Developing a Framework for Sustainable Drinking Water Supply and Irrigation Projects in Shivalik Area of Himachal Pradesh

ABSTRACT: The increasing demand for water as a result of population growth, urbanization, economic growth and project centric water resources management has resulted huge pressure on water resources. This, if trends continue, may lead to Himachal Pradesh a water stressed region by international standards. Therefore, we need strategies for conservation of water resources and its use in sustainable manner. When we refer “sustainability”, as a kind of keyword in the water infrastructure management context, we mean some set of ‘Policies and Procedures ” called framework to plan, manage and operate the water systems. In this paper a system approach has been used to develop a framework for sustainable water systems by considering environmental, social, economic, political and institutional components of sustainability. To address the sustainability issues identified from 14 case studies of water supply and irrigation projects, a framework has been proposed. The proposed framework has been evaluated / validated using Sustainability Index (SI). For validation of the framework, data obtained from 14 case studies of water supply and irrigation projects were used to determine its effectiveness. The results of analysis demonstrated that framework can work as a tool for improvement and appropriate actions for sustainable water systems