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Bringing Aquifers and Communities Together: Decentralised Groundwater Governance in Rural India
Abstract
India is the largest user of groundwater in the world, with an atomistic resource development paradigm. The millions of groundwater users across the diverse hydrogeological settings of the country have led to an overarching dependency on the resource for agricultural livelihoods, drinking water security and also meeting and increasing industrial and urban water demand. Increasing dependency has led to growing exploitation trends, often with concurrent contamination effects and complex competition around groundwater resources. Groundwater management efforts are emerging where science and participation of communities have led to management of aquifers as CPRs. However, such management has also revealed the urgent need for a groundwater governance agenda which tackles the problems through effective amalgamation of hydrogeology, stakeholder engagement and institutional arrangements. The article discusses the framework for an integrated groundwater governance paradigm in India that follows a bottom-up approach through decentralisation of the principles of governance and some examples of how this is evolving in conjunction with participatory groundwater management.
... Typology of participation-Adopted from Joshi et al. (2019) and Agarwal (2001 ...
... Being part of Gram Sabha discussions and decision-making process for groundwater managementcomprehensive institutional engagement Interactive Undertaking specific actions on the ground, based on scientific inputs and agreed-upon decisions like planning of watershed structures based on hydrogeology, net planning, well and pump regulation, groundwater budgeting for crops etc. Table 1: Typology of participation-Adopted from Joshi et al. (2019) and Agarwal (2001) What one is to make of this discourse of participation in natural resource management and governance when it comes to groundwater? Well, first to begin with, groundwater is largely invisible as compared to various other common pool natural resources like forests, rivers and lakes. ...
India is the largest user of groundwater in the world accounting for nearly 25 percent of global abstraction. It has been possible due to the atomistic nature of groundwater development in the country. Nearly 85 percent of rural water supplies are dependent on groundwater sources.
Given the context of this dependency on the resource, the country today faces unprecedented crisis linked to management and governance of groundwater.
The Participatory Groundwater Management (PGWM) efforts by the cohort of Arghyam partners across various hydrogeological settings of the country argues for a hydrogeology based approach to groundwater management (Ghose et al. 2017).
What opportunities does the PGWM approach provide for holistic water resources and livelihood development in the CITB? What strategies and processes will enable decentralization of groundwater governance in the Central Indian Tribal Belt? What are the challenges that one may come across for PGWM in CITB?
This document analyses the above set of questions in the context of work undertaken by Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF) in collaboration with 14 civil society partners working across the CITB. The work on PGWM was undertaken across 20 pilot locations spread across 7 states of CITB.
... Decentralization of exploitation wells [67]; • Increasing infiltration by restoring vegetation [68] in pastures; • Construction control in aquifer recharge areas and preventing reduction of irrigation level; • Increasing aquifer recharge through the use of injection wells [69], increasing infiltration of rivers and canals [70], flood infiltration in dried aqueducts, and recharging through infiltration of the surface water from natural pits. ...
Climate change and overpopulation have led to an increase in water demands worldwide. As a result, land subsidence due to groundwater extraction and water level decline is causing damage to communities in arid and semiarid regions. The agricultural plain of Samalghan in Iran has recently experienced wide areas of land subsidence, which is hypothesized to be caused by groundwater overexploitation. This hypothesis was assessed by estimating the amount of subsidence that occurred in the Samalghan plain using DInSAR based on an analysis of 25 Sentinel-1 descending SAR images over 6 years. To assess the influence of water level changes on this phenomenon, groundwater level maps were produced, and their relationship with land subsidence was evaluated. Results showed that one major cause of the subsidence in the Samalghan plain was groundwater overexploitation, with the highest average land subsidence occurring in 2019 (34 cm) and the lowest in 2015 and 2018 (18 cm). Twelve Sentinel-1 ascending images were used for relative validation of the DInSAR processing. The correlation value varied from 0.69 to 0.89 (an acceptable range). Finally, the aquifer behavior was studied, and changes in cultivation patterns and optimal utilization of groundwater resources were suggested as practical strategies to control the current situation.
... A third set of groundwater interventions include community mobilization for participatory groundwater management (PGWM). PGWM has been tried in some states (Jadeja et al. 2018;Joshi, Kulkarni, and Aslekar 2019). Research has shown that farmers' understanding of groundwater resources increased when exposed to community-based training (Meinzen-Dick et al. 2018). ...
Groundwater depletion in India is a result of water, energy, and food policies that have given rise to a nexus where growth in agriculture has been supported by unsustainable trends in water and energy use. This nexus emanates from India's policy of providing affordable calories to its large population. This requires that input prices are kept low, leading to perverse incentives that encourage groundwater overexploitation. The paper argues that solutions to India's groundwater problems need to be embedded within the current context of its water‐energy‐food nexus. Examples are provided of changes underway in some water‐energy‐food policies that may halt further groundwater depletion.
... India is the highest groundwater extractor in the world [1, 13,20]. Almost 85% population resides in rural areas [29] where 60% of the irrigation land and 85% of domestic activities are dependent on groundwater [35]. ...
The past research shows a lot of model studies over groundwater hydrology. From the past few decades, the groundwater hydrology is shifting towards a modeling perspective to increase evaluation
efficiency (Stephen, 2017). The issues like declination in groundwater level and the increased susceptibility of surface water are attracting the attention of the researchers towards a focused study on groundwater hydrology (Asano. 2016). The study of well-hydraulics plays a major role in groundwater management and is mainly concern with the structure and composition of earth material as 65% of the geographical area is covered by hard rock (Saraf et al. 2004). The aquifer is found as the most saturated formation of the earth which not only stores water but also yields in sufficient quantity (Dingman, 2015). The confined and unconfined aquifer exhibits the steady and unsteady state of groundwater flow. This results in the determination of the permeability and discharges through the aquifer (K Subramanya 2013). The broad idea of the present work is to avoid manual calculations by providing a computer‐based program to simplify the concept of well-hydraulics. The C language has been used for the same. The site engineers are the direct beneficiaries for this adopted productive methodology as instead of collecting data from the field and analyzing it in the laboratory, the same can be achieved on the field itself.
