Title: Sustainable strategies for water management challenges in hill-towns

Authors: Sandeep Sharma; Mahua Mukherjee; Deepak Khare

Addresses: Department of Architecture, National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, 177005, India ' Department of Architecture and Planning, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttrakhand, 247667, India ' Department of Water Resources Development and Management, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttrakhand, 247667, India

Abstract: Water is the most precious resource on Earth for survival, which is limited. Cities have grown rapidly in recent decades. Besides population, this growth includes additional basic infrastructures like buildings, roads, waste, and emissions. Increased urbanisation and built-up infrastructure result in increased runoff due to impermeable surfaces and limited recharging of groundwater, thus causing water scarcity and intensifying water problems in cities, including hill-towns. In hill-towns, topography plays a major role in the distribution network of water supply and wastewater management. This study focuses on challenges of water management in the hill towns in general. The research is divided into two stages. Stage I focuses on the challenges regarding water management in hill-towns, and stage II deals with the scope of improvising the water management supported by the literature at the city-level. The paper concludes by suggesting a few possible solutions for sustainable water management to resolve the problems associated with hill-towns.

Keywords: sustainable water management; water supply system; water distribution network; traditional techniques; rainwater harvesting; NRW; non-revenue water; wastewater; runoff; hill towns.

DOI: 10.1504/IJW.2021.123063

International Journal of Water, 2021 Vol.14 No.2/3, pp.89 - 107

Received: 04 Sep 2019
Accepted: 16 Jan 2020
Published online: 26 May 2022 *

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