are used. Similarly, a number of local management approaches to maintaining the wetlands, and often associated social enterprises for exploiting their benefits, are being adopted, but the impact of these on different members of the community, has not been resolved. There is need to better understand the extent to which these nature-based solutions and social enterprise models enhance economic growth and reduce gender inequality in local communities.

Aims and Objectives
The project will examine the multiple benefits, or dis-benefits, of using constructed wetlands and ponds for water treatment and the provision of clean water in rural India. The focus will be on enhanced supply of clean water through low-cost engineering approaches, identifying any adaptive approaches needed during dry or monsoon seasons. It aims, however, to deliver a broader inter-disciplinary understanding of the multiple benefits, not just in enhancing water supply, but to examine impacts on food security, employment and economic growth and the ways these changes enhance (or not) the social capital of women through improved income, education opportunities and opportunities for participation in natural resource management.

Project Design and Methodology
The proposed project will explore these questions in a number of rural case-studies in different cultural contexts in north and south India where decentralised wetland treatment systems are being implemented. An experimental design will be adopted to examine the effectiveness of treatment in dry vs monsoon periods, and the benefits derived across the communities, by comparing control (no treatment) vs intervention (constructed wetlands/ponds) case-studies across a number of villages. Where possible, before and after intervention will also be studied, to enable a full BACI experimental design. As part of the design we will select case-studies utilising different vegetation types and different management and social enterprise models.