Climate change,water and gender: Impact and adaptation in North-Eastern Hills of India

Introduction

Water is a basic natural resource necessary for the well-being and development of humankind. However, it is also the most important resource threatened to be severely affected by climate change. According to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Technical Paper on climate change and water, ‘Observational records and climate projections provide abundant evidence that freshwater resources are vulnerable and have the potential to be strongly impacted by climate change, with wide-ranging consequences for human societies and ecosystems’ (Bates et al., 2008: xv).

Global warming has already been seen to affect precipitation patterns, intensity and extremes; cause widespread melting of snow and ice; increase atmospheric water vapour; increase evaporation; and bring changes in soil moisture and runoff (Bates et al., 2008). For the 21st century, certain interesting projections about water are presented. Water supplies stored in glaciers and snow cover are projected to decline, thus reducing water availability during warm and dry periods in regions supplied by melted water from major mountain ranges, where more than one-sixth of the world’s population reside. On the other hand, increased precipitation intensity and variability are projected to increase the risks of flooding and drought in many areas. Higher water temperatures and changes in extremes, including floods and droughts, are also projected to affect water quality negatively due to pollution from sediments, nutrients, dissolved organic carbon, pathogens, pesticides and salt, as well as thermal pollution (Bates et al., 2008). On the human side, it is projected that water system reliability, food availability, access and utilization patterns of natural resources, ecosystems’ health and human health, and so on will be variedly influenced as a result, leading to increased vulnerability of poor populations, especially in the arid and semi-arid tropics and in the Asian mega deltas.

Water distribution is already uneven in Asia, and large areas are known to be under water stress, ¹ including areas in India (Ministry of Water Resources [MoWR], 2012). Observed impacts of climate change show inter-seasonal, inter-annual and spatial variability in rainfall during the past few decades across all of Asia. For the future, a rise of averaged annual mean surface temperature between 3.5°C and 5.5°C is projected in the Indian sub-continent. The date of onset of the summer monsoon could become more variable, and more intense rainfall spells are also projected, further increasing the probability of extreme rainfall events (Lal et al., 2001). With a big population having high density that is also growing at a fast rate and development indices that are already low, climate change is thus expected to pose serious challenges to sustainable development in the region.

Looking at the human dimensions of the impact, it is further true that the climate-induced challenges are not gender neutral. Women and men present different vulnerabilities and capacities to adapt to climate impacts due to differing roles, opportunities and access to resources. Women are feared to be more vulnerable to climate-induced stresses and extreme events like floods (Brody et al., 2008; Dankelman et al., 2008). Responsible for providing water for their families, increasing water scarcity or even flood implies increased burden on women and girls who will have to spend more time and effort to carry, store and purify potable water. Decline in agriculture due to climate impacts is also feared to affect women more seriously. Young girls and women risk greater malnourishment in such a situation as limited food resources may go to male members of households on priority (Mitchell et al., 2007).

Women are also seen as playing a significant role in adaptation to climate change by supporting households and communities through labour, natural resource management and provisioning of food and water. However, it is feared that their concerns will tend to be addressed less in climate policies and actions as they are often excluded from decision-making processes related to sustainable development (Brody et al., 2008).

While scientific knowledge of climate impacts on water is growing rapidly at global as well as regional scales, an equally diverse body of knowledge on the human dimensions of these impacts – which need to be discerned and addressed at local scales – is still awaited. Also, while the bulk of the scientific debates and discussions concern the projections for the future, people in local communities have already started facing the consequences to varying degrees and attempt to cope with the new pressures. Knowledge on this front is also unfortunately weak.

This article is an attempt to bridge the above gaps by exploring from a gender perspective the impact of climate-induced water stress on local communities and attempts at adaptation in the North-Eastern Hills of India. It explores especially how the climatic factors concerning water stress are interacting with the non-climatic features in this mountainous region, producing new challenges that are essentially gendered, as well as how women and men in these communities attempt to respond using their traditional ‘culturally guided’ interventions.

The article is based upon the findings of an in-depth participatory research project carried out in four districts in the state of Nagaland, which is a predominantly hill state in North-East India. The districts are Mon, Mokokchung, Tuensang and Kohima. The study was carried out in a sample of 12 villages in these districts, besides three towns, namely, Kohima, Noksen and Mokokchung. Data were collected through ethnographic fieldwork relying upon qualitative methods like observation (participant and quasi-participant) and open-ended key-informant interviews. Case studies from specific local communities – rural and urban – affected by climate-induced water stress and/or practising different options for coping/adapting to the stress were also collected.