Springshed management across mountainous states, such as India and Nepal, has paved the way for the groundwater recharge process. In contrast, despite introducing several interventions, the Bangladeshi government has never been officially exposed to such sustainable ideas for a spring revival. Therefore, this study aims to diagnose water security for the Himalayan region by applying an environmental security framework. Community perceptions documented through focus group discussions and key informant interviews, as well as water sample testing, helped highlight the existing issues of water scarcity, accessibility, quality, and governance structure. Exemplifying the condition of Bandarban in Bangladesh, notable gaps were found in spring-related scientific understanding. Specifically, the lack of adequate reservoirs, institutional coordination, water supply, utility maintenance, and accessibility hurdles were identified as areas requiring immediate attention. As a recovery route, a six-step protocol of springshed management shows more promising outcomes. However, Sikkim communities in India raised questions over its efficacy due to the improper execution of said protocols. A limited understanding of hill science, including inventory and inadequate inspections before implementation, were found to result in only partial success. Upgrading remains a challenge as maladaptation might increase landslides. Therefore, development plans demand rigorous science-based investigation, consideration of local community knowledge, and (pilot) monitoring before the upscaling of springshed projects can be successfully conducted.
India’s groundwaterGroundwater usage is the largest in the world. Nearly, all sectors, especially rural domestic water and water in agriculture, have large-scale dependencies on groundwater resources. Groundwater exploitation, without due consideration to the concept of aquifers as common pool resources, has led to the dual problem of groundwater depletion and contamination. Groundwater depletion has also led to depletion in river flow. Competition over groundwater resources has slowly emerged as a complex problem across India’s diverse aquifer typologyAquifer typology, sometimes leading to conflict. The rise in the number of wells across the small land holdings in India has meant that groundwater extraction occurs at high granularity, making it difficult for large-scale data and information to capture the reality of problems of the ground. The social, economic and environmental consequences of groundwater over-extraction in India is as much related to the variability in the transmission and storage properties of different aquifers as it is about the diversity in the social context of people who use groundwater resources. Community-based normsCommunity-based norms on managing groundwater resources have been one of the emergent areas of responding to the crisis of groundwater management in the field. Policy, on the other hand, has been toying with conventional regulatory responses, mainly through groundwater legislation. The gap between the policy and practice of groundwater management is quite wide and requires a combination of groundwater management and governance. Institutionalizing the integration of groundwater management and governance, although seemingly challenging, has become crucial in addressing India’s groundwater crises. Combining demystified science, people’s participationPeople’s participation and institutional reform to bring to the fore the concept of aquifers as common pool resources can form a solid foundation for catalysing groundwaterGroundwater governance in India.
The entire world is facing with a severe dilemma of water pollution which is mainly concerned with the chemical and biological contaminants that have endangered the quality of drinking water. The Membrane separation technology is vastly acknowledged as an advanced process for water filtration and purification, having the potential to alleviate global matter of contention of freshwater scarcity. Various nanofillers have been used by many in water purification. This methodology has been accepted as feasible and active to produce a multifunctional nanocomposite membrane i.e. membranes with higher performance along with their synergistic effects of organic polymer matrix and inorganic nanomaterials for water and wastewater treatment. Recently, inorganic nanofillers such as inorganic metal oxides (SiO2, TiO2, ZnO, Ag, etc.), carbon based (CNT, GO) and mixed nanoparticles (SiO2-TiO2, GO-TiO2, GO-SiO2, etc.) have been extensively used to prepare polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanocomposite membranes with desired properties for water purification. This review aims to highlight the performance of nanofiller incorporated PVDF membranes and the novel strategies explored for fabrication of the PVDF nanocomposite membrane to cater to the current requirements and expectations of water purification performances.
Assessment of aquifer properties is important for the effective management of groundwater resources, especially in India—the world’s largest extractor of groundwater. Spatio-temporal variations in aquifer properties exist, therefore, estimations are expensive and time-consuming. While equations to estimate properties are available, computational difficulties and the availability of secondary data to estimate aquifer properties are challenging. Under such circumstances, this study developed a free open-source web application-based Groundwater Calculator (G-Cal) tool to generate groundwater properties, estimate flow between two wells, and evaluate components of well hydraulics in steady-state flow under both confined and unconfined aquifer conditions. The field surveys and data, collected from the Kavlyachapada hamlet in Shivaji Nagar village, India (as a case study), were used to run the G-Cal tool for estimating the aforementioned properties. The G-Cal outputs were validated against manual estimations, and results indicate a high accuracy, across parameters. Field experimentations indicated that the discharge into the well-located away from the hills (W2) was estimated to be 500% greater than the well-located closer to the hills (W1). Furthermore, W2 recuperated approximately 1.5 times faster than W1. As a result, agricultural practices were observed prevalent in and around the region of W2, especially during South-West monsoon (June to September). The study concluded that the development of such user-friendly web applications followed by their validation through grounded case studies can be significant for groundwater budgeting and developing water security plans. Such approaches are much-needed in a rural context where agricultural practices remain the predominant occupation.
India’s growing groundwater dependency is exerting severe pressures on groundwater resources across the country’s diverse aquifer settings. Stressed groundwater resources are not just about depleting and contaminated aquifers but also about a common pool resource coming under competition, leading to conflict between users. Competition for groundwater is observed not only within agriculture, domestic, industrial and ecosystem users but also between the users within each of these sectors. While surface water conflict often results from over-allocation of a known quantity of water and its misappropriation by individuals, groups or certain sectors, groundwater competition (leading to conflict) is a result of a race between the supply and demand wherein the stocks (availability and quality) are seldom gauged. A prolonged phase of groundwater competition usually precedes the phase of direct groundwater conflict.
The wide diversity of aquifer conditions present in India further complicates the arena of groundwater competition and conflicts. Even a broad typology of aquifer conditions reveals a range of drivers and impacts from competition and conflict across this wide-ranging typology of aquifers. Understanding the nature of the aquifer, along with the social, economic and ecological conditions under which groundwater resources are used from the aquifer, is important for understanding how competition unfolds as water conflicts emerge and how such conflict affects aspects of water equity and justice.
Similar water management responses to water scarcity across a wide-ranging aquifer typology lead to differentiated manifestations of competition having serious social, economic and ecologic ramifications. An increasingly larger number of users today have access to technology and resources that enable digging wells, installing pumps, digging deeper into springs and tapping a depleted source. The ability to access such instruments of developing groundwater resources can quickly turn into instruments of competition over groundwater, thereby resulting in inequality of access. As groundwater storages dry up because of aquifer-level depletion, users with multiple and / or deeper sources are better able to access the limited remaining stocks, leading to a condition of inequitable access and injustice, usually in case of the resource-poor.
