Abstract
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.
Highlights
The provision of safe drinking water took central stage in global environmental and developmental discussions; due to this, it was included previously in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) more recently
Despite the tremendous amount of attention paid to the provision of safe and affordable drinking water, hundreds of millions of people around the world still lack access to it [1,2]
This study attempts to assess the state of water governance in eight Indian states, utilizing a framework developed by Saleth and Dinar
Summary
The provision of safe drinking water took central stage in global environmental and developmental discussions; due to this, it was included previously in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) more recently. Despite the tremendous amount of attention paid to the provision of safe and affordable drinking water, hundreds of millions of people around the world still lack access to it [1,2]. In Asia, India has the largest percentage of its population without access to clean drinking water, reaching up to more than 75 million people [3]. India lags behind most of its neighbors in terms of access to safe potable water [4]. India has 16% of the world’s population but only 4% of the world’s freshwater resources. The Ganges–Meghna–Brahmaputra river basin in the east contains 60% of available freshwater [7]
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