Rethinking Resilience and Inclusion in Rural WASH

By Tushar Suryawanshi

Views expressed are that of authors own and not reflecting the current or past organisations he is associated with.

Photo Credit: Lokmat Times – Maharashtra Water Crisis: Woman Risks Life to Fetch Water From Deep Well in Nashik Village

Climate change is no longer something we discuss only in conferences. It has become part of our everyday life. Rising heat waves, changing rainfall patterns, prolonged droughts, floods, and wildfires are already affecting agriculture, livelihoods, health, ecosystems and economies.

The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) sector has not been spared.

A climate-related disruption in one can quickly affect the others. A damaged water supply can compromise hygiene. Flooding can contaminate water sources and make sanitation facilities unusable. Water scarcity can force households to reduce the water they use for sanitation and hygiene.

I realised the seriousness of this while working in the rural WaSH sector.

In January 2025, I came across villages that depended on water tankers from January to June. Women were travelling long distances every day to collect water from a nearly 300-foot-deep well. Some were spending around six hours a day just fetching water. This was not simply a water-supply problem. The water was needed for drinking, livestock and everyday household needs.

In another instance, I spoke to people in the area who said that every day we used to heat water, soak a towel in it, and wipe our bodies. This made me realise what climate change really means at the household level.

The climate problem is the same, but the reality is different

Climate change does not affect every region in the same way.

In drought-prone areas, declining rainfall and reduced groundwater recharge can lead to water scarcity. As sources become less reliable, households spend more time searching for alternative sources or collecting water. Sanitation and hygiene may then become secondary priorities. Families who can afford it may purchase water, but poorer households often have no such option.

During fieldwork, I also observed young girls in a drought-prone tribal area carrying water contaminated by chemicals for drinking. The consequences of unsafe water can be devastating, particularly for vulnerable communities.

In another region, however, the problem may be the opposite. Heavy rainfall and flooding can create an apparent abundance of water, but that does not mean there is enough safe drinking water. Floods can damage infrastructure, contaminate water sources and disrupt sanitation facilities.

Recently, a Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) outbreak due to floodwaters in western Maharashtra killed 9 people, and at that time, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) directed the Pune collector and the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) to set up an integrated digital system to strengthen groundwater monitoring (HT, July ‘2026).

UNICEF described this as a situation where drought reduces water availability in two different but interrelated ways, while flooding damages infrastructure and contaminates water supplies.

Therefore, climate resilience and inclusion cannot be treated as separate issues.

From Climate-Resilient Infrastructure to Climate-Resilient Services

For a long time, WASH resilience has largely been associated with stronger infrastructure: strengthening pipelines, improving storage systems, protecting infrastructure from floods and ensuring regular water supply.

These measures are important, but infrastructure is only one part of the service.

A genuinely climate-resilient WASH system needs to consider the entire service chain. A water source should not be assessed only on how much water it provides today, but also on how it may behave under changing rainfall and groundwater-recharge conditions.

Water-quality risks must be considered alongside drought and flood risks. Reliable, low-carbon energy, adequate financial resources, capable local institutions, timely maintenance and repairs, regular water-quality monitoring, and emergency preparedness are equally important.

Most importantly, institutions responsible for WASH services need the capacity, information and resources to adapt as conditions change.

This requires a fundamental shift in the question we ask.

Instead of asking, “Is this system working today?”, we should ask:

“Will this system continue to provide safe, reliable and equitable services under changing climatic conditions?”

That is a much harder question, but it is also the more important one.

Experience from rural Maharashtra

My experience in rural Maharashtra reinforced this understanding.

At the village level, people do not experience WaSH as a policy framework or as a completed infrastructure project. They experience it through very simple questions: Is water available when we need it? Is it safe? Is the supply reliable? Can we use sanitation facilities safely and with dignity?

Photo Credit: Tushar Suryawanshi – Poor people cannot afford infrastructure in the village

I have seen systems that function well during the monsoon but struggle after March. A source that provides sufficient water in one season may barely meet demand in another. Even where infrastructure is complete on paper, poor water quality, weak institutional capacity, or declining source availability can make the system unreliable.

