Toggle Main Menu Toggle Search

Open Access padlockePrints

Place of Social, Cultural, and Ecological Water Values for Promoting Water Security in Delhi, India

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Cat ButtonORCiD

Downloads


Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).


Abstract

Economic values have dominated water policy discourse over the last four decades. Very little has been written on social, cultural, and ecological values and their roles in enhancing water security. The primary objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of diverse water values with a case study of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, India. To achieve this, a review of the existing scholarship on water values was conducted to develop a set of water values. Field surveys and interviews were conducted to comprehend the water values held by various stakeholders in Delhi. This paper is an attempt to show that viewing water security through the lens of diverse water values (social, cultural, economic and ecological) provides a better understanding of water policies, and enhanced comprehension could potentially result in better policies to promote water security. In the case of Delhi, we additionally found that the claimed predominance of water values such as efficiency, equity, equality, religiosity, and purity does not mean that these values are also actualized in water practices. Another major finding is that all four sets of values are integrated with one another, and policies underpinned by the identified values would be relatively better than policies solely based on economic values.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Kumar A, Biswas R, Modi R, Button C

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Water

Year: 2024

Volume: 16

Issue: 5

Print publication date: 01/03/2024

Online publication date: 24/02/2024

Acceptance date: 19/02/2024

Date deposited: 19/07/2024

ISSN (electronic): 2073-4441

Publisher: MDPI

URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/w16050662

DOI: 10.3390/w16050662

Data Access Statement: The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.


Altmetrics

Altmetrics provided by Altmetric


Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
UK Research and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), grant number: ES/S008179/1

Share