The key informants primarily comprised traditional leaders in villages – men, women of different ages who generally engage in domestic water management, and children and young persons affected by the problems. The information procured from the key informants was generally cross-checked at focus-group discussions. Five focus-group discussions were organized – four rural and one urban – in which women participants predominated. Although climate change effects on water have varied gendered dimensions, for a more in-depth exploration, the focus of the study was on water for drinking and other domestic uses. The data collected primarily pertained to questions about gendered perceptions and experiences about the changing climate and its effects on water intended for domestic use and the adaptive measures adopted by women and men to face the resultant challenges.

Climate change and water in the North-Eastern Hills of India

The North-Eastern Hill region refers to the easternmost part of India consisting largely of the contiguous Seven Sister States, ² dotted by rugged hills covered with rain forests situated within the Eastern Himalayas. It has a predominantly humid sub-tropical climate with hot, humid summers and severe monsoons. It is ethnically, linguistically and culturally very distinct from the rest of India. The region is bestowed with rich natural resources of water, land and forests.

Despite its wealth of natural resources, the North-Eastern Hills of India represent one of the least developed regions of the country. Per capita income is lower than the country’s average, the rural population is very large, 75–82 percent, and rural human poverty ³ ranges largely between 36 and 45 percent. Basic amenities poverty ⁴ is also higher than the country’s average, being 39–71 percent (National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), 2007). Once known to be one of the wettest places of the world, access to water for domestic as well as productive uses is becoming increasingly difficult.

The state of Nagaland is predominantly rural, with 71.03 percent of its population (1,406,861 individuals) living in villages (Census of India, 2011). The climate is humid tropical type. Monsoon is the longest season, lasting for 5 months from May to September, with May, June and July as the wettest months. Owing to varied topography and relief, annual rainfall varies from 1000 mm to over 3000 mm at different places with an average of 2000 mm.

According to the report ‘Climate Change and India: A 4×4 Assessment’, there may be a rise in temperature in the North-Eastern region, projected to range between 1.8°C and 2.1°C, leading to increased evapo-transpiration. Also projected is a decrease in annual rainfall in the northern part as well as reduced rainfall in the winter months of January and February in the 2030s, with no additional rains forthcoming during the periods March to May and October to December. On the contrary, the frequency of rainy days is projected to be more, with an increase in intensity of rainy days by 2–12 percent in the 2030s. These projections indicate increased water stress in the region in the near future (Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment (INCCA), 2010).

For Nagaland, an increase in moderate drought-like conditions is projected from 2021 to the 2050s. The drought weeks across the state are likely to increase by 25–50 percent in this period with respect to the current baseline scenario (Government of Nagaland (GoN), 2012). On the other hand, heavier precipitation and increase in heavy precipitation events during monsoon will cause higher surface runoffs, higher frequency of landslides and higher soil erosion (GoN, 2012).

In fact, during the last decade, rainfall in the state has shown marked variability. In the years 2005 and 2006, there was a rainfall deficit of −22 and −25 percent, respectively, while in 2009 it was as high as −63 percent (Das et al., 2009). In 2009, Nagaland was declared as affected by a drought-like situation in the month of July – at the peak of the monsoon season, with populations living in rural areas facing the threat of famine. The ‘acute’ shortfall of rain during the period from 1 January to 15 July that year adversely affected the cultivation of paddy and other crops. Continuous clear sunshine for almost 2 months during the rainy season led to heat wave-like conditions with the maximum temperature breaking the all-time record in the state capital Kohima. Clouds were nowhere in sight until the end of July, when the state received continuous torrential downpour for 2 days, exemplifying the changing rainfall pattern and intensity (Jamir et al., 2012).

Thus, it is amply clear that climatic variability is clearly observable in the state, and therefore, the risk is imminent that climate change will escalate the already existing vulnerabilities of people that could manifest disastrously if not addressed adequately.

Climate-induced water stress in local communities: Gendered impacts

Women and men in the local communities of Nagaland have their own observations, perceptions and interpretations about the phenomenon of climate change. They have witnessed significant changes in the local climate occurring over the last 10–15 years. They associate this variability and/or change primarily with a number of environmental consequences, namely, longer dry spells, early drying of local water sources, warmer temperatures and landslides.

In the hilly topography of Nagaland, village settlements are generally located on hilltops and so are many of the urban settlements. As observed by local populations, the annual rainfall pattern has been gradually changing over the last 10–15 years. Although the monsoon season is expected to extend between May and September, access to water for domestic use and agriculture is seen as an increasing challenge through a major part of the year. During monsoons, water is undoubtedly plentiful, but people are seeing delayed onset of monsoons and reduction in the rains during summer and winter. The lean season spanning over October to April thus hardly receives rain any more.