The tension between the hydrogeological boundaries (aquifers) and the political-administrative boundaries (e.g. of villages, taluka or blocks, districts, states) is evident across the entire aquifer typology although manifestations are quite different. Such tensions shape the nature of competition between users and uses and how such competition unfolds in different ways over spatial and temporal scales. The characteristics of groundwater competition and conflict are not sufficiently researched, discussed and debated as part of the larger groundwater management and governance effort in India. This paper could serve as a beginning to address this gap so that discussions on groundwater management and governance will include aspects of social fairness and justice along with the typical buzzwords of efficiency, equity and sustainability of groundwater resources.
The aim of this overview is to provide a concise outline guide to governance provisions as they relate to the groundwater resource base. It deals with the assessment of current governance status and identification of future governance needs in relation to the efficient and sustainable use of groundwater resources as a water-supply source and by dependent ecosystems, and their effective management and quality protection against quasi-irreversible degradation.
The groundwater crisis is acquiring alarming proportions in many parts of the country. Strategies to respond to groundwater overuse and deteriorating water quality must be based on a new approach involving typologising the resource problems and redefining the institutional structure governing groundwater. This approach is based on the notion of groundwater as common property. The complex nature of groundwater problems in India implies that a detailed understanding of regimes in different hydrogeological settings and socio-economic situations is the prerequisite for sustainable and equitable management. Further, the management strategies should be specified keeping aquifer-scales in mind. For the adoption of this new approach, reforms are needed in how we assess groundwater resources, map aquifers, monitor quality and in the legal and institutional framework for groundwater governance. A national programme of groundwater management based on this processspecific approach is needed to address the challenge.
Mountain springs emanating naturally from unconfined aquifers are the primary source of water for rural households in the Himalayan region. Due to the impacts of climate change on precipitation patterns such as rise in rainfall intensity, reduction in its temporal spread, and a marked decline in winter rain, coupled with other anthropogenic causes, the problem of dying springs is being increasingly felt across this region. This study was taken up in the Sikkim Himalaya, which has received limited attention despite being a part of the Eastern Himalaya global biodiversity hot spot. The objective of this study was to understand the basic characteristics of the springs and to demonstrate methods for reviving them. We found the rural landscape dotted by a network of microsprings occurring largely in farmers' fields, with an average dependency of 27 (±30) households per spring. The spring discharge generally showed an annual periodic rhythm suggesting a strong response to rainfall. The mean discharge of the springs was found to peak at 51 L/min during the postmonsoon months (September–November) and then diminish to 8 L/min during spring (March–May). The lean period (March–May) discharge is perceived to have declined by nearly 50% in drought-prone areas and by 35% in other areas over the last decade. The springshed development approach to revive 5 springs using rainwater harvesting and geohydrology techniques showed encouraging results, with the lean period discharge increasing substantially from 4.4 to 14.4 L/min in 2010–2011. The major challenges faced in springshed development were the following: identifying recharge areas accurately, developing local capacity, incentivizing rainwater harvesting in farmers' fields, and sourcing public financing. We recommend further action research studies to revive springs to advance the outcomes of this pilot study and mainstreaming of springshed development in watershed development, rural water supply, and climate change adaptation programs, especially in the Himalayan region.
Study region: India.
Study focus: India's groundwater dependence and the crises of depletion and contamination of groundwater resources require the development of a robust groundwater dependence framework. Understanding the challenges of developing a groundwater governance framework for regions of extensive groundwater development versus relatively less-developed areas of groundwater development is important. The groundwater typology is a function of both, the hydrogeological aspects of groundwater and the socio-economic milieu that defines dependency on the groundwater resource, which is significant across users and uses in India. An interdisciplinary perspective is important while managing groundwater resources in India and helping establish groundwater governance.
New hydrological insights for the region: Participatory forms of groundwater management, using ‘aquifer-based, common pool resource’ approaches have begun to find their way into the practices and policies dealing with groundwater in India. Participation at all levels is important in management decisions as well as in the development of a governance framework, knowing that groundwater development in India has been ‘atomistic’ in nature. Developing a regulatory framework that is supportive of ‘protection’ of the resource as well as ‘good practices of participatory groundwater management’ is essential in groundwater governance. Interdisciplinary ‘science’ must form the medium of promoting both groundwater management and governance instead of using it in the largely business-as-usual approach to groundwater resource management that remains ‘infrastructure’ based, ‘supply-side’.
There is evidence of a looming groundwater crisis in India. Unlike in the case of surface water, competition around groundwater generally does not result in open conflicts. Measurability and visibility of surface water accord a clearer public perception of water quantities, which leads to conflicts. Groundwater in an aquifer is sourced in a dispersed manner, and boundaries, quantities and interdependencies are less visible or measurable. Hence, groundwater resources go through intense and intricate competition between users and uses before open conflicts begin. Competition occurs with reference to sources rather than around the resource. The interdependency of sources is a function of changing patterns of usage as intricacies of aquifer characteristics come into play. Governance institutions and regulatory frameworks of groundwater need to be sensitive to the various forms in which groundwater competition manifests in different hydrogeological settings, and the consequences of this in terms of access and rights, in relation to issues of equity and justice.
The Narmada is one of the few rivers in India where clear-cut allocation of river water between participant states has been decreed by a central tribunal. The Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal's (NWDT) order issued in 1979 has since been the reference point for all water development plans in the basin. The aspect of this order that this paper focuses on is the lack of any reference to groundwater when fixing allocation between the party states. It is a well-documented fact that conditions of heavy groundwater extraction often lead to decline in stream flows. This report is a critique of the premise on which the NWDT has fixed the inter-state allocation; it argues that the omission of groundwater withdrawals in the tribunal award is a serious oversight which may result in forced deviations from the decreed allocation. The case of the Narmada illustrates a condition generic to most other river basins in India - surface water allocation alone is inadequate if corresponding allocation of groundwater is not done.