Photo Credit: Tushar Suryawanshi – Damaged infrastructure in Village

This taught me that climate resilience cannot be a one-time project activity. It needs to become part of routine WASH planning and management, with risks reviewed regularly and preferably every season.

It also reinforced the importance of combining scientific knowledge with local experience. Communities understand their water sources, seasonal changes and local risks in ways that technical assessments alone may not capture. As our Marcella Ma’am often says, scientists should combine traditional knowledge with scientific insights and communicate them in simple language that communities can understand.

The strongest solutions emerge when climate information, technical expertise and community experience are brought together.

Resilience for whom?

This is perhaps the most important question.

Climate change does not necessarily create inequality, but it can deepen inequalities that already exist. When a water source dries up, households with financial resources may purchase water or create alternative arrangements. Poor families may not have that choice.

Women may spend additional hours managing water. Girls may miss educational opportunities. Older people and persons with disabilities may find alternative sources difficult to access (WHO/UNICEF JMP, n.d.-a, n.d.-b).

Photo Credit: Tushar Suryawanshi – Drinking water source in Village

Therefore, when we talk about inclusive and climate-resilient WASH, we need to ask:

Who actually receives the service? Who participates in decisions? Who carries the additional burden when the system fails? And who suffers the most when services are disrupted?

Inclusion cannot simply mean representation on a village committee or consultation with vulnerable households. The real measure of inclusion is whether people’s needs influence decisions and result in equitable outcomes.

From Preparedness to Adaptation

Climate resilience also means preparing before a crisis occurs.

If a source is likely to weaken during a prolonged drought, consider an alternative arrangement before the source fails. If a settlement is vulnerable to flooding, water-supply points, toilets and drainage systems need protection in advance. If heavy rainfall is likely to affect water quality, monitoring and response mechanisms should already be in place.

WaSH systems cannot remain static as climate risks change.

Encouragingly, WHO and UNICEF have moved towards developing measurable indicators for climate-resilient WaSH. In March 2026, they released a final shortlist of 105 potential indicators. These indicators consider not only infrastructure and institutional preparedness, but also whether services remain available during and after climate events, the economic impacts on users, and sanitation and menstrual hygiene services.

This represents an important shift: resilience is increasingly being understood as the ability of WaSH systems to anticipate, withstand, adapt to and recover from climate-related stresses.

Way forward

The way forward is to move from reacting to climate-related WaSH failures towards continuously assessing and adapting systems. This entails looking beyond infrastructure to evaluate source reliability, water quality, institutional capacity, finance, energy, maintenance, and emergency preparedness. Most importantly, resilience must be assessed from the perspective of those facing the greatest challenges. Women, children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and poor families must not be overlooked when designing or evaluating systems. Scientific evidence should be integrated with community knowledge and local experience. No single organization can achieve this alone. Researchers, government bodies, businesses, and communities need to learn from one another and exchange solutions across different regions.

The open question is: How can we design WaSH systems that remain safe, affordable and dignified for the most vulnerable, even when climate conditions are no longer predictable?

References

UNICEF. (n.d.). Guidance note: Climate-resilient WASH. https://www.unicef.org/documents/unicef-guidance-note-climate-resilient-wash

WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene. (n.d.-a). Gender and WASH. https://washdata.org/monitoring/inequalities/gender

WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene. (n.d.-b). Inequalities. https://washdata.org/topics/inequalities

World Health Organization. (n.d.). Boosting climate-resilient water, sanitation and hygiene services. https://www.who.int/activities/boosting-climate-resilient-water–sanitation-and-hygiene-services

World Health Organization & United Nations Children’s Fund. (2026, March 11). Indicators, measures and methods for monitoring climate-resilient WASH: Final short list (version 5.3). https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/shortlisted-indicators-for-monitoring-climate-resilient-wash-(version-5.3)

Hindustan Times, July 2026 – Build digital groundwater monitoring system in 6 months: NGT to collector.