As a result of these changes, women and men face serious challenges in undertaking their traditional gender roles and responsibilities. For women, an important set of roles and responsibilities revolves around collection and management of water for domestic use – primarily for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning and personal hygiene of different household members. While women are also associated with the agricultural and livelihood activities in an important way, it is the set of domestic water management roles which is most importantly affected on a day-to-day basis. Among livelihoods, agriculture – which is practised as rain-fed shifting cultivation, ⁵ locally called ‘jhum’ – is seriously affected due to delayed monsoons and loss of soil moisture soon after the rainy season. This has implications for both women and men, leading to lowered productivity and hence decreasing incomes for both in different ways. Among the different impacts of climate-induced water crisis on women and men, this article throws light on the hardships and local coping/adaptive mechanisms concerning domestic water supplies, a responsibility primarily shouldered by women and children, especially girls.

In rural communities, common water sources are springs and streams bringing the runoff down the hills. During the monsoon season, water for domestic use is generally available within the village settlement in plenty. According to local observations, until the recent past, water would be available in or near the settlement through springs and streams largely until the months of February–March, after which the hardships began. However, in present times, these water sources in or near the settlements start disappearing soon after the monsoon ends, and women and children are exposed to increasing hardships through the drier months. By late October or early November, women and children are forced to travel farther down the slopes to fetch water, which could be a distance of 1–2 km or more on average from their residences. The urban communities present no different picture, and women and children there face similar hardships since municipal water supply network is either poorly developed or even absent.

Down the hillslopes, they collect water from ditches and holes that are dug at places where natural underground water streams are known/predicted to flow according to indigenous knowledge. These water sources are actually quite unreliable and provide intermittent water supply as these drain out quite rapidly and require frequent recharging for yielding water. In Noksen town in the cold month of November, children were found to reach a dug-out hole down the hillslope every morning as early as 5 o’clock in order to procure domestic water for the family. The quality of the water was unreliable as the water was visibly dirty. Similarly, on the outskirts of Mon town, a small child was found to fill a bucket with dirty water, from a dug-out hole along the road, that would be used for drinking and cooking at home.

The water from these sources is transported in bamboo pipes carried inside a bamboo basket hung down the back from the head. A bamboo pipe can carry 15–20  litres of water, and a woman or adolescent can carry around 3–5 such pipes in a basket during a single trip. Soon after the monsoon, women and young girls carrying water in bamboo pipes are quite a common site along the hillslopes. During the study, such recurrent situations were encountered in villages like Noksen in Tuensang district, Longwa and Mon in Mon district and even in towns such as Noksen. In fact, this appears to be a routine activity for all women, irrespective of age. In the village Merangkong, Mokokchung district, even an 85-year old woman was found to fetch water for herself, undergoing the same hardships as others on a day-to-day basis.

Carrying water in this manner is not only wasteful of time and energy, but entails great physical and health risks for the person carrying the load. Also, women’s valuable productive time which is lost in this endeavour adversely affects families’ economy. For children, it is not only a physical hardship, but it weighs heavily on their education as it leads to absenteeism from school.

When water becomes scarce, the first priority is to fetch water for drinking, cooking and basic hygiene at home. Washing and cleaning assume second priority, often completed directly at bigger water sources such as streams and ponds that may be quite distant. Rural as well as urban women are able to undertake household laundry every one or two weeks. Bathing at home also turns out to be infrequent. Both these limitations thwart people’s enjoyment of good health, as skin-related problems become common.

As the dry season progresses, water available in the tanks or holes and ditches nearer the settlements dries up and women and children are forced to travel further and further down the hills searching for water. Sometimes they have to travel deeper into forests to collect water from natural ponds. In all these cases, besides the physical burden of carrying heavy loads and the related health risks, water quality remains an important concern. Also, the various water sources along the hillslopes are highly unreliable as they can supply limited quantities during the day. Generally when left untapped for the evening and night, some water is recharged in the morning, which children especially are sent to fetch very early in the morning. Yet, the water quantity finally remains questionable because the water collected in this way is almost always inadequate for domestic use.

Local responses to climate-induced water stress: Gendered implications

Since water is a basic necessity in every household, women and men in the local communities have to find alternatives when the water sources in the settlement fail. These range from simple coping measures to long-term adaptive strategies. While sometimes these are visibly gendered, at other times, these represent collaborative action where gender differentiation no longer matters but women may be ultimately benefited since they are the domestic water managers.

