Suchergebnisse

The main objective of the paper is to estimate the costs of groundwater over exploitation and examine the costs and benefits from groundwater replenishing mechanisms in different ecological contexts. Using the public good and externalities framework, the study shows how groundwater exploitation in Andhra Pradesh, India is resulting in economic losses to individual farmers apart from ecological degradation. It is argued that policies towards strengthening the resource base (replenishment mechanisms) and equitable distribution of the resource (property rights) would be beneficial, economically as well as ecologically.The analysis is in favour of investment in replenishment mechanisms such as irrigation tanks and percolation tanks. The situation of over extraction and the resultant environmental degradation is a consequence of lack of appropriate and adequate policies (policy failure) for managing the subsurface water resources. Hitherto, groundwater policies (subsidized credit, power, etc.) are in the nature of encouraging private initiatives in groundwater development. It is argued that community-based investments in replenishment as well as extraction of groundwater would make better economic as well as ecological sense.

Public policy has often addressed the problems of water supply and sanitation from the supply side to the neglect of demand side aspects in developing countries like India. This policy has not only rendered a large number of projects financially unviable but has also resulted in inadequate coverage of aspects such as population and ecological unsustainability. This article, based on household level information from six villages in a water scarce region of India (Rajasthan state), examines inter‐ and intra‐village variations in water use and the costs, direct and indirect, involved in obtaining water. It also estimates households' willingness and ability to pay for water, using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Using qualitative as well as quantitative methods, it is argued that it is the failure of government policy and of institutions which has led to severe water shortages in harsh environments rather than supply or financial bottlenecks per se. While the estimates of price elasticity of water use indicate the feasibility of water pricing in the rural areas, the willingness to pay estimates question the general assumption that rural households are willing to pay 5 per cent of their income/expenditure for water. Various economic and extra economic factors such as household income, low opportunity costs of women and children, and attitudes towards female labour and public goods are vital in influencing the households' willingness to pay for water.

This book demonstrates the application of Life-cycle Cost Approach (LCCA) in the management of infrastructure and other investment projects in the context of developing countries. The main goal is to identify potential opportunities for the adoption LCCA in developing countries, with the help of case studies and best practices. The editors observe that developing countries are plagued with poor and fluctuating service delivery which affords low or no priority for environmental protection. They seek to instill at the policy-making level an understanding of why life-cycle cost assessment is central to achieving the goals of sustainable development as well as sustainable service delivery and to influence the behavior of sector stakeholders. The editors examine the evolution of LCCA from a project appraisal tool to a more comprehensive method of incorporating sustainable development aspects in a variety of sectors. By providing a compendium of concepts, tools and practical experiences, it seeks to broaden the application of LCCA, which is often limited to specific phases of the life-cycle with little or no weight given to environmental aspects. The aim of the book is to mainstream LCCA into governance processes at institutional levels from local to national, in order to increase the ability and willingness of decision makers - both users and those involved in service planning, budgeting and delivery - to reach better informed and more relevant choices among different types and levels of products and services

Using empirical data from 87 watershed communities in semiarid India, our study has shown that collective action in watershed management can be captured through a set of variables that indicate the capacity of communities to design and enforce certain common institutional arrangements and their ability to mobilize local financial and labor resources for watershed investments. The level of collective action in terms of internal institutional capacity was affected negatively by the size of the groups (number of households and area of the village), while distance from markets and high rainfall seemed to increase it. On the other hand, collective action in terms of internal mobilization capacity decreased with rainfall, size of group, number of seasonal migrants, and distance from the seat of the local administration but increased with area of the village, flow of information within the village, and the share of land under village commons. The mobilization capacity also seems to have increased with equitable distribution of benefits and preference for employment of the rural poor and female workers. However, the results clearly show that in most watershed communities the level of collective action is very limited, indicating that only few communities have achieved higher levels of active participation of resource users in watershed programs. ; PR ; IFPRI2; CAPRi ; EPTD

In arid and semiarid environments, livelihoods based on irrigated agriculture are typically dependent on groundwater. Despite being a common-pool resource, groundwater development is primarily in the hands of private individuals, because groundwater rights are often linked to land rights, as in the case of India. As a result of this and the capital investment needed, groundwater development is undertaken by wealthier farming households with the adverse impacts of groundwater overexploitation often borne by small and marginal farmers, because they cannot afford to drill deeper, if they have wells, as groundwater levels drop, especially in areas occupied by hard rock aquifers. Until recently, no concrete efforts were made in India to bring groundwater under an appropriate system of management. With rapidly increasing groundwater use and mounting signs of widespread depletion, state policy interventions have attempted to better manage the resource. The policy advances vary across different states depending on their status of groundwater development and the socioeconomic and policy context. Despite the formal approaches and methods used to restore groundwater levels, the progress has been limited primarily due to the lack of enforcement. Where successful, the scalability of these efforts depends highly on the socioeconomic conditions and political environment. The failure of formal regulatory approaches has led India to experiment with informal, participatory groundwater management (PGM) initiatives over recent decades. Various participatory and community-based groundwater management interventions have been tried in different parts of India. Although most of these are small-scale initiatives, some state governments in India are taking a keen interest in supporting and scaling up these initiatives. The fifth issue in the Case Profile Series, produced by the Groundwater Solutions Initiative for Policy and Practice (GRIPP), assesses whether the proactive involvement of rural communities in the management of groundwater positively contributes towards sustainable resource use. The assessment uses the long term (2003-2013) Andhra Pradesh Farmer-Managed Groundwater Systems (APFAMGS) project in India as a case study. Implemented across seven districts, the assessment is based on a critical review and synthesis of existing literature and complementary field visits conducted five years after project closure. APFAMGS worked towards creating awareness and bringing about behavioral change to achieve sustainable groundwater use, primarily for irrigation. The approach focused on knowledge transfer and capacity building to set up participatory processes conducive to informal management measures, and technologies supporting participatory hydrological monitoring and crop water budgeting. In addition, awareness creation in relation to demand as well as supply side management options was a key intervention. The analysis suggests that APFAMGS has helped in filling the knowledge and information gaps on groundwater resources among local farming communities. Some degree of long-term reduction in groundwater pumping was observed, but the attribution to the project is not clear, and effects on reducing groundwater level declines may be limited and localized. The APFAMGS approach of PGM fell short in terms of equity considerations, with implications for the institutional sustainability of the approach. The study provides policy guidance for adopting more inclusive PGM-based institutions on a wider scale.

