Climate change and Our Approach to Water: A

Note1
Suhas Paranjape2
Connecting climate change and approach to water
Climate change is now a vast and sprawling discipline. Water likewise is a subject
that tends to become all encompassing. This note deals with neither in its own right.
It speaks to the connection between them and tries to put forward what that
connection should be. It does this in the belief that a simplistic `mainstreaming
approach to climate change is insufficient and that our prior approach (theoretically
prior, not chronologically prior) to water is extremely important and that different
approaches will mainstream climate change very differently and have very different
consequences. It therefore tries to bring out those elements of an approach to water
mainly in a rural context which become important in relation to climate change and
those that are in turn affected by it. At the moment, I have also put aside equity
considerations mainly because of lack of time. Each of the elements I describe has
an equity component which is as if not more important, but which hopefully we can
take up in later discussions.

Moving away from polarities

The note is also written in the belief that simple polarities are not always sufficient
in the long run; that the insistence on the small to the exclusion of the big or the
vice versa, insistence on local communities to the exclusion of state and supra
community (and sometimes infra-community) institutions , insistence on local self
sufficiency to the exclusion of external inputs are not sufficient in the long run, and
even less so in the context of climate change. Nor will a simple eclectic mixture of
the small and the big, the local and the global or community and state work. The
1

A lot of the argument in this note draws upon the body of work related to the water sector
that I have been associated with over the last more than 20 years in my association with the
late K. R. Datye and the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management
(SOPPECOM). Many of these arguments, though not in a climate change context, are
discussed in two books, both published by the Centre for Environment Education,
Ahmedabad: 1. Banking on Biomass : A New Strategy for Sustainable Prosperity Based on
Renewable Energy and Dispersed Industrialisation, by K. R. Datye (assisted by Suhas
Paranjape and K. J. Joy) and 2. Sustainable Technology: Making the Sardar Sarovar Project
Viable by Suhas Paranjape and K. J. Joy.
2

Off: SOPPECOM, 16 Kale Park, Someshwarwadi Road, Pashan, Pune 411008.

Res: 9 Sarvesh CHS, Opp. Satguru Gardens, Thane (East) 400603

point is to base the mix and its structure on an understanding of what the
relationship between these opposites needs to be.Without an understanding of that
relationship, which we could even call a dialectical relationship, the mix will fall
apart.

Importance of changing mindsets

Lastly, it is also written in the belief that concepts and approaches are more
important than detailed blueprints. The note therefore concentrates on trying to
change mindsets, pointing out alternative methods, concepts and approaches
rather than developing details. This is in the belief that once we begin to look at
things in a different light, once the gestalt switch sets in, it is not that difficult to
develop details. The note therefore goes details only so far as necessary to
illustrate such differences. Moreover, no detailed blueprint, however exhaustive
and comprehensive it is, will fit all sizes and situations. Instead, once insights have
been absorbed, new approaches adopted, it is better to start on a new creative
journey and people do so and do develop their own solutions. And as one of our
gurus, S. A. Dabholkar used to emphasise by quoting a Marathi saying, tujhe ahe
tujpashi, pari tu jaga chuklasi that you already possess that which you need, all
you need to do is to look in the right place. And as he also used to say, you do not
need a green revolution or a red revolution, you first need a grey revolution, a
revolution in your grey cells, the rest will follow. But enough of this. Let us get on
with the note.

Situating climate change

Not just a `lens
Because climate change has global causes and global effects, measures for climate
change mitigation and adaptation also become comprehensive and all embracing.
Almost everything begins to count. Anything from planting trees to providing
emergency escape boats qualifies. And in a larger sense it does. Climate change is
an unintended effect of the way the world has developed. In a similar vein, one can
say that climate change mitigation and adaptation are, to some extent `unintended
effects of all alternative development efforts, because they attempt to change the
way the world has developed for the better. In this larger sense, climate change
mitigation and adaptation become synonymous with sustainable development
efforts. It is just a change of `lens. In the worst case scenario, one can continue to
do what one always does, one only now talks about it in a new language. Things are
not that bad, but the result very often is a serious loss of focus.
The problem here is that it turns climate change into a `lens, rather than an
additional factor that affects the situation before us. Climate change is a serious
phenomenon, though there are number of forces in the world who would try to

trivialize it and dismiss it. That is why it needs to be situated properly. Perhaps the
first distinction we have to make is between climate change mitigation 3 and climate
change adaptation.
Climate change mitigation is a long term process and the mitigation is dependent
on global aggregation of local effects and works itself through over a longer period.
All attempts at sustainable and equitable development are nothing but climate
change mitigation. So there is no need to consider climate change mitigation as a
separate element. We can, and we should work out the mitigation impact of what
we do, for example, for carbon trading purposes though we should also be aware of
the possible inversion of carbon trading, similar to how `polluter pays' can become
`pay and pollute'). Howeve, we should realize that climate change mitigation does
not add anything to sustainable and equitable development. At their best,
assessments of climate change impacts can help options assessment. For the
puposes of this note, I simply put aside climate change mitigation, and focus on
adaptation.