Groundwater markets have emerged as an important rural institution in the GMB basin. This article reviews 13 papers (from 1974 to 2003) on groundwater markets in the region. First, various aspects of this market such as its evolution, spread, mode of functioning and impact are analysed. On the basis of these studies, it is concluded that groundwater markets have a beneficial impact in regions of abundant recharge, such as the GMB basin. Next, two broad strands of methodology used in groundwater market study are compared. Finally, the research gap in the way these markets have been studied are identified.
This article outlines an "aquifer management" approach towards utilisation of groundwater resources, which are rapidly being depleted across the country. The question of groundwater governance in India is twofold. First, we need to substantially support and empower the community-based systems of decision-making. Second, the existing legal framework and groundwater management institutions have to be fundamentally re-engineered to play a role facilitating and enabling community action.
Indian agriculture is trapped in a complex nexus of groundwater depletion and energy subsidies. This nexus is the product of past public policy choices that initially offered opportunities to India’s small-holder-based irrigation economy but has now generated in its wake myriad economic, social, and environmental distortions. Conventional ‘getting-the-price-right’ solutions to reduce these distortions have consistently been undermined by the invidious political economy that the nexus has created. The historical evolution of the nexus is outlined, the nature and scale of the distortions it has created are explored, and alternative approaches which Indian policy makers can use to limit, if not eliminate, the damaging impacts of the distortions, are analysed.
Groundwater is crucial for the livelihoods and food security of millions of people, and yet, knowledge formation in the field of groundwater has remained asymmetrical. While, scientific knowledge in the discipline (hydrology and hydrogeology) has advanced remarkably, relatively little is known about the socio-economic impacts and institutions that govern groundwater use. This paper therefore has two objectives. The first is to provide a balanced view of the plus and the down side of groundwater use, especially in agriculture. In doing so, examples are drawn from countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Spain and Mexico - all of which make very intensive use of groundwater. Second, institutions and policies that influence groundwater use are analyzed in order to understand how groundwater is governed in these countries and whether successful models of governance could be replicated elsewhere. Finally, the authors argue that there is a need for a paradigm shift in the way groundwater is presently perceived and managed - from management to governance mode. In this attempt, a number of instruments such as direct regulation, indirect policy levers, livelihood adaptation and people's participation will have to be deployed simultaneously in a quest for better governance.
Since 1960, South Asia has emerged as the largest user of groundwater in irrigation in the world. Yet, little is known about this burgeoning economy, now the mainstay of the region's agriculture, food security and livelihoods. Results from the first socio-economic survey of its kind, involving 2,629 well-owners from 278 villages from India, Pakistan, Nepal Terai and Bangladesh, show that groundwater is used in over 75% of the irrigated areas in the sample villages, far more than secondary estimates suggest. Thanks to the pervasive use of groundwater in irrigation, rain-fed farming regions are a rarity although rain-fed plots within villages abound. Groundwater irrigation is quintessentially supplemental and used mostly on water-economical inferior cereals and pulses, while a water-intensive wheat and rice system dominates canal areas. Subsidies on electricity and canal irrigation shape the sub-continental irrigation economy, but it is the diesel pump that drives it. Pervasive markets in tubewell irrigation services enhance irrigation access to the poor. Most farmers interviewed reported resource depletion and deterioration, but expressed more concern over the high cost and poor reliability of energy supply for groundwater irrigation, which has become the fulcrum of their survival strategy.
The idea of people's participation has long been part of development thinking. But today the management of local natural resources by village communities is widely accepted as an institutional imperative. It is therefore essential to examine how these institutions perform, especially from the perspective of the more disadvantaged. Based on extensive fieldwork among community forestry groups in India and Nepal, and existing case studies, this paper demonstrates how seemingly participatory institutions can exclude significant sections, such as women. It provides a typology of participation, spells out the gender equity and efficiency implications of such exclusions, and analyzes what underlies them. It also outlines a conceptual framework to help analyze the process of gender exclusion and how it might be alleviated.
Gujarat, a rapidly industrializing state in western India, is notorious for groundwater over-exploitation. A perverse link between energy subsidies and groundwater overdraft has left the state with a bankrupt electricity utility and depleted aquifers, especially since the late 1980s. Moreover, this perverse relationship has meant that groundwater irrigators have essentially held Gujarat's non-farm rural economy to ransom. Efforts to regulate groundwater overdraft since the early 1970s have been unsuccessful, as have attempts to charge a rational electricity tariff to groundwater irrigators. During 2003–2006, drawing upon a proposal outlined by researchers, the government launched the Jyotigram (lighted village) scheme, which invested US$ 290 million to separate agricultural electricity feeders from non-agricultural ones, and established a tight regimen for farm power rationing in the countryside. By 2006, Gujarat covered almost all of its 18,000 villages under the Jyotigram scheme of rationalized power supply. With this, two major changes have occurred: (a) villages receive 24 h three-phase power supply for domestic uses, in schools, hospitals, village industries, all subject to metered tariff; (b) tubewell owners receive 8 h/day of power of full voltage and on a pre-announced schedule. The Jyotigram scheme has radically improved the quality of village life, spurred non-farm economic enterprises, halved the power subsidy to agriculture, and reduced groundwater overdraft. It has also produced positive and negative impacts on medium and large farmers, while notably harming marginal farmers and the landless, who depend for their access to irrigation on water markets which have become much smaller, post-Jyotigram. In addition, the water prices charged by tubewell owners have increased by 30–50%. We propose that the Jyotigram scheme, with some refinements, can be implemented successfully in other regions of South Asia facing similar challenges of groundwater governance.
In September 2003, the government of Gujarat introduced the Jyotirgram Yojana to improve rural power supply. Two major changes have since taken place: (a) villages get 24 hour three-phase power supply for domestic use, in schools, hospitals, village industries, all subject to metered tariff; and (b) tubewell owners get eight hours/day of power but of full voltage and on a pre-announced schedule. It has, however, offered a mixed bag to medium and large farmers and hit marginal farmers and the landless. This article offers an assessment of the impact of Jyotirgram, and argues that with some refinements it presents a model that other states can follow with profit.
