Climate Change

This document deals with benchmarking local government performance on rural sanitation in Himachal Pradesh. To strengthen outcome-focused management of the rural sanitation sector in India, the Water and Sanitation Program’s (WSP) Global Scaling Up Sanitation Project, in partnership with the Government of Himachal Pradesh, developed a five-step process to monitor and benchmark performance on a monthly basis across all twelve districts in the state. Applied at the local government (district) level, this process has proven to be an effective approach, one that can improve reporting, monitoring, and performance.

This document discusses the process oriented programme of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) on Vulnerability Assessment (V&A) and Enhancing Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change initiated in the semi-arid regions of India. The aims of this programme include strengthening the resilience of local communities to conditions of unfavourable weather, like adverse alterations in temperature and precipitation leading to the more frequent occurrence of drought and to use the experiences for policy development for climate change adaptation measures at various levels.

Over 60 per cent of the cultivated area in India is rainfed & unfavorable and uncertain rainfall patterns will seriously affect the food, drinking water and livelihood security of millions of children, women and men. Since the initiation of this project, the emphasis on proactive research on adaptation mechanisms has increased at the national level. 

The present decade may mark the beginning of a new climate era, characterized by extreme and often unpredictable weather conditions and rise in sea levels. The greatest casualty of climate change will be food, water and livelihood security.

Organizer: Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR)

Venue: Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR)

Description:
WOTR has been in the forefront of mobilizing vulnerable communities in semi arid and resource fragile regions to help themselves out of poverty by harvesting rainwater and regenerating the ecosystems they live in along watershed lines.

Article and Image Courtesy: Everything About Water

The December edition of Droplets e-newsletter published by the Everything About Water had the following highlights:

Guest Post by Shashank Srinivasan

High altitude wetlands in the Indian Himalayas are crucial to the water security of downstream communities. They buffer the flow of glacial meltwater to sustain river flow in the dry season, ensuring that human settlements have access to water when they need it most.

High altitude wetlands are also reservoirs of biodiversity and contribute local livelihood opportunities. Identifying these wetlands and demarcating areas for their protection is thus crucial to any wetland management plan.

In this poster, a method of using topographic data obtained by remote sensing techniques, to identify the catchment areas of these wetlands has been described.

The author suggests that the protection of these catchment areas will ensure the survival of these wetlands, as well as of the communities that depend on them.

This document by the Sulabh International Academy of Environmental Sanitation presents the guidelines for water safety plans for rural water supply systems. The revised National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) Guidelines 2009-2012 issued by Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation has shifted the focus from source development and installation of water supply system for providing drinking water supply to rural household to focus on development of village security plan.

Green Revolution (GR) technologies, supported by official policies, and fuelled by agro-chemicals, machinery and irrigation, are well known to have improved agricultural production and productivity. While these technologies greatly helped developing countries to address their food-security and food-sovereignty needs, farmers using these technologies have had to depend on external inputs.

Despite the pre-Cancun Wikileaks revelation of U.S. strong-arm tactics at the Copenhagen summit, and U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern's remarks about "climate bribery", wherein he said countries asking for aid were in no position to accuse the U.S. of bribery; it is largely perceived that the Cancun Climate Meet has picked up the lost momentum of Copenhagen.

193 nations met at Cancun to debate on how to move forward on the climate change adaptation process and drafted the Cancun Agreement.