Importance of context
Climate change adaptation, a term I shall continue to use though I am not quite
happy with it, is much more immediate concern. Climate change impact is a much
more immediate effect. It seriously modifies the situation in complicated ways and
also creates new problems. What we have therefore is a particular bio-physical,
social-economic and cultural context as modified by climate change impact. The
context depends on how we intend to intervene, it could be local, global, national, a
river basin, a city, or it could be women in the city, or any other bio-physical, socialeconomic and cultural slice there are after all so many ways in which one can slice
the world.
The point here is to grant the prior existence of the context, prior in both temporal
as well as theoretical terms. It is important to recognise that the context already
had, and will continue to have, its own problems independent of climate change,
and then consider climate change as an add-on interaction that modifies these
problems. Within that context, the problem is not of climate change adaptation per
se but of how climate change will work itself out through modifying pre-existing
problems, their interrelationship or by adding new problems. The point here is that
climate change per se is never a problem, it is how it changes the contextual field,
how it changes pre-existing problems and strategies and creates others. I am saying
this, because I often see this step being bypassed and treat the situation as if we
can directly deal with climate change adptation.

Prior approach
3

I use mitigation here in the specific sense of modifying climate change trends and not as is
often done, as synonymous with adaptation.

Secondly, precisely because of the context, our prior approach to things also
matters in what kinds of climate change adaptation strategies are evolved. The
context includes different approaches and they will incorporate climate change
adaptation strategies in different ways. There can be and are high energy intensive,
capital intensive strategies of climate change adaptation. Simple `mainstreaming
of climate change adaptation will also bring about a myriad of strategies. Our prior
approach to things will also determine how we deal with climate change. It matters
whether we think big dams are the only solution or whether we think that big dams
are demons and must be avoided at all costs. How we think of water, whether we
think of water flowing downstream past us as waste or not, whether we see land
and water as capital from which we extract the maximum benefit and then if they
are exhausted, move on to something else all these things matter. This may
appear self evident, but I do not think that we have given it sufficient attention as I
will attempt to show in what follows.

Level of precision
Lastly, we should be clear about what is the level of precision that we are seeking.
Climate change studies are now a big sprawling discipline that is growing rapidly.
But it is also highly uncertain. It is one of those fields in which estimates at higher
levels of aggregation are more reliable, or more agreed upon than estimates as we
go down to smaller scales. Also there are different models which give different
results. So we have to be clear about the degree of precision that we should aim at
as the reference point for our discussion.
While there are many differences in terms of actual details for different areas or at
different scales and the actual values, there seem to be some areas of broad
consensus: (1) rise in the mean sea level, (2) global warming, (3) a redistribution of
aridity and humidity and ( 4) greater variability and greater incidence of extreme
events. In fact, in my opinion, in terms of evolving a strategy for water, I think that
it is the last -- the greater variability and greater incidence of extreme events that is
the key factor around which broad strategies need to be planned. This is because 1)
is relevant for coastal areas but not for reasons of water, and because 4) nullifies
the factors 2) and 3) under specific local and temporal conditions. For example,
even if on an average, areas will be showing a rise in average temperature, there
will be periods of extreme cold as well as extreme heat. Similarly, even if a region
shifts to a more arid pattern on the average, there will still be years with much
greater rainfall than may have been experienced before the shift. It partly nullifies
the general trend. The general trend cannot therefore be the basis for evolving a
strategy. In what follows, I shall base myself mainly on this aspect of climate
change.