At less than 1000 km3/year, the world's annual use of groundwater is 1.5% of renewable water resource but contributes a lion's share of water-induced human welfare. Global groundwater use however has increased manifold in the past 50 years; and the human race has never had to manage groundwater use on such a large scale. Sustaining the massive welfare gains groundwater development has created without ruining the resource is a key water challenge facing the world today. In exploring this challenge, we have focused a good deal on conditions of resource occurrence but less so on resource use. I offer a typology of five groundwater demand systems as Groundwater Socio-ecologies (GwSE), each embodying a unique pattern of interactions between socio-economic and ecological variables, and each facing a distinct groundwater governance challenge. During the past century, a growing corpus of experiential knowledge has accumulated in the industrialized world on managing groundwater in various uses and contexts. A daunting global groundwater issue today is to apply this knowledge intelligently to by far the more formidable challenge that has arisen in developing regions of Asia and Africa, where groundwater irrigation has evolved into a colossal anarchy supporting billions of livelihoods but threatening the resource itself.
Urban water and waste water management have not been relatively well understood in India. The Indian urban space has been considered in an undifferentiated manner, which ignores the specificities deriving from different stages of urban development, the sources of water, as also the diverse nature of aquifers catering for urban settlements in different parts of the country. This paper advances a series of hypotheses that can serve as an initial analytical framework and outlines a way forward for urban water systems, which could provide rich terrain for further research.
The Twelfth Plan proposes a fundamental change in the principles, approach and strategies of water management in India. This paradigm shift was the outcome of a new and inclusive process of plan formulation, which saw the coming together of practitioners and professionals from government, academia, industry and civil society to draft the Plan.
Groundwater law in India gives individual landowners overwhelming control over groundwater. This is inappropriate in a context
where groundwater is now the main source of water for the realisation of the human right to water. This also fails to provide
the basis for effective protection of groundwater at aquifer level. Increasing dependence on groundwater for all the main
water uses has made the need for reforms of the legal framework increasingly acute. This article argues that groundwater law
must be reconceived around a new set of principles that recognise the common nature of groundwater, its importance in realising
the human right to water, the need for a governance framework starting at the local level and the need for a strong aquifer
protection regime. The proposed new framework is then examined in the context of the Groundwater Model Bill, 2011 that reflects
in large part this new framework.
Groundwater is a critical component of the water supply for agriculture, urban areas, industry, and ecosystems, but managing it is a challenge because groundwater is difficult to map, quantify, and evaluate. Until recently, study and assessment of governance of this water resource has been largely neglected. A survey was developed to query state agency officials about the extent and scope of groundwater use, groundwater laws and regulations, and groundwater tools and strategies. Survey responses revealed key findings: states' legal frameworks for groundwater differ widely in recognizing the hydrologic connection between surface water and groundwater, the needs of groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and the protection of groundwater quality; states reported a range in capacity to enforce groundwater responsibilities; and states have also experienced substantial changes in groundwater governance in the past few decades. Overall, groundwater governance across the United States is fragmented. States nevertheless identified three common priorities for groundwater governance: water quality and contamination, conflicts between users, and declining groundwater levels. This survey represents an initial step in a broader, continuing effort to characterize groundwater governance practices in the United States.
Since in many states surface water sources have been utilised fully, there has been a massive expansion of groundwater irrigation. With the progressive decline in the water table, farmers have resorted to the competitive deepening of wells. This has resulted in increased costs of well irrigation and in a new inequity among the well-owners and between well-owning and non-well-owning farmers. Similarly, urban water demands have increased tremendously for domestic and industrial purposes. While there has been an ever-increasing demand for water, there has hardly been any effort to develop infrastructure to treat used water. This contributes to the pollution of the existing water stock. Therefore, water resources are under severe threat not only because of the ever-increasing demand and competing demand (from various sectors), but also because of the diminishing quality caused by discharge of untreated domestic sewage and industrial effluents. The main objective of this paper is to show how the degradation of the groundwater resource base through over-extraction and pollution contributes to inequity, conflicts, competition and, above all, to indebtedness and poverty.
Irrigation has always been central to life and society in the plains of South Asia. According to Alfred Deakin, a three-time Australian prime minister and an irrigation enthusiast of early 20th century who toured India in 1890, the region had 12 million hectares (ha) of irrigated land compared with 3 million ha in the United States, 2 million ha in Egypt, 1.5 million ha in Italy and a few hundred thousand ha each in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), France, Spain, and Victoria (Australia) (The Age 1891). Although Egypt and Sri Lanka are better known as hydraulic civilizations, a century ago British India was the world’s irrigation champion.
During the past 40 years, however, much of what was British India has witnessed more development in irrigation than in the preceding two centuries. Available statistics—better today than a hundred years ago—suggest that in 2002, the world had some 300 million ha under irrigation, and of these, more than 90 million ha was in today’s India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—lands that were the bulk of British India before 1947.
This book is about the growing anarchy in South Asia’s irrigation economy. From antiquity until the 1960s, water mobilization and management for agriculture were predominantly the affair of village communities or the state. Today, however, the region’s agriculture has come to depend on explosive growth in irrigation from individually owned groundwater wells, and the current irrigation regime is wholly new. The resulting groundwater stress poses an environmental threat, but it also raises questions about the future of a vast agrarian system founded on a boom that seems destined to go bust.
Large swaths of western and southern South Asia are withdrawing much more water from underground aquifers than man and nature can put back into them, and society has yet to find a way of restoring the balance. The hard-rock aquifers in inland peninsular India offer so little scope for large-scale groundwater use that hydrogeologists would consider intensive irrigation with groundwater suicidal in these regions; nevertheless, smallholder agriculture in these parts has come to depend heavily on groundwater wells. Along the coasts, pumping groundwater on a large scale tips the precarious balance between coastal aquifers and the sea, threatening saltwater intrusion; nevertheless, many coastal areas are witnessing a runaway groundwater boom. In the Indus basin in the northwest, even though vast alluvial aquifers are recharged by the network of canals from the Indus Basin Irrigation System, farmers pumping groundwater bring up the salts accumulated thousands of years ago, when most of the region was under the sea, and deposit them on the fields, progressively reducing the productivity of soils. When fields are drained, these salts enter the river system and help make the Indus a salt-laden drain by the time it arrives in Sind. Only in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin on the eastern front—where the alluvium is 600 meters deep and the annual runoff exceeds 1,400 km3(Shiklomanov 1993, 16)—did there seem an opportunity for large-scale groundwater irrigation without major collateral damage. In recent years, however, arsenic has shown up in groundwater.
