To embark the “Climate Adaptive Water Management Plans for Cities in South Asia (CAMPS)” project, SIAS organized an Inception workshop entitled “Climate Change and Equitable Water Management Practices and Policies” on 3rd August, 2016 in Dhulikhelcity.About 40 representatives from diverse stakeholdersincluding the research team, District Forest Officer, District Soil Conservation Officer, Executive Officer of Dhulikhel Municipality, Environmental Officer of District Development Committee, representatives of water user committees, private sectors, upstream communities, etc. have participated in the event.
The workshop aimed to understand the complexities, issues, challenges and opportunities of water management practices in one of the emerging urban center of Nepal, Dhulikhel. Apart from that, the workshop helped to develop a common understanding among the research team members and stakeholders about the issues and collaborative research concept. Moreover, participants were engaged in the group work as a participatory approach to identify various water related issues, possible action interventions and responsible institutions so as to ultimately contribute in the strategies for adaptive and equitable management of urban water systems to be implemented in future.
Broadly, participants identified few major crucial interventions such as- sustainable water resource management techniques, implementation of polluters’ pay principle for sewage management, water source conservation, equitable water distribution provision, regulatory mechanism for leakages and haphazard extraction, renovation of water supply system, awareness and capacity building and monitoring of water quality. At the end of the workshop, the participants released a five point common agenda of declaration. The declaration include the commitment of cooperation and collaboration of all the stakeholders in the future to address the urban water insecurity issues, involvement of the private sector for sustainable water resource management, institutional strengthening for water conservation initiatives and implementation of small collaborative pilot project of recharge pond construction for groundwater recharge between SIAS and Dhulikhel Drinking Water User Committee.
About CAMPS:The CAMPS project has been launched from April 2016 led bySouthasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS) in partnership with International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and in collaboration with Center for Ecology and Development Research (CEDAR), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in India, University of New South Wales and University of Sydney. The duration of the project is 36 months. The objective of CAMPS is to investigate urban water insecurity under changing climate in small to medium sized cities in Nepal (Dharan and Dhulikhel) and India (Haldwni and Mussoorie), and demonstrate governance and city-scale planning strategies for adaptive and equitable management of urban water systems.
