The Political Economy of Water Security, Ecosystem Services and Livelihoods in the Western Himalayas

该项目旨在研究南亚丘陵和山区的小城镇依靠其周围集水区的泉水、溪流和河流供水的方式。低收入国家目前的供水基础设施规划进程往往侧重于大城市住区或农村地区的需求，而小城镇的需求往往被忽视或忽视。小城镇(定义为人口低于10万人的城镇)在印度和尼泊尔的丘陵和山区尤为重要，因为它们发展非常迅速，几乎没有对更广泛的基础设施需求，特别是供水进行规划。在整个地区，印度喜马恰尔邦和北阿肯德邦以及尼泊尔山区近一半的城市人口居住在小城镇。这些城镇往往资源相对贫乏，缺乏较大定居点可用的收入和资源，其人口和定居点模式通常表现出城市和半农村特征，这使得基础设施规划和供应特别具有挑战性。该项目将在印度两个邦和尼泊尔山区选定的一组小城镇实施。它将对这些小城镇对周围景观水流的水文依赖性进行评估，并确定对确保这些水流的关键区域(“关键水域”)。该项目将研究这些关键水域的现有资源和土地利用模式，以及从这些地区流出的生态系统服务的范围，以满足当地和非当地利益攸关方的需求。该项目将直接与地方政府官员，以及这些城镇城乡及其周边地区的当地社区合作，探讨达成协议的可能性，以保护这些关键水域，同时又不会对上游居民的生计产生不利影响。该项目还将酌情探讨基于补偿的机制的可能性，以抵消上游社区为确保这些集水区的供水而改变资源和土地使用模式的相关成本。从该项目中吸取的经验教训对于了解城市和农村地区在生态系统服务流动方面相互作用的方式尤为重要。小城镇对其周围生态系统的水文依赖为通过谈判达成协议提供了可能性，这些协定可确保这些城镇(特别是城市穷人)的供水，同时确保上游当地社区的安全生计，并保护和加强周围流域的一系列其他生态系统功能。该项目将探讨实现这种协同增效的条件，同时也探讨和突出在这种情况下决策的权衡和艰难选择。

This project aims to study the ways in which small towns in hill and mountain regions of South Asia depend on springs, streams and rivers in their surrounding catchments for the supply of water. Current infrastructure planning processes for water supply in low income countries tend to focus on the needs of large urban settlements, or of rural areas, and the needs of small towns are often overlooked or neglected. Small towns (defined as those with populations below 100,000 people) are particularly important in hill and mountain regions of India and Nepal because they have grown very rapidly, with little planning for infrastructure needs more generally, and for water supply in particular. Across the region, almost half the urban population in the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and in the hill regions of Nepal, live in small towns. These towns also tend to be relatively resource poor, lacking the revenue and resources available to larger settlements, and their populations and settlement patterns usually display peri-urban and semi-rural characteristics, making infastructure planning and provision particularly challenging.The project will work in a selected set of small towns in the two Indian states, and in the hill regions of Nepal. It will undertake an assessment of the hydrological dependence of these small towns on water flows from the surrounding landscape, and identify areas that are critical to securing these water flows ('critical water zones'). The project will study existing patterns of resource and land use in these critical water zones, and the range of ecosystem services that flow from these areas to meet the needs of local and non-local stakeholders. This will allow an understanding of the synergies and trade-offs associated with managing these areas to secure water supply for the towns, in relation to their potential use for other livelihood and resource use strategies.The project will work directly with local government officials, and local communities in both urban and rural areas in these towns and their surrounding catchments, to explore the possibility for negotiating agreements that protect these critical water zones, without adversely affecting livelihood options for upstream residents. The project will also explore, where appropriate, the possibility of compensation based mechanisms to offset costs associated with changes in resource and landuse patterns undertaken by upstream communities in order to secure water supplies in these catchments.The learning from this project is particularly important for understanding the ways in which urban and rural areas interact with each other in the context of flows of ecosystem services. The hydrological dependence of small towns on their surrounding ecosystems provides the potential for negotiated agreements that secure water supplies to these towns (especially the urban poor), while also ensuring secure livelihoods for upstream local communities, and protecting and enhancing a range of other ecosystem functions in the surrounding watersheds. This project will explore the conditions under which such synergies can be realized, while also exploring and highlighting the trade-offs and difficult choices that characterize decision making in such contexts.