Water for life and Virtual water

We need water for almost every kind of activity. But if we look at human needs, we
do not require water in the same way for all activities and products. The broadest
distinction is that between water that we require as water and water that we require
because the goods and services we need require water for their
production/provision. Water that we need for basic life functions we require in the
form of adequate amounts of water of adequate quality. Water that we need for
drinking, for washing, cooking, for hygienic purposes, for toilets, as well as water
that is similarly used by domestic animals is water that must be available as water.
However, we also need food, clothing, electricity all of which would require water.
However, the distinction is that we ourselves need the food, the clothing and the
electricity and not the water; the water is required by those who produce these
products. The latter may be called virtual water or embedded water. I shall use the
term water for life functions for the former kind and virtual water for the latter. This
is one of the important conceptual distinctions I will be suggesting in what follows,
and it has many implications.
Water for life is much more difficult to store and transport than virtual water.
Transporting goods and services is an indirect transfer of water, whether through
market mechanism or through non market mechanisms (for example, transporting
grain as part of PDS). When we eat Punjab wheat or Tamil Nadu rice, we are using
the rain that fell in Punjab and Tamil Nadu. In a sense, redistributing the product of
water is equivalent to indirectly redistributing rainfall! These characteristics lead us
to two different approaches towards fulfilling these needs. They imply that the
requirements for water for life must be fulfilled at the local level, but the other need
not. As far as possible water for life must be assured locally, though virtual water
needs may not.

Moving away from localism

Climate change and the variability it brings makes this distinction even more
important. It also shows up the inadequacy of a free trade, centralized approach to
water as well as a localist, self sufficiency oriented approach to water. Climate
change variability means that even in the most humid areas there will be periods of
water stress and in the arid areas the incidence of aridity will be greater in many
more years than it is now. This implies that an attitude that insists on or tries to
maximize local self sufficiency of all basic needs water for life and virtual water
needs together -- may not work, and the number of years in which self sufficiency
might break down will increase. The implications of climate change imply that we
while we should aim for local self sufficiency in terms of water for life, for the
virtual water requirements for basic needs we may have to think in terms of local
production supplemented by PDS or similar type of distributive mechanisms at a
supra-local level, regional, state or national level mechanisms of redistributing
virtual water. We shall return to this issue later.

Ensuring priority
Before we turn to the issue of variability, I want to emphasise the issue of priority. If
we are to aim for local self sufficiency in respect of water for life, there is the issue
of ensuring priority of water for life over all other needs of water. Every water
policy, from the national water policy to all the states, water for life is given first
priority. However, these policies prove to be no more than pious wish lists at best.
At the local level, what we see is actually the reverse. There is no social mechanism
or medium that can exercise control and ensure this priority at a community level,
with a very few notable exceptions. The result is that water for irrigation has taken
priority over water for life; that more and more drinking water is being pushed to
groundwater; that since groundwater tables are also falling, deeper and deeper
aquifers are being exploited leading to problems of water quality, often severe in
areas with iodine or arsenic contamination. What is sad is that even in areas where
watershed development has taken place there are very few cases in which drinking
water priority is ensured. If we do not have institutional mechanisms that can
ensure this priority, all policy statements regarding granting it highest priority are
no more than wish lists.

Assured water and variable water

The other important distinction to be made is between what we shall call assured
water and variable water. The problem is that at the moment local level planning at
most utilizes average rainfall values to estimate availability and match availability
and needs. There is very little thought given to dependability. Nowhere is this as
important as in climate change adaptation. If we think of dependability, then
generally average rainfall has a dependability of around 50%. So what does it mean
when you plan on the basis of average rainfall values? It means that the
dependability of your planning is around 50%; to put it bluntly, it means that in
every alternate year, your planning will fail! This aspect is very rarely taken into
account in local level planning. And the degree to which it will fail will depend on
the degree of variability. And given the large increase in variability that climate
change is expected to bring in, It means that it may fail drastically.

Dependability
It is therefore important in water resource planning to separate the water available
in different years into two components; the assured water, that is water available
corresponding to the rainfall with a high level of dependability. In irrigation planning,
it is customary to plan on the basis of 75% dependability, but we generally
recommend a somewhat higher level of dependability of around 80% dependability.
However, there is a peculiar contrast, almost a paradox here; large source planning
is based on water availability at high level of dependability (75%), but in local level
planning where it is even more important, dependability is largely ignored.

If we analyse a water availability series for say ten years, then the water that is
available for at least eight years becomes your assured water (water available at
80% dependability). Note, that there are still two years in which water availability
will be less than what we have called assured water. (Assurance is never absolute;
in our assumption, it means assurance at 80% dependability.) For the remaining
eight years the total water available will be higher than the assured water. The
additional water that will be available over and above the assured water then is the
variable water; it will vary from year to year. It is important to plan how to utilize
both of these components.
But before we turn to that I would like to emphasise the importance of the issue of
dependability. Dependability analysis is important because it forms the basis on
which we can carry out risk proofing strategies to take variability into account. This
will involve risk proofing with respect to spatial variability, temporal variability and
social pooling. If these elements are not part of our approach to water then it is
unlikely that our strategies will be able to tackle climate change impacts.

