The Water Poverty Index: An application in the Indian context

Abstract

For developing countries, the proportion of households covered by improved water resources is conventionally used to assess the water stress situation. However, in a developing country like India with a high population growth rate, water demand and supply are considerably mismatched. An agro‐based economy with large variations in socio‐economic conditions and changing rainfall patterns across the states imposes greater challenge on water resources. Therefore, there is a need to assess the water situation across the country in a holistic manner. This paper proposes application of the Water Poverty Index as a comprehensive policy tool to assess actual water‐stress situation across 20 major states in India. This index covers important socio‐economic parameters such as access, capacity, use and environment in addition to water resources of each state. The results and findings are expected to be of use to policymakers and implementing agencies. In view of policy formulation, a state performing well on a Water Poverty Index component can act as a benchmark for another state.

Research on urban water security based on water poverty theory: a case study of lower yellow river cities

“…Jemmali, for instance, looked into how the multidimensional water poverty index varied throughout different parts of the African continent (Jemmali 2016). The water poverty index was proposed by Goel et al qua a thorough tool to evaluate the water resources situation of 20 central districts in India (Goel et al 2020). To assess the level of water poverty in Nepal's medium river basins, Pandey et al adopted the WPI framework (Pandey et al 2012).…”

Addressing Water Poverty Under Climate Crisis: Implications for Social Policy

“…Global South literature has focused more on the multiple dimensions of resource vulnerability and socio-economic intersections, aligned with the concept of ‘water insecurity’ (e.g. Madhusoodhanan et al, 2016; Zaveri et al , 2016; Goel et al, 2020; Nhemachena et al, 2020; Jemmali et al ., 2021). Literature on the Global North has focused instead on affordability problems (e.g.…”

Water poverty assessment based on the random forest algorithm: application to Gansu, Northwest China

“…The WPI is a multi-disciplinary index that considers physical and socioeconomical factors associated with water accessibility and affordability, thereby inviting policymakers to monitor the availability of water resources and track the socioeconomical factors that shape water accessibility and affordability (Sullivan, 2002;Ladi et al, 2021). The influence of the WPI is palpable in the water poverty literature, with numerous studies applying this tool to examine the water poverty situation at the national (Jemmali, 2017;Pan et al, 2017;Goel et al, 2020;Ladi et al, 2021;Prince et al, 2021), regional (Huang et al, 2017;Thakur et al, 2017;Wurtz et al, 2019;Koirala et al, 2020), and local scales (Azqueta & Montoya, 2017;Kallio et al, 2018).…”