Sustenance of Social-Ecological Systems and water resources in areas of Himachal Pradesh.
Assigned Session: FS 3.140: Harnessing Indigenous and Local Knowledge for Resilience: Community-Based Strategies in Mountainous Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Adaptation
Abstract ID: 3.11527 | Not reviewed | Requested as: Talk | TBA | TBA
Akshita Sharma (1)
(1) Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, Uttrakhand 248006
Abstract
Humans though part of the ‘organisms’ inhabiting the earth, have a very complex and meticulous social, political and economic standing which entail can lead to an isolation of self, and the preemptive feeling of alienation from the system could tail into developing an indifference towards nature. This indifference has impacted all ecosystems, mountainous hydrological ecosystem being one of them. The research area of this study, Shimla (rural), in Himachal Pradesh, situated in the Western Himalayas, deals with the complexities that changing water patterns bring along. More than 90% of the people in the region are directly dependent on spring water, but over two thirds of the springs of Himachal Pradesh, are now defunct. Shimla district, now faces a pressing water shortage and reviving the traditional water systems have become an ardent need. The numbers of springs in an area are unknown as there is no formal inventory of the springs in place. This study focuses on making a spring inventory, along with studying the land use systems as different ecological and social systems will affect the local water resources differently. Springs of the villages are generally associated with a local deity and are therefore considered holy, which prevents it from getting polluted but any rejuvenation or restoration of the resource then is opposed due to its sanctity is opposed too, it also thence becomes inaccessible to certain casts of the village, who then become not only geographically separated but socially separated as well. The resource conservation comes in mind when the resource is seen as exhaustible, people of an isolated selfreliant system, were more mindful about the exhaustible resources than the ones who don’t see its scarcity. This theory gets challenged when a deficit resource becomes abundant (constant water supply at home, as to fetching water from a microsystem, here spring), and increase import of packaged food, due to shift in traditional multi-cropping self-reliant agriculture practices, to mono culture of a cash crop. This study aims to draw attention on the crucial microsystems of water and devise a way forward.
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