In Indigenous and rural communities of the Global South, relationships between humans, water, and life are understood and organized in various ways, with water often viewed as intrinsically linked to land. These resources not only serve the tangible purpose of supporting livelihoods but also form a fundamental basis for intangible aspects such as culture, identity, and epistemic-ontological foundations. In this article, the interconnected rights to both water and land for these communities are conceptualized as "hydro-territorial rights" (HTRs). This concept encompasses the formal and/or customary norms and practices related to the ownership, access, control, and use of both land and water, which are regarded as interrelated entities. Theoretically, this article draws on rights-based critical institutionalism and political ecology approaches to natural resource governance, including the legal-pluralist distinction between de jure rights on paper and de facto rights in practice. The aim is to identify and comparatively analyze contentious situations and conflicts surrounding water and land rights in rural Indigenous contexts across three postcolonial settings in the Global South. Methodologically, we employ a comparative strategy based on theory and literature reviews to examine conflictual hydro-territorial rights situations within selected Indigenous localities in Bolivia, India, and Tanzania. This analysis is complemented by interviews with local actors and observations in these three settings. Among our findings, we highlight both conflicts and temporary alliances between local and external interests, as well as practices and mechanisms related to the colonial legacy. We also explore how contemporary capitalist developmental interventions in these areas have impacted communities' access to and rights over local water and land resources, resulting in significant consequences for local livelihoods and ethno-cultural-territorial identities.

The discourse around 'nature-based solutions' (NBSs) is quite recent, but this paper contends that, as knowledge and practice, the notion of NBS is not novel. Indigenous and rural communities are known to work closely with nature to fulfil their water needs, eke out sustainable livelihoods, and cope with climate variability and the impacts of natural disasters. India is a country where NBS has been a tradition for millennia. Water has been sustainably managed here and related societal challenges successfully met through the use of nature, natural systems, or natural processes within rural as well as urban settings. However, despite the merits, in recent times, many of the old NBSs have come to be neglected and degraded, being increasingly replaced by gray infrastructure. These changes are deepening the water crisis in the country, with the rapidly transforming peri-urban locations being an important area of concern. This paper outlines some of the major NBS forms traditionally established and used in different parts of India. Thereafter, using an integrated analytical framework for assessing sustainability of NBS (developed under project NATWIP), the value of the NBS legacy in India will be analyzed. Finally, the paper proposes important lessons as a way forward for enhancing water sustainability in peri-urban India that is based on the adoption and rejuvenation of the disappearing NBS science in the country.

The term nature-based solutions (NBS) has gained traction in recent years and has been applied in many settings. There are few comprehensive assessment frameworks available that can guide NBS planning and implementation while at the same time capturing the short- and long-term impacts and benefits of the NBS. Here a recently presented framework, which builds on the theory of change and was developed to assess NBS at different phases of the project cycle, was applied to seven diverse case studies. The case studies addressed water quality and quantity issues in peri-urban areas across the global north and south. Framework indicators covering the sustainability dimensions (environmental, social and economic) were assessed at three stages of the framework: context, process and results. The work sought to investigate the following research objectives: (1) Can this framework be robust and yet flexible enough to be applied across a diverse selection of NBS projects that are at different phases of the project cycle and address different kinds of water challenges within varied ecological, social and economic contexts? (2) Is it possible to draw generalisations from a comparative analysis of the application of the framework to the case studies? Results showed that the framework was able to be applied to the case studies; however, their diversity showed that NBS projects designed in one context, for a specific purpose in a specific location, can not necessarily be transferred easily to another location. There were several process-based indicators that were universally significant for the case studies, including expertise, skills and knowledge of the involved actors, roles and responsibilities of involved actors and political support. The result-based indicators were case study-specific when environmental indicators were case study-specific, and important social indicators were environmental identity and recreational values. Overall, the use of the framework benefits the recognition of the implementation’s advances, such as the change in context, the processes in place and the results obtained.