Three pronged approach

We generally have a three pronged approach, especially for water scarce regions.
A) The first step is to satisfy as many of the basic needs of water as possible from
assured water. These comprise first, water for life, and second, water required for
basic necessities like food and for producing the minimum values that can be
exchanged for other minimum needs like clothing, shelter, health and education. It
is not necessary to plan for complete self sufficiency here; but aim mainly at self
reliance, which implies ensuring fulfillment of all water for life requirements from
local sources and as many as possible but not necessarily all of the fuel, fodder and
food needs . This also means that assured water, available at both local and higher
levels, must go to fulfill basic requirements on a priority basis. B) The second step is
to utilize variable water for supplementary/surplus production. This is not as easy as
it may sound. It needs an opportunistic attitude and a flexible approach and also
some degree of forecasting. Part of this goes towards surplus and accumulation, but
as importantly, part of this must be utilised to build up stocks that will cover
shortfalls in the 20% shortfall years. C) In the 20% shortfall years, assurance of
water for life has the top priority and the stocks built up through variable water may
have to supplement it during those years.

Connecting climate change research to dependability

While there is a lot of climate change research taking place, it is not geared to this
kind of approach. In fact there is a need to classify different areas on the basis of
such an analysis into broad groups of the following kind: A) those areas in which
assured water is sufficient to provide for water for life as well as provide for all other
basic needs, including fuel, fodder, food needs. B) those areas in which assured
water is sufficient to meet water for life requirements but can only partially meet
fuel, fodder and food needs; C) those areas in which assured water is just sufficient

to provide for water for life requirements and D) those areas where assured water
may not be sufficient to provide water for life requirements.

Variable water is a significant resource

Over the years, the total quantum of variable water is quite significant. In fact, our
early studies showed that it could range from 50 to almost 100% of assured water
(80% dependability). In a climate change scenario, it is likely to be even more
significant. But there have to be good strategies to utilize this kind of water. It is
unlikely that it can be utilized for annual crops. It is best to utilize that water for
biomass, especially perennial species. Unlike annuals, they do not show
catastrophic failure, but husband and accumulate whatever growth is possible; in
effect they have a rectifier like effect which is vital for smoothening out and
adapting to variability. In fact, it is best to have biomass species that have a
vegetative growth pattern and an energy replacing use. That multiplies their
usefulness qualitatively and quantitatively. The efficient management of assured
and variable water, which require different approaches into a synergistic whole is
one of many components that are important in adapting to climate change.

Storages
Going beyond big and small
The conventional answer to climate change is storages, the bigger the better, and
the argument for big dams (and also nuclear energy) is being put forward with a
renewed vigour with climate change adaptation as the theme. However, that is a
half truth. For that reason it is important to face squarely the issue of large versus
small dams. There is a tendency to demonise large dams and to trivialize small
dams by their respective opponents. However, a badly designed and managed big
dam is no more harmful that a thousand ill designed small structures. The rapid and
continuing decline in groundwater in vast areas of the country is an aggregated
effect of what has happened at a micro- and even a community scale if you will.
Secondly, even if we grant that big dams may not be entirely beneficial, the issue of
what is to be done with those that have already been built is also an imp0ortant
issue.

Synergising big and small

We have always contended that the issue is not that of large versus small. Both
have their own positive and negative points. In the case of variability, aggregated
large sources also act as rectifiers smoothening out spatial variability effects and
could have a vital role; could do so, please note, if they are properly incorporated
into an adequate overall approach. Our guru, K. R. Datye used to say that big dams
are an example of what they could have done but did not. In fact, large sources can
be utilized as supplements to small sources in order to stabilize them. Unfortunately
big dams today are planned as stand alone mammoths which make them unwieldy

and inefficient . On the other hand, if they could feed local systems instead of
independent commands they would strengthen the local systems. This sort of
system is described in detail in our book on the alternative restructuring of Sardar
Sarovar that we have proposed. The command area of big dams then looks like
what the Chinese call melons on the vine, where the melons are the small systems
and the vines are the canals of the large system. In short, big dams make sense
when they feed into and strengthen small and local systems. By the
aggregation/rectifier effect they have they provide what the local systems lack. It is
this synergy which should form the basis of a risk proofing approach for climate
change.