Going further and further down the hillslopes is itself the simplest coping strategy adopted by women and girls. However, it is not sustainable enough since neither is the quantity adequate nor is the quality appropriate for human consumption. For meeting the quality challenge, women have adopted the adaptive strategy of continuously boiling the drinking water, an old practice in Naga communities. The hearth at home always has a pot of water boiling, whether in villages or towns. This practice helps protect people from the water-borne infectious diseases common elsewhere in India.

The second alternative is a more formalized adaptive strategy which has emerged over last few years. These are water storage tanks which get charged by underground streams and currents. The tanks are generally located out in the open in rural communities, while in the urban areas, these are closed water sources with definite opening hours. Such tanks tend to be placed down the hillslopes and are consequently a little distant from the hill top settlements. Women and children often have to traverse a distance of 1–2 km to access water from these tanks.

The recharge in these tanks is quite inadequate, and as the dry season progresses, urbanites start lining up at the closed tanks to receive rationed quotas during the opening hours as was observed in a community on the outskirts of Mokokchung town. By February–March, these tanks start drying and water from the tank bottom has to be retrieved carefully. In the rural community Chuchuyimpang, Mokokchung district, the scarce water remaining at the bottom of the tank was found to be collected by men using ladles. In Mokokchung town, a similar site was met where a lady was found collecting the scarce water from the tank bottom using a plastic mug. The precious resource can also be collected drop by drop from natural rock crevices by stuffing a leaf inside. Such a site was observed again in Mokokchung town.

These water storage tanks are built and managed at the community level by local committees, and their construction, management and use have gendered dimensions. Generally, it is the men who get the tank built and are responsible for its maintenance, but management is shared by both genders in the committee who jointly decide upon the rightful claimants and the time schedules.

Women, men and children were found to collect water from these tanks. According to social norms, it is primarily the responsibility of women and girls to collect water. Men also participate, given the strict opening hours of the tank and the limited quantity of water available. No household wants to miss its share in the event of late arrival. In general, adjustment in gender roles within families has emerged as a way to cope with the water access challenges.

Apart from the aforementioned situation, a number of other instances were recorded where men were found to participate in domestic water procurement. In Mokokchung town, men were found to help fetch water at night. They go out with buckets to distant dug-out water holes as late as midnight. Since the water holes get recharged during the evening, this is seen as a necessity considering the safety and security of the women and children at night, who otherwise engage in the task during the day, if water is available. Similarly, men were found to share the task in villages where the collection was tedious and time-consuming due to scanty water at the source, which had to be collected virtually drop by drop.

According to some women helped by their husbands, the sharing of responsibility by the menfolk has been a great help in easing their burden, thereby facilitating performance of their other domestic chores on time. A number of others see the benefit in enhanced water availability at home, which enables them to perform all necessary domestic tasks requiring water during times of water crisis. One of the men who fetched water from a nearly dried-up water tank stated that supporting his wife and daughter in water fetching in the crisis situation is his duty since water at home is for everybody’s use and it is not right to let them bear the brunt alone. Another man opined that earlier when water was more plentiful, womenfolk could manage on their own, allocating a part of their daily routine to this crucial task, but now the task demands longer and uncertain timings, hindering women’s other responsibilities. Hence, there is need for men’s participation. However, in families without men to support, women are still left to manage the crisis on their own, which poses limitations on water sufficiency for domestic requirements as well as performance of their other roles as much time is consumed in water procurement.

In the urban settlements, yet another adaptive measure is a piped water network from natural springs and streams in the hills. In Kohima, the state’s capital, private distributors have laid their own network of rubber pipelines (commonly overhead) that bring water to households from such sources. Unlike the municipal supply, which is more reasonably priced but coverage is poor, the private piped water network is expensive but regular during the ‘water-plenty’ months. The gendered benefit of this adaptive measure is differential among women. For women in the upper socio-economic strata, this brings great relief from the burden of water procurement from external water sources as their households make regular payments for the connection and get the service. However, for urban women in the poorer households who cannot afford these house-based piped connections, the burden continues to be huge as they have to manually procure water from sources located in the difficult hilly terrain of the town.

In recent times, many of the perennial springs and streams have been either drying up or becoming seasonal, which seriously thwarts regular water supply to households served by such pipelines. During these dry ‘water-scarce’ months, tanker water supply comes as a second alternative for the richer urban women whose families can afford to pay for it. Private players access water from perennial streams, filling big plastic tanks which are transported to towns on trucks and sold to the general public at a good price. However, there is no regulatory mechanism to guide the supply and demand side management of water from these sources, leading to exorbitant prices that not everyone can afford. While the richer women buy this water to tide over the crisis, women in the poorer households cannot generally afford to buy. For them the only adaptive mechanism is to search for and procure water from distant hilly sources throughout the year.

