New research pinpoints South Asian practices and technologies with potential for transfer to other poor areas.

The International Water Management Institute has launched a new research initiative to identify and validate the most innovative water management practices at village and community level in South Asia, that can benefit poor people in this region and in other countries. This work is funded by DFID, the UK Department for International Development.

Across the developing world, people living in poor communities are practicing innovative ways to improve access to clean water for domestic uses and farming, often assisted by non-governmental organizations. These efforts help communities address water rights issues, high salinity in irrigated water, or low-cost/high efficiency irrigation technologies.

Many of these methods can be transferred to other regions to improve the lives of millions of poor people. But their benefits are rarely scientifically verified and do not often travel beyond the village or community where they are practiced.

Search for low-cost technologies begins in poor communities

IWMI’s research will shortlist a series of innovative water-use practices in South Asia that have been developed in poor communities to improve the use and productivity of their irrigation and water resources. These innovations could be low-cost technologies—such as ‘pedal pump’ irrigation systems that poor farmers can use to drastically increase the productivity of their plots, or other water harvesting and storage techniques. Other ideas to be evaluated are: better organization of water use around community wells; or of novel, low-cost ways of recharging depleted groundwater.

Tushaar Shah, research leader at IWMI explains why a detailed scientific evaluation of the high potential water management practices is essential to identify which innovations are the best candidates for transfer to other poor areas of the world. "We have heard of many interesting approaches to water management at the local level. Our first step is to verify their effectiveness—in technical, hydrological and sociological terms. We will then document how these techniques and processes work and explain in what regions, social structures or geographical situations they can help poor communities."

Looking for innovations with high 'transfer potential'

Through their work in South Asia, IWMI researchers have come across a number of water management systems with high ‘transfer potential’. Among these are:

• Manual ‘pedal pump’ irrigation systems that give poor farmers a very effective irrigation pump at a minimal cost.
• An NGO network in India that has encouraged villagers to build low-cost earthen ‘percolation tanks’ that capture water and help recharge depleted groundwater over a 6500km2 area. In all locations, villagers own the project, identify where the tanks are placed, then build and maintain them.
• A novel approach to the community management or water in an area with 400,000 small storage reservoirs that are in dire need of repair. A local NGO concluded that the problem was not technical but revolved around relations between the surrounding community and the reservoirs. While local entrepreneurs collect and resell water leaking from old tanks, the NGO is helping local villagers ‘create a new relationship’ with their water source. Communities have set up rules to maintain their tanks and people work together to establish rules for collective use of these common wells.

Water management is not just a technical issue

In its first phase, the project will gather information on reported innovations across South Asia, and shortlist the most transferable ideas. The selected ideas will be studied in detail, looking at aspects such as: their technical merits; sociological and institutional aspects; hydrological, water management and economic impact on the livelihoods of poor people; and their potential to improve poor people’s lives in other areas of the world.

This project is a good illustration of the International Water Management Institute’s integrated approach to water resources management, which looks at all aspects of a given situation. "Many people see water management as a purely technical or economic issue," says Shah. "We focus science on water management with the specific aim of improving the quality of life for poor people. This requires that we look at water in a very practical context, combining the views of sociologists, economists, hydrologists and engineers."