Drained wetlands and low-flowing rivers, falling water levels and rising pumping costs, deteriorating groundwater quality and new public health hazards—these are all consequences of South Asia’s anarchic groundwater development. Agricultural opportunism has been the driving force, and intelligent resource governance, a casualty.
There are fervent calls to end the anarchy, but this is more easily said than done. This book explores why. It describes how irrigation has enhanced the welfare of the region’s poor even as the groundwater boom threatens to create “illfare” on a comparable scale. It considers irrigation’s changing nature, drivers, and impacts on South Asia’s still predominantly agrarian society. Above all, it asks how South Asia will manage this irrigation anarchy.
The book begins by tracing the ascent of water-managed agriculture to situate irrigation today in its historical context. This prelude is essential for understanding the forces that drive South Asia’s irrigation economy, and for analyzing how public policies and institutions can bring order to this chaotic economy without undermining its stupendous benefits. When we compare the South Asian situation with the experience of other irrigating countries of the world, the historical background becomes critical to developing the central policy argument of the book: that to be effective, irrigation policies in South Asia must address the unique socioecological characteristics of the region and its people.
Here is a brief tour of the book. Chapter 1 traces the evolution of irrigation in South Asia, and elsewhere in the world, with emphasis on the progression of events during the 19th and 20th centuries. Chapter 2 analyzes the unique dynamic of South Asia’s groundwater boom and explains why it must be understood as a phenomenon in itself rather than as part of the global socioecology of groundwater irrigation. Chapter 3 analyzes how gravity-flow irrigation is shrinking in South Asia and why it will continue to do so, absent any change in policy. Chapter 4 recounts the welfare that groundwater irrigation has created for South Asia’s agrarian poor; Chapter 5 deals with the disaster it threatens to create unless the region implements an effective strategy for managing this runaway groundwater irrigation economy. Chapter 5 also analyzes how the groundwater irrigation boom is silently reconfiguring river basins, upsetting old calculations and challenging received wisdom on river basin management. It suggests that establishing effective river basin management in South Asia may depend on understanding how farming communities respond to groundwater development in different aquifer conditions. Chapter 6 proposes a set of hypotheses to facilitate such an understanding and adduces evidence in their support. Chapter 7 presents a comparative analysis of other countries’ experience in managing the demand for groundwater and describes how nascent efforts at demand management in South Asia are driven to chart their own distinctive course. Chapter 8 concludes the book by arguing for a practical, short- to medium-term groundwater governance strategy for South Asia that is society-centric rather than state-centric.
A note about geographical terms: Thus far I have used both “British India” and “South Asia” to refer to the vast landmass that is the stage of the drama described in this book. In reality, however, there is little groundwater irrigation in the middle Himalayas or in Bhutan and Burma (Myanmar), or in India’s northeastern states, except Assam. The “groundwater anarchy” is occurring in what were the princely state of Hyderabad, in a cluster of more than 200 small princely states of Kathiawar, in the Terai areas of Nepal, and in northern and eastern areas of Sri Lanka—none of which were part of British India. Throughout this book, then, I use “South Asia” to describe what is happening in the plains of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, while taking an occasional look at the rapidly growing groundwater irrigation in northern Sri Lanka.
And finally, a note about the approach and methodology. The book takes a broad sweep to describe and analyze broad trends in South Asian irrigation that may overlook local details. It proposes several new hypotheses and introduces evidence in their support but does not necessarily offer rigorous tests for them. Its approach is intuitive more than formal, its aim being to design a frame that can center the current reality of South Asia’s irrigation economy. The Streeten-Kuhn maxim (Kuhn 1962) underlines the approach taken: a model (or framework) is never defeated by facts, however damaging, but only by another model.
The issues pertaining to groundwaterdrought are reviewed with particular regard to the historical and present situations in Malawi, northern Ghana and the Northern Province of South Africa. These three quite different examples highlight some of the major difficulties facing respective governmentsand donor agencies, not least the shortcomingsof drought-reliefdrilling programmes,the general lack of routine monitoring and the need for longer term analysis and assessment of groundwatersystems than is currently possible. The distinct character of groundwater systems and their reaction to prevailing and changing environmentalconditions is discussed, and it is argued that essentially predictable variations in groundwater drought vulnerability are rarely planned for or acted upon. Managementissues arising are discussed and it is suggested that governments,and particularly donors, should place more emphasis on longer term, pre-droughtmitigation measures to reduce the need for costly and sometimes ineffective emergency interventions.
The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. After critiquing the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr Ostrom uses institutional analysis to explore different ways - both successful and unsuccessful - of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the 'tragedy of the commons' argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organizations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries.
In order to study the potential of the Deccan basalts as aquifers, the properties of transmissivity and storativity must be considered. Analysis of large-diameter dug wells tapping unconfined aquifers in the Deccan basalts shows that there exists a relationship between porosity and specific yield. The aggregate porosities of weathered basalts, vesicular basalts and fractured-jointed basalts are respectively up to 34%, 50%, and 15%. On the contrary, specific yield has a maximum value of 7%, 4%, and 1% respectively. In relation to aggregate porosity the specific yield is low suggesting that in Deccan basalts effective porosity constitutes only a small fraction of aggregate porosity. It is found that this effective porosity is about 7%. The weathered basalts and vesicular basalts have higher transmissivities than fractured-jointed basalt and, therefore, form better aquifers. The variation in transmissivity values in various directions, and from point to point, indicates that the Deccan basalts are hydrogeologically anisotropic and heterogeneous in nature.
Groundwater overexploitation and aquifer overexploitation are terms that are becoming common in water-resources management.
