{"id":130283,"date":"2021-08-31T20:52:19","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T15:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=130283"},"modified":"2021-09-01T18:25:50","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T12:55:50","slug":"conserving-groundwater-role-of-women-crucial-in-bringing-about-significant-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/conserving-groundwater-role-of-women-crucial-in-bringing-about-significant-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Conserving groundwater: Role of women crucial in bringing about significant change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: This post is based on article &#8220;<strong>Conserving groundwater: Role of women crucial in bringing about significant change<\/strong>&#8221; published in Down to Earth on 31st August 2021.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>: Role of women to address the water crisis of India.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis<\/strong>: Increased women participation in groundwater management will shift the intended objectives from technology to governance, demand management, efficiency, improved crop choices and enhancing soil moisture.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>India is facing one of the worst water crisis. India is entirely dependent on groundwater and is pumping out the lion\u2019s share of the global volume. Moreover, women, who have a limited say in groundwater governance, are the ones who suffer the most from the water crisis.<\/p>\n<p>This needs to change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why women are at the forefront of the issue?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Women, who have no decision-making role in investments on such wells, are forced by authorities to take over the liabilities.<\/li>\n<li>They are the first respondents to the crisis and are responsible for repayment, overcoming drinking water shortages, finding alternative livelihoods and running the farm and family.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Need for women led approach<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Women prefer for crops with a lower water footprint.<\/li>\n<li>They do farming integrated with animals, which reduces their vulnerability.<\/li>\n<li>They have easy market access for vegetables \/ flowers \/ fruits.<\/li>\n<li>Women have strong desire for use of green water (rainwater that collects in soil) over blue water.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Benefits of women participation<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Women\u2019s judgement on crop plans, water demand and footprint of crops is different from that of men. For example: In Chipko movement,\u00a0 women settled for nothing short of a complete ban on the felling of trees to help protect the environment, while their male counterparts conceded to controlled logging in exchange for livelihood.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>scope of reducing irrigation is immense<\/strong>\u00a0when Gram Panchayat-level governance seriously acknowledges recommendations by women.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Alternative models<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Any solution to groundwater distress need women collectives and non-profits to focus on alternative models that are based on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>regulated pumping<\/li>\n<li>enforcement of\u00a0 local governance and<\/li>\n<li>adoption of\u00a0 sustainable cropping systems.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Suggestions\/Measures<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Any future approach to groundwater conservation needs to be centered around:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Organising small farmers in villages into registered bodies<\/strong>, federated at the district\u00a0 with equal participation of women responsible for managing the entire value chain<\/li>\n<li><strong>Technical tools and skills for women<\/strong> to monitor distress<\/li>\n<li><strong>Displaying daily technical data<\/strong> at the village centre, bringing value to data through sales to government as well as commercial agencies<\/li>\n<li><strong>Creating barefoot groundwater experts<\/strong> with a diploma through year-long farmer water schools<\/li>\n<li><strong>Conducting annual groundwater audits<\/strong> at different units scaled up to river basin<\/li>\n<li><strong>Capping groundwater pumping<\/strong> for each farm based on approved crop plan. This will increase water availability for future generations.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Imposing local governance<\/strong> through Gram Panchayat, with penalties for offenders<\/li>\n<li><strong>Linking crop outputs to markets<\/strong> through dedicated marketing channels<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The yardstick of success will be the volume safeguarded within the aquifer, instead of what is pumped out. Appropriate incentivisation on water savings will accrue to the collectives.<\/p>\n<p>Following this approach will also lead to reinventing of grass-root democracy, strengthening local institutions and exercising local governance on natural resources.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Terms to know<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><a class=\"Hyperlink SCXW46490754 BCX0\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/virtual-water\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><span class=\"TextRun Highlight Underlined SCXW46490754 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"none\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW46490754 BCX0\" data-ccp-charstyle=\"Hyperlink\">Blue\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"FindHit SCXW46490754 BCX0\" data-ccp-charstyle=\"Hyperlink\">water<\/span><\/span><\/a><span class=\"EOP SCXW46490754 BCX0\" data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233279&quot;:true,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: This post is based on article &#8220;Conserving groundwater: Role of women crucial in bringing about significant change&#8221; published in Down to Earth on 31st August 2021. Relevance: Role of women to address the water crisis of India. Synopsis: Increased women participation in groundwater management will shift the intended objectives from technology to governance, demand&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/conserving-groundwater-role-of-women-crucial-in-bringing-about-significant-change\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Conserving groundwater: Role of women crucial in bringing about significant change<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10330,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[9101,9450,286],"class_list":["post-130283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-ground-water","tag-ground-water-conservation","tag-water-crisis","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704882421},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}