Recent efforts to achieve social, economic, and environmental goals related to sustainability emphasize the importance of nature-based solutions (NBS), as grey infrastructure alone is insufficient to address current challenges. The majority of frameworks proposed in the literature fail to address the full potential of NBS, neglecting long-term results, unintended consequences, co-benefits, and their contribution to achieving global environmental agreements, such as the Agenda 2030, especially for water management in a peri-urban context. Here we present an innovative framework that can be applied to both NBS project planning and evaluation for several water-based challenges, giving practitioners and researchers a tool not only to evaluate ongoing projects but also to guide new ones. The framework considers three main stages of a NBS project: (1) context assessment, (2) NBS implementation and adaptation process, and (3) NBS results. This tool has the potential to be used to evaluate whether NBS projects are aligned with sustainability dimensions through a set of adaptable sustainability indicators. The framework can also highlight how the NBS targets are related to the sustainable development goals (SGD) and contribute to catalyzing the 2030 Agenda. The framework is an important tool for water management and other NBS types.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are increasingly reckoned as viable solutions to address water related societal challenges and as a sustainable strategic approach to manage water in terms of quality, quantity and flow. NATWIP, an EU-Cooperation Water-JPI Project, within which this abstract is produced, aims to contribute to closing the water cycle gap by exploring these questions in the peri-urban context, being transitional zones in the process of increasing urbanization. An assessment framework has been developed in NATWIP as a tool to analyze the contextual factors and driving forces, governance processes and the sustainability criteria of NBS projects in the peri-urban context of 6 countries in Europe and outside. 

This presentation will focus on the findings from two case studies conducted in Stockholm County, Sweden that apply varied types of NBS interventions at different scales and to deal with different water challenges. The first case explores NBS application at decentralized scale as a means for improving wastewater treatment and management in Stockholm Archipelago and its environmental impact on the Baltic Sea, where many of the summerhouses lie outside the municipal network. The second case addresses various water pressures including climate change impacts and flooding at the sub-urban scale with the aim of planning an urban district that integrate spatially ambitious NBS in the form of blue-green structures for multifunctional urban spaces and improving ecosystem services.    

The findings of the case studies will be presented to draw parallels and contrasts regarding their contexts, and the processes and socioeconomic and environmental benefits concerning NBS and to conclude on general lessons regarding opportunities and constraints for sustainable up-taking of NBS measures. 

The Yellow River, with a developmental and historical significance to China, is now facing several emerging pressures, which are degrading the river status and creating challenges for high-quality development in the basin. Numerous studies on such emerging pressures, present scattered outcomes, and trigger uncertainties and deficient assumptions on the river's problems. This review integrated such scattered information and investigated the emerging pressures, their drivers and integrated impacts at the basin level. The study intended to prioritize those pressures needing expeditious consideration, and carried a discussion on the alternative pathways to the solution. To determine the critical emerging pressures, a literature review was conducted and experts' opinion was sought. The outcome further led to a comprehensive review, data collection, and analysis of three groups of emerging pressures. The review recognized ‘Water Stress’ in the lower reach, primarily caused by an abated flow, as the most distressing emerging pressure inflicting social, ecological, and economic consequences. Such decline in flow was mostly induced by a recent increase in ‘Anthropogenic activities’, such as intensive water withdrawal for irrigation (≥27 BCM), and construction of check dams in the Loess Plateau region (trapping~5 BCM water). The increasing ‘Pollution’ in the river, besides threatening public health and ecology, also contributed to the water stress by rendering certain stretches of the river biologically dead and unsuitable for any use. The ‘Climate Change’, with its key negative effect on precipitation in the middle sub-basin, overall contributed small (8–11 %) to the observed reduction in river flow. With increasing challenges for the adopted engineering solutions tackling the water stress, the study suggested the use of a demand management approach, employing adaptive policy measures, as an alternative or supplementary solution to the current approach. In addition, the study highlights that regular reviewing and reforming the key decisions based on evidence and updated information, and taking a participatory approach, may offer a sustainable pathway to the environment as well as socio-economic goals.

Arsenic contamination of groundwater has emerged as a significant challenge for the human right to water in India because of over 80% dependence on groundwater for drinking, particularly in the rural areas. In order to mitigate the arsenic menace and provide safe drinking water to the masses, government and non-governmental agencies have initiated several interventions. These interventions can be categorized under one of the following approaches, namely, treatment of contaminated water; supply of groundwater with acceptable level of arsenic; surface water supply; and rainwater harvesting. While it is a reality that all populations estimated to be ‘at risk’ of arsenic exposure have not yet achieved ‘coverage’ under one or more of these approaches, there exist more pertinent issues. These can be summarized under the rubric of ‘sustainability’ of the interventions, primarily from environmental, social, cultural and economic perspectives. This chapter evaluates the different arsenic mitigation interventions in India from these different sustainability perspectives, and proposes that rainwater harvesting offers the most promising way forward for sustainable arsenic mitigation.