Hydrologists, managers and journalists use them when talking about stressed aquifers or some groundwater conflict. Overexploitation
may be defined as the situation in which, for some years, average aquifer abstraction rate is greater than, or close to the
average recharge rate. But rate and extent of recharge areas are often very uncertain. Besides, they may be modified by human
activities and aquifer development. In practice, however, an aquifer is often considered as overexploited when some persistent
negative results of aquifer development are felt or perceived, such as a continuous water-level drawdown, progressive water-quality
deterioration, increase of abstraction cost, or ecological damage. But negative results do not necessarily imply that abstraction
is greater than recharge. They may be simply due to well interferences and the long transient period that follow changes in
the aquifer water balance. Groundwater storage is depleted to some extent during the transient period after abstraction is
increased. Its duration depends on aquifer size, specific storage and permeability. Which level of "aquifer overexploitation"
is advisable or bearable, depends on the detailed and updated consideration of aquifer-development effects and the measures
implemented for correction. This should not be the result of applying general rules based on some indirect data. Monitoring,
sound aquifer knowledge, and calculation or modelling of behaviour are needed in the framework of a set of objectives and
policies. They should be established by a management institution, with the involvement of groundwater stakeholders, and take
into account the environmental and social constraints. Aquifer overexploitation, which often is perceived to be associated
with something ethically bad, is not necessarily detrimental if it is not permanent. It may be a step towards sustainable
development. Actually, the term aquifer overexploitation is mostly a qualifier that intends to point to a concern about the
evolution of the aquifer-flow system in some specific, restricted points of view, but without a precise hydrodynamic meaning.
Implementing groundwater management and protection measures needs quantitative appraisal of aquifer evolution and effects
based on detailed multidisciplinary studies, which have to be supported by reliable data.
La sobreexpolotación del agua subterránea y la sobreexplotacion de acuíferos son conceptos que se están convirtiendo en términos
de uso común en gestión hídrica. Muchos hidrólogos, gestores y periodistas las usan para referirse a un acuífero explotado
intensamente o que presenta situaciones conflictivas. La sobreexplotación se puede definir como la situación en la que durante
varios años la extracción media de agua subterránea de un acuífero supera o se aproxima a la recarga media. Pero la tasa y
también la superficie sobre la que se realiza esta recarga son a menudo muy inciertas, y pueden cambiar por actividades humanas
y por la propia explotación del acuífero. Sin embargo, en la práctica se suele considerar que hay sobreexplotación cuando
se observan o se perciben ciertos resultados negativos de la explotación, tales como un descenso continuado del nivel del
agua, un deterioro de su calidad, un encarecimiento del agua extraída, o daños ecológicos. Pero estos efectos no están necesariamente
relacionados con el hecho de que la extracción sea mayor que la recarga, puesto que pueden ser simplemente el resultado de
interferencias o del dilatado período transitorio que sigue a los cambios en los términos del balance de agua, y cuya duración
depende del tamaño del acuífero, y de su permeabilidad y coeficiente de almacenamiento. Las extracciones del acuífero suponen
una disminución del almacenamiento de agua subterránea durante este periodo transitorio. Para decidir que grado de "sobreexplotación
del acuífero" es aconsejable o admisible hace falta la consideración detallada y actualizada de los efectos de la explotación
y las medidas de corrección que se adopten. Para esa decisión no basta con reglas generales y el apoyo de algunas observaciones
indirectas. Se necesitan observaciones de control, buen conocimiento del acuífero y cálculos o modelación del comportamiento,
y todo ello en el marco de un conjunto de objetivos y políticas establecidas por una institución de gestión, con la implicación
de aquellos que tienen un interés en el agua subterránea, y teniendo en cuenta los condicionantes ambientales y sociales.
La sobreexplotación de acuíferos, que con frecuencia suele asociarse a algo éticamente malo, no tiene por qué ser necesariamente
así durante cierto tiempo, sino una etapa en la evolución hacia un desarrollo sustentable. En la realidad la designación de
sobreexplotación de acuíferos es principalmente un adjetivo que trata de calificar a una evolución preocupante bajo determinados
puntos de vista, sin que tenga una significación hidrodinámica precisa. Para adoptar medidas de gestión y de protección se
necesita la evaluación cuantitativa de la evolución del acuífero y sus efectos, que se derivan de estudios de detalle en un
contexto multidisciplinar y de datos fiables.
La surexploitation de l'eau souterraine et la surexploitation des nappes sont des termes qui deviennent d'usage commun en
gestion de l'eau. Plusieurs hydrologues, aménageurs et journalistes en font usage quand on parle d'une nappe exploitée intensivement
et qui présente des situations conflictives. On peut définir la surexploitation comme étant la situation dans laquelle l'extraction
moyenne d'eau souterraine est plus grande ou proche de la recharge moyenne pendant quelques années. Mais le taux ansi que
la surface de cette recharge sont souvent tres incertains et peuvent changer dûs a des activitées humaines et à l'exploitation
de la nappe elle-méme. Du point de vue pratique on souvent considère qu'il y a surexploitation quand on observe or on s'aperçoit
de certains résultats négatifs de l'exploitation, tels qu'une diminution continue du niveau de l'eau, une detérioration de
sa qualité, une augmentation du coût d' extraction, ou dommages écologiques. Mais ces effets négatifs n' impliquent pas nécessairement
que l'extraction soit plus grande que la recharge. Ils peuvent étre simplement le résultat d'interférences ou d'une longue
période transitoire qui suivent les changements dans les termes du bilan hydrique. Cette période transitoire a une durée que
dépend de la taille de la nappe, et de son coefficient d' emmagasinement et de sa perméabilité. Les extractions d'eau de la
nappe comportent une diminution de l'emmagasinement d'eau souterraine pendant le période transitoire. A fin de pouvoir décider
du degré de "surexploitation de la nappe" conseillé ou admisible on a besoin de la description detaillée et à jour des effets
de l'exploitation et des mesures de correction adoptées. Cette décision ne peut pas étre prise uniquement à partir de regles
générales et l'appui de quelques observations indirectes. On a besoin de controle, d'une bonne connaissance de la nappe, et
de calculer ou modeliser le comportement, en faisant appel à l'ensemble des objectifs et politiques établies par une institution
de gestion, avec l'implication des personnes qui sont intéressées par l'eau souterraine, et tenant compte des conditions environmentales
et sociales. La surexploitation de nappes, qui souvent est associée a quelque chose éthiquement nocive, n'est pas necessairement
ainsi pendant un certain temps, et peut être une étape dans l'évolution vers un développement durable. Réellement la designation
de surexploitation de nappes est surtout un adjectif que a pour but de qualifier une évolution préoccupante sous certains
points de vue, mais sans une signification hydrodynamique précise. Pour adopter des mesures de gestion et protection, on a
besoin de l'évaluation quantitative de l'évolution de la nappe et de ses effets, ce qui doit déboucher sur des études detaillées
dans un contexte multidisciplinaire, et sur de bonnes données.
