Institutionalizing People’s Participation in Water Planning and Management M. Dinesh Kumar Presentation in the Brainstorming Session for the 4 th India Water Week, 7 th April, 2016

Public Participation in Water Resources Planning and Management Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (UNCED 1992) urges nations to facilitate public participation through methods that increase (a) transparency, (b) participatory decision- making, and (c) accountability. These elements may be described respectively as: (a) informing people of water issues or water related activities that may affect them; (b) involving the public in decision-making regarding such activities so as to minimize the negative impacts; and (c) providing those adversely affected by these decisions and activities with adequate compensation and also the means of seeking redressal

The Issue of Scale in understanding the Problem There are ‘misconceptions of at what scale water issues needs to be analyzed Water related issues vary from location to location within a river basin or a catchment Therefore the water management priorities can change from one part of the catchment to another—from soil erosion to groundwater depletion to soil salinization, river pollution and river degradation Upper catchment people often want their water to be conserved to reduce soil erosion--they get high rainfall, have access to common lands, forests etc. In middle and lower basin parts of basins, irrigation demands are generally higher--lower rainfall, higher aridity and better arable land endowment is generally the case

The Issue of Scale in understanding the ‘Water Problem ’ Cities and towns are generally in the middle and lower basin parts, which are points of concentrated demands for large quantum of high quality water. Areas downstream of cities face surface water pollution problems, and environmental water stress People in the lower parts of the basins (in the terminal points of the rivers) want water to flush out the salts and the pollution load coming from cities, or adequate river flows for fish to survive Unfortunately, these days, often problems are viewed from a mere village and watershed perspectives. Often there is limited understanding of who the real stakeholders are. There is over-emphasis on upstream communities and their problems. Downstream communities are neither consulted nor informed about proposed interventions in upper catchments

Issues of Scale in Deciding Water Management Interventions There are ‘scale effects’ in water management, which cannot be ignored. What works at the local level will not be the desirable at the catchment level There are also misconceptions about the hydrological processes— planting trees to rejuvenate rivers, canal lining to improve water supply, drip irrigation to arrest groundwater depletion, etc. Rural communities generally prefer afforestation, pasture management, soil and water conservation activities, etc. to improve the situation in the upstream catchment areas (catchment management activities) These interventions would eventually affect downstream flows, with reduction in quantum of flows, but clean water Such interventions implemented on a large scale can affect the inflows into reservoirs downstream affecting the irrigation and water supply schemes.

Issues of Scale in Water Management Decision Making They can also affect the inflows into the water harvesting systems and minor irrigation tanks in the down stream villages Hence, there are clear local catchment-basin ‘trade offs’ in water management. Maximizing one type of benefit or benefit in one locality will be at the cost of another It is imperative that the unit of water planning has to change from villages, watersheds and catchments to basins to reduce these trade offs and achieve optimum basin-wide water management The question is about the mechanisms we evolve to achieve participation of people, who represent different issues and priorities across the basin--forest dwellers, tank water users, canal irrigators, fishing communities, urban water users, etc. in water management

Institutional models and processes There are several institutional models available for community participation from other parts of the World – Catchment management agencies of South Africa, under a Water Act (2005) – Basin management authority of Murray Darling in Australia,; the catchment management agencies of different states falling in the M DB’; and the basin plans – The French River Basin Organizations model—water resources management and water related servic es – The catchment management agencies of England and Wales The institutional format varies and the institutional development processes also vary. Achieving stakeholder participation in water management can often be very quite frustrating. We also need to decide whether the process is important or the outcome is important

Issues in Compensating for Losses There is general perception that small water systems are benign and large water resource projects always have negative impacts. To generate the same benefits, small systems (hydropower or irrigation) can often be more expensive and more costly from societal point of view To compensate for losses, we also need to know who get the benefits and who pays the real costs Basin wide analysis of impacts of water management interventions is quite essential Further, generally, only the direct costs and benefits are identified. But, large water projects have many indirect benefits Well irrigators in the irrigation commands and drinking water schemes in the cities are often the largest beneficiaries of large surface water projects Even for compensating and for ‘benefit sharing’, it is important that we ascertain and quantify the full costs and benefits—both direct and indirect.

Conclusions There is a lot of misconception about what should be the right scale for analyzing water issues; what interventions works, particularly the scale effects in water management; and what real costs and benefits are; and who pays the cost and who gets the benefits The real people’s participation happens when we fully understand : – Who the stakeholders of water in a river basin are – What interventions works in a particular context for optimum basin wide bene fits – How the various stakeholders are affected by a project interventi ons – What the real costs and benefits of the project are – What institutional models are appropriate evolve people’s participation