Urban lakes in many places around the world are rapidly becoming vulnerable because of such factors as urbanization, climate change, anthropogenic pollutant inputs, etc. The influence of such forcing factors on lakes hydrology must be correctly recognized and addressed in order to protect them over the long term. Facing similar challenges, Sukhna Lake, an urban lake in northern India, has apparently dried up frequently in the recent past. Numerous hypotheses were subsequently proposed to isolate the possible factors affecting the lake and its water budget, including the potential impacts of land use changes, climate change, anthropogenic activities and other natural processes. Using meteorological data, lake-catchment information and a hydrologic model, these hypotheses were comprehensively analysed. Relevant data on rainfall, wind, temperature, lake inflows, groundwater, lake physical characteristics, catchment land uses, soil texture, etc., were gathered for the analysis. A temporal trend analysis of factors relevant to these hypotheses was undertaken to identify critical drivers of hydrological changes. A sensitivity analysis also was performed, using the lake water budget, to determine and prioritize the predominant factors affecting the lake, leading to the creation of an annual lake water budget for the period from 1971 to 2013, highlighting the lake inflows and outflows. The lake annual inflow (catchment run-off) was computed by adopting a rainfall–run-off model based on the SCS-curve number. Lacking any anthropogenic water withdrawals, the outflow was quantified by estimating the evaporation loss (using the FAO-based Penman–Monteith Equation). The results of the present study indicate that the process of siltation and the construction of check dams in the catchment, rather than urbanization and climate change, were the dominating reasons contributing to changes in the lake hydrology, and affecting the lake most in recent years. 

Water is a natural resource indispensable for women, men and children to leadhealthy lives with dignity. Access to water has found recognition as a humanrights standard by being implied within various international treaties, declarationsand other instruments. In 2002, it was acknowledged as an inextricable aspect of Articles 11 and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic,Social and Cultural Rights. Access to adequate sanitation is likewise considered indispensable for leading a life with dignity. Subsequently, it has been treated as a right alongside water, potentially as a twinned right.

Recognition of access to water and sanitation as a human right is often seenas important because it clarifies the role of States in improving access to basicservices or supply, sets standards that can be monitored and prioritises those currently without access, particularly the vulnerable and marginalised, in anon-discriminatory manner. Consequently, significant focus has remained onthe machinery and mechanisms for implementing the right. Perhaps animportant assumption is that, once action for implementing the right is undertaken, access to water and sanitation and hence realisation of the rightwill be progressively achieved. However, do actions taken to implement the right necessarily lead to its realisation? Can a duty bearer guarantee exercise of the right by rights holders solely because essential legal frameworks have beencreated and actions within their scope undertaken?

Similar questions have been raised elsewhere. For instance, some have argued that a human rights-based approach brings a focus to community power relations, a factor that can otherwise impinge on effective access to resources by more marginalised groups. From an anthropological perspective, it has been argued that the practice of human rights takes place between different global and local understandings and meanings of humanness and rights. One sociology of law perspective contends that law, including international legal and political agreements, often obtains content only when first implemented. Therefore implementation should be investigated atthe local level.

It has also been argued that the human right to water is not enjoyed automatically by rights holders solely because relevant policies and laws havebeen created, institutional frameworks laid down, or appropriate programmesand interventions implemented. It is important to consider the ‘context’ in which these actions unfold, which primarily deal with water resources management and water governance questions.

Drawing upon such arguments, and looking at the realities on the groundin regard to the realisation of the right to water and sanitation in India, in particular, this chapter seeks to explore the processes lying at the interface between the community where rights holders lead their lives and the State that implements actions in accordance with the legal formulation of the right.

The discourse on the human right to water presents deliberations on the concept, content and rationale for the right, with little attention to the practical question of translating the right into reality. This book aims to fill this void by focusing on ‘realization’ of the right by its holders, examining how effective the mechanisms are for ‘implementing’ the right in enabling its universal realization. In a quest to answer this question, the book draws a conceptual differentiation between ‘implementation’ and ‘realization’ of the right, arguing that unlike implementation - which is an objective process of creation - and implementation of measures such as legal frameworks, institutional structures or policy and action guidelines, realization of the right is a subjective process that extends much beyond. It takes shape within specific contextual settings which may include varied situations, yet remains neglected in the related academic and action forums. This book attempts to address this void by discussing some of the most significant contexts and the underlying problems and concerns that strongly influence realization of the human right to water. It contends that if the right is to be truly realized, these different contexts - which can be further classified as 'objective' and 'subjective' - must be understood, analysed and appropriately addressed before framing and implementing relevant action. The book further situates the human right to water discourse in a broader interdisciplinary perspective, expanding its scope beyond the narrower legal dimensions, linking it to the wider field of water resources management/governance. Through the novel ideas it proposes, the book makes an innovative and unique contribution in the field of human right to water which is of great scientific value.