In recent years, yet another long-term adaptive strategy to emerge is roof-top rainwater harvesting. Examples of the strategy were found in a private house in Merangkong village, Mokokchung district, and at a government office in Noksen town, Tuensang district. This adaptive measure can help women tide over a significant part of the dry season, but like the tanks at the foothills, the harvested rainwater fails to last until the next monsoon. Moreover, roof-top rainwater harvesting requires permanent house constructions and is expensive to install, thereby limiting its feasibility in the poorer settlements. The gendered implications of the limitations of this adaptation are obvious as poorer women will not be able to benefit due to financial constraints.

Conclusion and recommendations

The article illustrates how climate change is no longer rhetoric that can be presented as ‘observed changes’ and ‘future projections’ at global and regional scales, but it represents a lived reality today for the women and men in local communities of North-Eastern Hills of India. They can observe how their water resources are becoming increasingly unreliable and scarce in the climate change regime, leading to greater hardships. Most seriously affected on a day-to-day basis are women, together with their children, who are responsible for domestic water management. However, a point not to be ignored is that when water at home becomes scarce, women are not the only ones to suffer; everyone at home does because domestic water is meant for everyone’s health, hygiene, food preparation and well-being in general.

In the hill state of Nagaland, domestic water access has always been a gendered problem, at least for part of the year, because instead of being located at foothills where water naturally flows, human settlements tend to be located on hilltops. Thus, during the period October–March when natural springs and streams in the hills have started drying up, women and children have had to traverse long distances downhill in search of water. As a result of climate-related changes, especially through delayed monsoon rains and reduced winter rains, these difficulties have increased manifold as the dry period without adequate access to water has almost doubled. This has intensified their problem, bringing serious consequences for their physical health and well-being, besides thwarting women’s financial stability and children’s education.

The findings further exemplify that adaptation to climate-induced water stress at the local level is not dependent upon any externally ‘planned’ action. Women and men are already experimenting with various coping and/or adaptive alternatives on their own initiative, based on the local context and resources. The response to the new challenges can be delineated at three levels: (1) ‘individual’, for example, searching out new sources further down the hillslopes or roof-top rainwater harvesting; (2) ‘community-based’, for example, constructing and managing community-level tanks where all community members have access according to mutually decided norms; and (3) ‘external’, for example, private actors installing piped water networks and providing tanker supply. Each of these alternatives has important gender dimensions as discussed earlier. However the micro-level evidence presented in the article also shows that the coping and/or adaptive measures adopted at the local scale are not able to provide women, men and children with sustainable solutions to the problem.

The current situation resulting from climate change in the region has significant implications for development policy and action as well as from a social work perspective. It is obvious that fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) concerning access to safe water is seriously thwarted in this hill state in the rural as well as urban areas. When access to water itself is denied during a substantial part of the year, access to ‘safe’ water is a distant goal. As a consequence, the MDG concerning gender equity is also seriously thwarted, as the burden on women (and children) related to domestic water management is increasing disproportionately. The Government of Nagaland (GoN, 2012) has recently prepared an action plan to combat the impact of climate change and support adaptation in the state through planned interventions. However, the issue of problems in accessing ‘safe’ water does not appear as a priority for action in this document. Even gender dimensions connected to this vital development goal are conspicuous by their absence.

In this context, it is necessary that the outcomes of this study be seriously considered by the government and external development agencies who are concerned with facilitating equitable and sustainable development in society. The development policy of Nagaland state as well as its climate change action plan must incorporate sustainable access to safe water as a prioritized development goal and initiate interventions to solve the ever-growing challenges faced by women and children in accessing domestic water, as well as find ways to develop and support the adaptation alternatives experimented at the community level by local women and men. There is also a need for the external development agencies working in the area to take cognizance of the existing local challenges and support the local initiatives by constructively engaging with the affected women and men.

It is an open secret that the water stress in the hill communities of Nagaland is not because of scarce rainfall. Monsoon rainfall is not only plentiful, but can be heavy and excessive enough to be disastrous in the form of floods and landslides. The major impediment is lack of enough possibilities to store these otherwise adequate water resources that could help the women and children in convenient and sustainable access to water throughout the year. Women and men in the local communities are already exploring the possibilities in this direction at different levels.

In this light, it would be appropriate for the development agencies to see how and what kinds of gendered alternatives can be developed and supported based on the local templates so that greater gender equity as well as sustainability can be reached. Ultimately, the state-level adaptation strategies should be built upon local knowledge and efforts, sustainably supporting the capacities of women and men to adapt to climate-induced water stress in the region.