Multiple Use Water Systems for Alleviating Water Poverty in the Northeast Himalayas

1. Multiple Use Water Systems for Alleviating Water Poverty in the Northeast Himalayas Bharat Sharma With contributions from M V Riaz, D Pant, BP Bhatt, H Rahman MUS Meeting De Haagsche Kluis, The Hague, The Netherlands 22-23 November, 2010

2. Northeastern Himalayan Region – India, Nepal

3. The physical settings

4. The Place The People

5. Village Clans • Ang • Langsym • Wang Nao • Wangsa • Khaman • Naham • Nyemam • Wangsu • Khanlau • Tomkhu • Wanglang • Longnye • Gamma

6. Percent distribution of rainfall in different states of northeeastern region, India

7. Two extremes of water availability in the hills!! Too Little Water !!! Too Much Water !!!

8. Irrigated Area in the Northeastern States of India

9. Jhum Cultivation in Northeastern Uplands…… Low productivity and continuous degradation…

10. Access to water is a serious issue and everyone must contribute….. Water bottle

11. Project Hypothesis: “Should the rural poor in the region use the water and land resources more fully and surplus food can be easily marketed, household incomes would rise leading to save and invest in agriculture and other economic activities on one hand and to an increased demand for goods and services not produced by the household on the other. Should both these happen, the level of the rural poor in the region would go an upward ratchet.”

12. Major Objectives • Generate and employ social and water poverty maps. • Design (and help in implementation of) appropriate water harvesting and multiple water use systems and assess their impacts on livelihood security. • Build capacity of consortium partners and stakeholders.

13. Prevalence of Diseases in the Village

14. Water Poverty Index • For the construction of the Index, five components were identified: • Resource: The physical availability of water supplied. • Access: This implies access to water for household use. • Capacity:Capacity implies the effectiveness of people's ability to manage water. • Use: The ways in which water is used for different purposes. • Environment: Environmental integrity related to water and of ecosystem goods and services from flora and fauna in the area.

15. Water Poverty Index (WPI) Composite Index Scores for each cluster of the village Lempong Sheanghah, Mon, Nagaland

16. WPI Pentagram for the Study Villages in Nagaland

17. The “Access to Water Resource” Component has the most significant impact on water poverty since the correlation coefficient of that component (0.68) is the maximum among all the components. This explicitly explains that it is not the resource per se, but the provision of access to water resource which is most important for alleviating water poverty. It is true even in so called ‘water abundant’ villages of Nagaland and north east region. The general conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that ‘Access’ and ‘Capacity’ are the two major factors contributing to water poverty in the village of Lampong Sheanghah. In the two most water poor clusters ( Ching Lan, Ching Chong) and the entire village as a whole, improving the per capita income and the accessibility to water resource would lead to a much improved Water Poverty Index and thus improved livelihoods.

18. Strategies to Improve Access for Consumptive and Productive Use of Water: Cross-Learning from other International Experiences Multiple Water Use Systems in Nepal Hills

19. Numerous small but precious water resources… Remain largely untapped for consumptive and productive purposes.

20. Water harvesting…… Water Harvesting and Utilisation………..

21. Defunct Drinking Water Projects Outnumber the Functional Projects

22. Entry Point: The Homestead Gardens Homesteads have the potential to provide main nutrition and livelihoods to the families, especially women if these are provided with small but assured sources of water and related inputs and some markets and thus act as instruments for alleviating poverty. And Meeting the Vital Drinking Water Needs………

23. “MUS is small and small is beautiful.”

24. MUS Water Storages in the Study Village

25. Productive Use of the Harvested Water with Simple Technologies

26. Outcomes • Provides adequate domestic water supply • Time saved for women & girls in water collection • Improved health and use of toilets • Increased veg. consumption (10-20% of total production) • Increased cropping intensity • Increased annual income ($ 198) • Income increases incentive and ability to maintain the systems • MUS enable density of micro irrigation adoption and production which facilitates development of collection centers and local service providers “MUS is an entry point for empowering people.”

27. Improved Agriculture- Improved Livelihoods

28. Collection Centers: Key intervention to enable access in remote and weak markets PPP: MOAC/DOA, Local Government, Smallholders, VC actors, Collection centers are run by entrepreneurs and cooperatives Develop crop calendars with traders Provide TA, credit, and support to smallholders Over 120 CC serving over 100,00 HHs (about 600,000 people)

29. Two Way: Interactive Learning

30. Conclusions • MUS has benefited users in terms of availability of water both in terms of quality and quantity. • MUS has benefited the users' in terms of increased income through vegetable farming. • MUS has helped in improving water productivity through intensive use of available water. • Upscaling of mus through improved technology to cover more areas needs to be explored. This has been achieved to some extent by integrating the drinking water and homestead gardens’ (+livestock) supply schemes.

31. Thank you!!