Groundwater as storage
Another neglected area here is groundwater. Groundwater is mostly seen in the
context of natural recharge. But it has many more aspects to it. First, it is becoming
more and more an important and vital component of the water system all over the
country. Even in areas served by canals, farmers are shifting to receiving that water
and collecting the seepage or even directly drawing canal water into wells. This is
more a matter of utilizing surface water through short term conversion to
groundwater. But even more so, it also serves as an important storage mechanism.
This implies that conjoint use of surface and groundwater is becoming more and
more important and there is a greater and greater need to consider both of these
together. And tthis makes groundwater replenishment and participative aquifer
management more and more important.
It is our contention that if we restructure our large and small systems on the melons
on a vine principle and add groundwater and participative water (aquifer as well as
canal or groundwater as well as surface water) to the mix, we shall have a very
good instrument to meet the demands of adapting to climate change.

Resource mapping and assessment of sustainable

use
Though there are many other finer points we may discuss, I shall end this note with
a discussion of what we call participative resource mapping and assessment of
sustainable use. It is our contention that earlier agro-systems were adaptive and
sustainable because they were essentially based on technologies that could not
have interfered too much with natural systems. They were all therefore based on
traditional practices and forms of knowledge that on the whole took a stable pattern
of natural phenomena as their departure point. When we throw into the mix the
enormous capacity of interference into natural phenomena that humans have
acquired and the impending, or rather already upon us climate change, it is doubtful
whether traditional practices will fulfil the requirements for sustainable and
equitable adaptation to climate change. We can learn from them, apply those
lessons to the present but cannot return to those systems. Paraphrasing what

Kosambi had once said, there is no golden age in the past that we can return to, if
at all it is there in the future for us to build.

Combining participative and scientific knowledge

However, there is an urgent need to generate knowledge at a local level that will
also build awareness of the problematic nature of the resource. But exactly what
kind of knowledge and through what process, is the issue. Participative rural
appraisals with unscaled maps may be useful to draw broad outlines, to establish
relationships with the community and help visualization of the resource. However,
they are not of great help when it comes to quantification. On the other hand
rigorous scientific assessments are prohibitively costly and even then they are so
data hungry that their data needs are rarely met. Participative resource mapping is
a programme that joins participative techniques and knowledge with scientific
techniques and knowledge through the use of GIS and scaled cadastral maps and
simple imagery like Google earth.
Armed with these techniques, it is possible to develop and demonstrate a broad
water balance that functions at two levels. At one level it goes towards resource and
options assessment and dependability analysis by developing scenarios. What if the
rainfall is X instead of Y? What if we grow crop A instead of B? At another level it
goes towards an analysis of sustainability.
There is a lot more that one can write. What I would like to emphasise here is that
my main attempt is to get you to see things you may not have earlier seen and to
outline an approach to water that is adequate to the task of dealing with climate
change and initiate a discussion around it. I would like to end here with an example
of how this has worked for us in the case of sustainability at the village level. What I
am presenting below briefly is an argument that we have developed on the basis of
how people understood what we were talking about and have found to be very
effective.
Aapkamai, baapkamai and diwala
In explaining sustainability, we made use of the concepts of bapkamai and
aapkamai that had come from them, which would translate roughly into ancestral
property and self earned property. They provided a frame for them to talk about
water and sustainability. The idea was to differentiate between stocks and flows. We
liken annual flows to aapkamai and accumulated stocks to baapkamai. Now the
simple thing to understand was that one should learn to live within aapkamai. And
what should our attitude be to baapkamai? Well, people were clear on that too. As
far as is possible we should preserve baapkamai. In times of difficulty we should dip
into baapkamai; after all that is what it is for, but then it is also our responsibility to
restore and add to it in times of prosperity. And it is also simple to understand the
consequences of unsustainability. What happens if we begin to go far beyond our
aapkamai and begin to live on baapkamai we go bankrupt, diwala nikalata hai!

This is simple common wisdom, but it begins to speak to all natural resources. But
as we used to discuss it is not as easy to separate the aapkami from the baapkamai,
especially in the case of water, allowing us to move on to a participtive assessment
of water resources.
The point I want to make here as I end this note is that most of the concepts I
outlined above are essentially simple, though they may need various degrees of
scientific sophistication and peoples participation for their application at different
levels. As the baapkami/aapkamai argument shows, it is important to develop a
new common sense around these concepts, a common sense that can bridge the
popular and the scientific domains. It is these concepts and the development of a
new common sense which form the connection between climate change strategies
and the approach to water which we must adopt if we are not to go `bankrupt.