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The Bangalore Water Index
Written By Neha_Dar - 26 March, 2010
Bangalore Bangalore Water accountability water supply Water index collaboration citizen engagement
What is the Bangalore Water Index?
The Bangalore Water Index project aims to develop a means of quantifying the 'water health' of the city. This published index will track a judiciously selected set of parameters relevant to the water domain, using data released by government bodies like the BWSSB, technical information provided by NGOs and research institutions, information extracted through RTIs, as well as crowdsourced feedback from citizens.
Over a period of time, the index will draw a comparative picture of the quality, quantity, accessibility and reliability of water supply across various demographics and parts of the city, as well the responsiveness and effectiveness of government bodies in charge.
Why do we need a Water Index?
If recent reports in the media are anything to go by, Bangalore is knee-deep in water issues. Because the problem is so broad and systemic, most of us have only a tenuous grasp over the totality of Bangalore's water situation. Without clear, consolidated data that takes different perspectives into account, it is difficult to define the full dimension of the city's water problem, and then propose effective solutions.
The Bangalore Water Index project is a step towards doing precisely that. The baseline Water Index number itself doesn't 'mean' anything. But over a period of time, the water index becomes an easy to grasp, meaningful representation of the city's water health, that can be used to identify key areas of concern and spark informed debate. As a tool to bring in accountability, it can reveal areas where responsible government bodies haven't achieved prescribed/expected standards of service. When conducted periodically, the Water Index can track changes in critical parameters to reveal the impact of programs and policies introduced by the government. Findings can then be used to identify specific issues that need to be addressed, and fuel focused advocacy efforts for reform.
A water index is also an effective way to ensure that citizen concerns find their way to the government. Most citizen complaints are anecdotal, and are typically lost in a sea of 'public noise'. Credible, objective, evidential data is much more impactful than anecdotal information. As a tool to enable citizen engagement, a water index can provide clear, real-time feedback that can be used by government officals to work towards immediate and effective remedy.
What outcomes do we seek as a result of the water index?
- Clarity. Identification of key concern areas.
- Increased citizen awareness and engagement. Empowered citizens, who act as watchdogs to monitor effectiveness of government policy.
- Increase in government accountability and responsiveness. Increase in openness, collaboration with stakeholders, trust.
- Focused analysis and advocacy.
- More effective water solutions.
Let's get the obvious out of the way - this is definitely going to be a challenging, involved effort. However, as a starting point for civic education, engagement, informed debate and analysis, the Bangalore Water Index has the potential to be enormously powerful and relevant.
Interested folks - hop on board!
COMMENTS
zenrainman - 26 March, 2010 - 11:05
A couple of things to be considered
1. Let us keep a tab on lakes of Bangalore...
Alive and kicking , in trouble, disappeared/ing This will give us a state of the surface water bodies in Bangalore. We can , if necessary, add the quality of the water in each of the lakes.
2. The BWSSB has a list of number of borewells in the city - has crossed 100,000. Keeping a tab on the monthly growth of the figures will be great. This will enable us to push for some form of regulation and monitoring of groundwater in Bangalore
3. The city has made rainwater harvesting compulsory. We have been trying to see how best it can be captured on google maps See this http://www.biome-solutions.com/biome/ for a rainwater harvesting
4. We can work with the BWSSB to monitor number of households in each zone of the BWSSB and current coverage with connections. We can use this to push for universal coverage. This can be both for water supply and sanitation.
5. The BWSSB has a programme to cover some slums of Bangalore with individual connections. This was purported to be over 300. We can with BWSSB monitor the progress of this pro-poor work.
6. Keeping a tab on the water borne disease cases reported in government hospitals and Primary Health Centres on a monthly basis will show us the impacts of bad water and sanitation in Bangalore
Just some preliminary thoughts
6. The number of complaints received and rectified in every Water adalat of the BWSSB with possibly the nature of the complaints can be shown.
n - 26 March, 2010 - 16:43
To clarify, is it going to be one number (or percentage) based on (say) 25 different parameters? If yes, then there needs to be a base or reference point or year or standard. WHO standards may be a good starting point. Just like the prices in a particular year are fixed to calculate inflation percentage.
silkboard - 26 March, 2010 - 19:58
First, borrowing from your email zenrainman sir:
Then, Neha's thought on two parts
can categorize the parameters into two groups:
- Information that can be crowdsourced. Chlorine levels, etc are obviously not part of this. Hours of supply/Responsiveness to Complaints/Physical parameters, etc seem more relevant.
- Information we can collect from water authorities/ filing of RTIs.
silkboard - 26 March, 2010 - 20:05
Thinking aloud, pardon oversights please.
We can look at components in two ways.
A. Life cycle way (drawing analogy to electricity - generation, transmission, and supply)
- Water conservation, this would be sort of volume available to the city - what sources besides cauvery? Who is managing network of water reserviors around the city?
- Pumping till the city. Progress of Cauvery stage IV?
- Supply to citizens - hours of supply, pressure, leakage (can get from BWSSB?)
- Listing this separately - the quality of water in hand after generation/transmission/supply - complaints, responsiveness, cost.
B. Source or Quality of information way
- From BWSSB (supply data mostly)
- From technical/research houses. water table, rain water conservation, lake volume estimates
- From citizens (crowdsourced data)
Once we think of above or any other way of components for this index, then it will be easier to divide work and think.
silkboard - 27 March, 2010 - 09:40
Hard job indeed but, need a simple, one number, or as few numbers as possible to convey water health of the city in simplest of ways.
If we go life cycle way, we could divide into 3 separate teams to prepare formula to build 3 separate numbers.
- Conservation/recharging/reserves
- Pumping from source to the city
- Cost/volume/quality of supply
Can prepare the eventual number from these 3 numbers. Am I making sense?
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