Water poverty for different livelihood groups in peri- urban areas in a changing environment

Abstract

Water is one of the most essential elements for human life and survival of our ecosystem. There is a direct relationship between income poverty and water poverty. Water poverty is the situation of not having access to sufficient water of adequate quality or sufficient capacity to meet basic needs. This study assessed water poverty for different livelihood groups of three different types of peri-urban areas (Tetuljhora, Dhalla and Saista unions) by using Water Poverty Index (WPI), an inter-disciplinary tool to measure water stress. Both present and future WPIs were estimated for male and female industrial workers, male large and small farmers, female farmers and economically inactivewomen group (unemployed women, adolescent girls, physically challenged and elderly women). The WPI is an indicator-based approach and comprised of five components: Resource, Access, Capacity, Use and Environment. Data for the study was collected from 260 respondents, made up of 120 men and 140 women. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was performed to assign component weights and weighted multiplicative function was used for constructing the final indices. Different aspects of environmental change, such as population growth, land use change and changes in water level, and climatic change, such as changes in rainfall and temperature were also assessed in this study. Currently, the economically inactive women group (41.46) in Saista is the most water-poor group. But, in future the small male farmers (33.8) will be the most water-poor group. Comparison of the present and future WPIs indicated decreasing values of physical components (Resource and Environment). The future scores showed that better scores in Access, Capacity and Use might help the groups to adapt to the future water poverty. So, in order to be more water-secured, social componentsmust be improved. Role of education and different awareness programs is important to fight against the increased conflicts and violence regarding water use. The climatic and environmental factors indicated adverse effect in near future. Only 31.67% men and 23.57% women had basic knowledge on climate change. Women farmers will be more affected due to high temperature as most of them had to collect water from a distant water source. The farmers will suffer the most for the rainfed crops due to high rainfall variability and decreasing groundwater level. In this case, cultivation of climate-resilient crops are needed for ensuring food security.