scholarly journals Water Governance in India: Evidence on Water Law, Policy, and Administration from Eight Indian States

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2071 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed ◽  
Araral

Water governance is a widely acknowledged as an important factor for sustainable development. This study attempts to assess if the water governance in eight Indian states has improved after the announcement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We utilize the Institutional Decomposition and Analysis (IDA) framework developed by Saleth and Dinar. Using survey data from two periods and 152 respondents, we calculate the scores on 17 indicators of water law, policy, and administration. We found that average scores on water law, policy, and administration have increased between the first and the second survey. We attributed this improvement to the fact that the Indian government is paying special attention to the provision of clean drinking water after the announcement of the SDGs. We also calculated nominal and weighted water governance indices (WGIs) for eight Indian states. This study made an important contribution to the existing water governance literature by capturing improvements in the water governance scores of eight Indian states after the announcement of the SDGs.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhijit Mukherjee ◽  
Srimanti Duttagupta ◽  
Siddhartha Chattopadhyay ◽  
Soumendra Nath Bhanja ◽  
Animesh Bhattacharya ◽  
...  

Abstract Globally, ~1 billion people, mostly residing in Africa and South Asia (e.g. India), still lack access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Resulting, unsafe disposal of fecal waste from open-defecation to nearby drinking water sources severely endanger public health. Until recently, India had a huge open-defecating population, leading declining public health from water-borne diseases like diarrhoea by ingesting polluted water, mostly sourced to groundwater. However, in recent past, sanitation development to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been encouraged throughout India, but their effect to groundwater quality and human health conditions are yet-unquantified. Here, for the first time, using long term, high-spatial resolution measurements (>1.7 million) across India and analyses, we quantified that over the years, groundwater fecal coliform concentration (2002–2017, −2.56 ± 0.06%/year) and acute diarrheal cases (1990–2016, −3.05 ± 0.01%/year) have significantly reduced, potentially influenced by sanitation development (1990–2017, 2.63 ± 0.01%/year). Enhanced alleviation of groundwater quality and human health have been observed since 2014, with initiation of acceletated constructions of sanitation infrastructures through Clean India (Swachh Bharat) Mission. However, the goal of completely faecal-pollution free, clean drinking water is yet to be achieved. We also evaluated the suitability of using satellite-derived night-time light (NLan, 1992–2013, 4.26 ± 0.05%/year) as potential predictor for such economic development. We observed that in more than 80% of the study region, night-time light demonstrated to be a strong predictor for observed changes in groundwater quality, sanitation development and water-borne disease cases. While sanitation and economic development can improve public health, poor education level and improper human practices can strongly influence on water-borne diseases loads and thus health in parts of India.


2020 ◽  
Vol 252 ◽  
pp. 119574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Biagio F. Giannetti ◽  
Feni Agostinho ◽  
Cecília M.V.B. Almeida ◽  
Gengyuan Liu ◽  
Luis E.V. Contreras ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6382
Author(s):  
Harald Heinrichs ◽  
Norman Laws

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was agreed upon by 193 member states of the United Nations in September 2015 [...]


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 843
Author(s):  
Olle Torpman ◽  
Helena Röcklinsberg

The United Nations Agenda 2030 contains 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). These goals are formulated in anthropocentric terms, meaning that they are to be achieved for the sake of humans. As such, the SDGs are neglecting the interests and welfare of non-human animals. Our aim in this paper was to ethically evaluate the assumptions that underlie the current anthropocentric stance of the SDGs. We argue that there are no good reasons to uphold these assumptions, and that the SDGs should therefore be reconsidered so that they take non-human animals into direct consideration. This has some interesting implications for how we should understand and fulfil the pursuit of sustainability in general. Most noticeably, several SDGs—such as those regarding zero hunger (SDG 2), good health and wellbeing (SDG 3), clean water and sanitation (SDG 6)—should be achieved for animals as well. Moreover, the measures we undertake in order to achieve the SDGs for humans must also take into direct account their effects on non-human animals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3736
Author(s):  
Nan Lu ◽  
Jiwei Zhu ◽  
Hui Chi ◽  
Bing Wang ◽  
Lu Chen

To achieve the sustainable development goals established by the United Nations in 2015, China has adopted a series of measures to promote the modernization of water conservancy. However, its construction in China is imbalanced across regions as the endowment of water resources and economic development are distinct. Consequently, it is important to assess the progress of and analyze the spatial heterogeneity of water conservancy modernization construction in China from the perspective of sustainable development goals (SDGs). In this study, 31 regions in China were selected, and data on water conservancy construction in these sampled regions (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) were collected in 2018. The results show that there exists an imbalanced development in terms of the overall level and the index level. About 60% of the regions scored below the overall average score for China’s current modernization of water conservancy. The eastern areas presented a high level of modernization, while the central, northeast, and western areas showed comparable modernization of water conservancy, all of which lag behind eastern areas of China. Furthermore, China’s water conservancy modernization also presented a strong spatial autocorrelation, and there was at least one deficiency in 55% of the regions, with the rate of deficiencies emerging in the West being much higher than in other regions. In a nutshell, this study provides a novel framework that can be extended to evaluate the SDGs and the effectiveness of water governance in other countries.


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