Guanajuato State, located in central Mexico, with less than 2% of the country's area, has almost 17,000 deep water wells, from which nearly 4,000 cubic hectometers (hm3) per year are being extracted, more than 1,000 hm3 over the estimated renewable yield. Since, in Mexico, water is administered under federal jurisdiction by the National Water Commission (CNA, for its Spanish acronym), the state government faces the challenge of ensuring its population's economic development without formal means of intervention. Being thus limited to apply mandatory policies and measures, the state water program has focused on the implementation of a two-sided strategy. First, basic hydrogeological studies and mathematical groundwater hydrodynamic models were developed upon a comprehensive survey of existing wells and a general revision of the state's geological framework. Second, a structure for water user's participation in water management actions was promoted (from the dissemination of information to the implementation of pilot efficient water use projects) with financial, technical and political support from the state. Simultaneously, a coordinated effort towards the completion of the water user's registry was performed with the federal authority along with other supporting measures such as training and monitoring programs. In this paper, a general overview of the project's achievements and challenges is presented.
Watershed development programmes provide an opportunity for sustainable management strategies, although currently, they remain largely ‘supply-side’ mechanisms of water resources development. Hydrogeological conditions, community participation and status of groundwater usage are important in evolving strategies on ‘demand-side’ groundwater management.
Neemkheda aquifer is a typical low-storage, low-hydraulic conductivity aquifer from a watershed in the dryland regions of Madhya Pradesh State of central India. A shallow unconfined aquifer, it consists of an upper coarse, calcareous sandstone unit underlain by a fine-grained sandstone unit. A ‘well commune’ of seven wells is poised to test the concept of joint groundwater management, wherein wells are mechanisms of tapping a common water source, the Neemkheda aquifer.
The strategy for systematic groundwater management in the Neemkheda well commune is based upon the relationship between Transmissivity (T) and Storage coefficient (S), i.e. aquifer diffusivity, and its variation within the aquifer. Wells within a high diffusivity domain tend to dewater more quickly than wells within a low diffusivity domain. A well-use schedule during the dry season, based upon aquifer diffusivity forms the basis of the groundwater management concept. The distribution of local aquifer diffusivities governs the relationship between local and regional aquifer depletion times and forms the basis of the groundwater management exercise being proposed for the Neemkheda aquifer.
Deccan basalts of west-central India are hydrogeologically inhomogeneous rocks. A proper understanding of the physical framework of the basalts within which groundwater resides and moves is a key to the hydrogeology of these rocks, Two types of basalt, the vesicular amygdaloidal basalt and the compact basalt, occur as alternate layers in the volcanic pile. Although the rocks are generally inhomogeneous, structures in the basalt, such as sheet joints and vertical joints, serve as zones of groundwater flow. In the shallow subsurface, two groundwater systems are operative. Groundwater system A consists of a vesicular amygdaloidal basalt underlain by a compact basalt, whereas groundwater system B consists of a vesicular amygdaloidal basalt overlain by a compact basalt. Groundwater system A has a better developed network of openings and, as a consequence, this system has a higher transmissivity and storage coefficient than groundwater system B. Wells tapping groundwater system A have higher yields on average and irrigate more hectares of cropland than do wells tapping groundwater system B. This simple systems concept offers a practical methodology for understanding the geometry of the physical framework that contains groundwater in the Deccan basalts. The efficacy of the concept is in its widespread utility for the region. The concept may also be extrapolated to help understand the hydrogeology of deeper Deccan basalt groundwater systems.
The complex and dynamic nature of environmental problems requires flexible and transparent decision-making that embraces a diversity of knowledges and values. For this reason, stakeholder participation in environmental decision-making has been increasingly sought and embedded into national and international policy. Although many benefits have been claimed for participation, disillusionment has grown amongst practitioners and stakeholders who have felt let down when these claims are not realised. This review first traces the development of participatory approaches in different disciplinary and geographical contexts, and reviews typologies that can be used to categorise and select participatory methods. It then reviews evidence for normative and pragmatic benefits of participation, and evaluates limitations and drawbacks. Although few of the claims that are made have been tested, there is evidence that stakeholder participation can enhance the quality of environmental decisions by considering more comprehensive information inputs. However, the quality of decisions made through stakeholder participation is strongly dependant on the nature of the process leading to them. Eight features of best practice participation are then identified from a Grounded Theory Analysis of the literature. These features emphasise the need to replace a “tool-kit” approach, which emphasises selecting the relevant tools for the job, with an approach that emphasises participation as a process. It is argued that stakeholder participation needs to be underpinned by a philosophy that emphasises empowerment, equity, trust and learning. Where relevant, participation should be considered as early as possible and throughout the process, representing relevant stakeholders systematically. The process needs to have clear objectives from the outset, and should not overlook the need for highly skilled facilitation. Local and scientific knowledges can be integrated to provide a more comprehensive understanding of complex and dynamic socio-ecological systems and processes. Such knowledge can also be used to evaluate the appropriateness of potential technical and local solutions to environmental problems. Finally, it is argued that to overcome many of its limitations, stakeholder participation must be institutionalised, creating organisational cultures that can facilitate processes where goals are negotiated and outcomes are necessarily uncertain. In this light, participatory processes may seem very risky, but there is growing evidence that if well designed, these perceived risks may be well worth taking. The review concludes by identifying future research needs.
"Degradation and depletion of groundwater resources is emerging as a major concern in many arid and hard rock sections of Gujarat. Depletion tends to disproportionately affect the poor by further limiting their access to the resource. Unfortunately, the same can be said for most management alternatives other than supply creation. At present, little management is done. NABARD, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, limits access to institutional credit in areas designated as overdeveloped. Electricity connections for pumpsets are also limited in these areas. Wealthy individuals with access to private sources of capital and the ability to bribe officials can bypass these limitations. Other management options (state regulation or energy price manipulation) also have major equity implications. Inherent tensions exist between equitable access to groundwater resources and management options to ensure sustainable use. New institutional approaches--similar, for example, to those used in joint forest management options to ensure sustainable use. New institutional approaches--similar, for example, to those used in joint forest management--are required which can incorporate both equity and sustainability goals."
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