Will the water revolution be centralized? Investigating the "downscale" and "upscale" challenges of urban rainwater harvesting

Abstract

In 2003, the Centre for Science and Environment—one of India's most prominent environmental organisations—published a text urging city dwellers to take up the socially responsible act of catching rain where it falls, which is otherwise known as rainwater harvesting. The text argued that unless people are involved in urban rainwater harvesting at the household level, it would be ‘very difficult to meet the looming water crisis’ that India confronts. Just how viable, however, are individual and household efforts for addressing the water crises on the horizon? This chapter takes up that question by looking at the progression in debates over urban rainwater harvesting, as well as the uptake in rainwater harvesting practices, that have taken place since the publication of the afore mentioned manual. Drawing from a selection of documents and interviews, the chapter argues that several disincentives persist that either deter people from taking up the clarion call of household-level rainwater harvesting, or that prevent them from doing it altogether. This content shifts the onus of responsibility onto the centralised water system, and onto the municipal agencies charged with water management. Using a political ecology analysis that focuses on the scalar disparities of the water-power nexus, this chapter ultimately argues that urban rainwater harvesting requires enhanced centralised cooperation and capacitation to foster a viable integrated water resource management approach. At stake in this discussion is the fate of water self-sufficient Indian cities, and the viability of sustainable urban water management.