A Sustainable Integrated Rural Water Management with emphasis on Network Prioritization, Household Water Treatment and Real-Time Feedback

Abstract

Rural water infrastructure management, an essential aspect of sustainable living in rural areas, is an ignored subject compared to urban areas. For instance, multiple urban studies, such as integrated urban water management (IUWM) and water sensitive urban design (WSUD), discuss the structured management of water, land, and resources for acquiring the most lucrative and societal benefits. However, many rural water infrastructures lack proper planning, coordination, and monitoring. Besides, minimal applied decision making at lower levels misleads to the inefficiency of rural water sources. Research gaps exist in long term water quality testing and continuous monitoring of stored water in rural areas. The current study aims to develop a decentralized system, termed Sustainable Integrated Rural Water Management (SIRWM), for overcoming the challenges plaguing rural areas by utilizing rainwater harvesting (RWH) as the primary source in a study area in Rajasthan, India. The overall setup of the SIRWM targets to diminish over-reliance on groundwater sources in areas facing drought. The study comprises five segments, in the sequential order of survey and data collection, network prioritization, implementation of RWH system using Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools, installation of water filters at households, and collection of real-time feedback through interactive voice response system (IVRS) (an android application) in a selected community of the study area. The integration of all these components results in achieving a robust rural water management.