This book assesses the effectiveness of changes in watershed interventions in one of the most fragile resource regions of the India. Specifically the chapters examine various watershed centred interventions and their implementation process. An evaluation of the livelihood impacts, including crop production on the communities, is discussed and an assessment of the drought and climate resilience of households in the context of watershed and related interventions, including institutions and capacity of the communities is investigated. Lessons are drawn to further identify measures to strengthen and improvise interventions for enhanced climate-drought resilience in harsh environments. .

With tens of millions of hectares and hundreds of millions of lives in the balance, the debate over who should control South Asia�s forests is of tremendous political significance. This book provides an insightful and thorough assessment of important forest management transitions currently underway.� MARK POFFENBERGER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY FORESTRY INTERNATIONAL �The contributions in this volume not only breathe life into the fi eld of writing and analysis related to forests, they do so on the strength of extraordinarily insightful research. Kudos to Springate-Baginski and Blaikie for providing us with a set of thoroughly researched, provocative studies that should be required reading not only for those interested in community forestry in south Asia, but in resource governance anywhere.� ARUN AGRAWAL, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF NATURAL RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, USA �Makes a significant contribution to theory and practice of participatory forest management.� YAM MALLA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, REGIONAL COMMUNITY FORESTRY TRAINING CENTER FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC, BANGKOK �This excellent and timely book provides thought-provoking insights to the issues of power and politics in forestry and the difficulties of transforming age-old structures that circumscribe the access of the poor to forests and their resources; it challenges our assumptions of the benefits of participatory forest management and the role of forestry in poverty reduction. It should be of interest to policy-makers and to all those who have been involved with the struggle of transforming forestry over the decades.� DR MARY HOBLEY, HOBLEY SHIELDS ASSOCIATES (NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING CONSULTANCY) �A rare combination of extensive field study, social science insights and policy studies � will be of immense value� DR N. C. SAXENA, MEMBER OF NATIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA In recent decades �participatory� approaches to forest management have been introduced around the world. This book assesses their implementation in the highly politicized environments of India and Nepal. The authors critically examine the policy, implementation processes and causal factors affecting livelihood impacts. Considering narratives and field practice, with data from over 60 study villages and over 1000 household interviews, the book demonstrates why particular field outcomes have occurred and why policy reform often proves so difficult. Research findings on which the book is based are already influencing policy in India and Nepal, and the research and analysis have great relevance to forestry management in a wide range of countries. Published with DFID.

1. Introduction / V. Ratna Reddy, Catarina Fonseca and Charles Batchelor -- 2. WASH sector in India : the policy context / V. Kurian Baby and V. Ratna Reddy -- 3. Life-cycle cost approach : an analytical framework for WASH sector / V. Ratna Reddy, Catarina Fonseca and Charles Batchelor -- 4. Unit costs and service levels by region and technology / V. Ratna Reddy, M. Venkataswamy and M. Snehalatha -- 5. Explaining inter-village variations in drinking water provision : factors influencing costs and service levels in Rural Andhra Pradesh / V. Ratna Reddy -- 6. Rural sanitation and hygiene : economic and institutional aspects of sustainable services / V. Ratna Reddy -- 7. Nirmal Gram Puraskar and sanitation service levels : the curse of Slippage / M. Snehalatha, V. Anitha Raj, P. Bhushan and M. Venkataswamy -- 8. Cost of provision and managing WASH services in peri-urban areas / G. Alivelu, V. Ratna Reddy, P. Bhushan and V. Anitha Raj -- 9. Skewed and inequitable access to rural water supply and sanitation services / M. Snehalatha and James Batchelor -- 10. How can water security be improved in water-scarce areas of rural India? / Charles Batchelor, James Batchelor and M. Snehalatha -- 11. Assessing progress towards sustainable service delivery in India : lessons for rural water supply / A.J. James -- 12. Transparency, accountability and participation (TAP) : understanding governance in rural WASH sector / M.V. Rama Chandrudu, Safa Fanaian and R. Subramanyam Naidu -- 13. Decentralized governance and sustainable service delivery : the case of Nenmeni rural water supply scheme, Kerala, India / P.K. Kurian, V. Kurian Baby and Terry Thomas -- 14. Sustainable WASH services : policy options and imperatives / V. Ratna Reddy, Catarina Fonseca and Charles Batchelor.