Urbanization, Climate Linked Water Vulnerability as Impediments to Gender Equality: A Case Study of Delhi, India

Abstract

Poor urban and rural women bear the brunt of climate change as the dwindling availability of water and other natural resources makes their lives full of drudgery. They trudge longer distances and head load water for the family and struggle with poor water quality and unsafe sanitation. Climatic changes and the non-climatic drivers such as rapid urbanization and high rate of population growth will further confound the scenario and make the lives of poor women harder.

The present study has been conducted to assess the vulnerability of poor women residing in slums of Delhi, the capital city of India, to water- and climate-linked stresses using quantitative and qualitative approaches. An index called CVI-WH was used to quantify vulnerability of the slum women; the qualitative study was done using various participatory approaches. The study has shown very high vulnerability of the slum women to climate-linked water stresses as reflected by high CVI-WH values ranging between 0.62 and 0.67 across different regions.

Therefore, if the quality of life of poor women has to be improved, it is extremely important to enhance the adaptive capacity of women to face climatic stresses and to invest in water- and sanitation-related infrastructure.

Introduction

Climate change has become a global phenomenon, the impacts of climate change are already being felt across the globe, and the variability in climate is likely to increase. The world mean temperature has already risen by 0.74 °C in the last century and is further projected to increase by 0.3–4.8 °C by 2100 (IPCC 2013). In India, the mean temperature has risen by 0.56 °C between over the period (1901–2007), and it is projected that the temperature may rise between 2.2° and 5.5 °C by the turn of the century (MoEF 2012; Kothawale et al. 2010; Kumar et al. 2013; Dholakia et al. 2015). This, in turn, will lead to changes in all aspects of the hydrological cycle. It is projected that rainfall will become more variable and uncertain leading to increased frequency of droughts and floods (IPCC 2013). This would have an impact on the spatial and temporal availability of water in many parts of the world. Since women are the key procurers and managers of natural resources, especially water and fuel, such environmental stresses due to increased frequency and intensity of droughts, floods, heat episodes, and deforestation will further enhance hardships of poor women and will make their lives more drudgerous.

Water and Poverty

Water is an important natural resource, which pervades all aspects of human development. There is a two-way relationship between income poverty and deprivation in access to water. Globally, almost two-thirds of the population, lacking access to safe water, lives on less than 2 dollars a day (1.25$ being the poverty line threshold). The Multidimensional Poverty Index, which indicates human deprivations in a decent standard of living, has also used access to water and safe sanitation as its components to ensure a decent quality of life (UNDP 2010). The Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030 also focus on ensuring equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water and sanitation facilities. However, both these basic necessities are still a luxury for large chunk of the global population. According to WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation, 2017, as many as 884 million people in the world still do not get their drinking water from improved sources, and 2.3 billion people lack access to basic sanitation facilities. This is apparent by the fact that 892 million people in the world still practice open defecation (WHO/UNICEF, JMP 2017). It is well known that poor access to safe water and lack of sanitation facilities in developing countries multiply the work burdens of women as they are generally responsible for cooking, household management, hygiene of children, and sanitation.

Water and Women

Women are the primary stakeholders in water accession and management. Their role as water managers for the family is undisputed in most of the developing world. The studies conducted on the time spent on household tasks by women over a period of 40 years across different countries confirm the anecdotal evidence that the task of water collection and management is largely shouldered by women (Desai et al. 2010; Sorenson et al. 2011; WHO/UNICEF 2012; Pickering and Davis 2012; Karim et al. 2013; Arora 2014). Rural, semi-urban women spend considerable time in procuring, transporting, and storing water from different water bodies such as rivers, lakes, wells, or community taps. Women carry water in different containers on their heads or arms and often have to travel long distances. They pay heavily in terms of physical (energy), temporal (time), affective (negative feelings and attitudes), and cognitive costs (foregoing opportunities for formal education, training, and intellectual development) to meet the needs of fresh water, fuel, and fodder as well as other natural resources required by the family. These costs magnify in times of sickness of family members, disasters, and environmental stresses, such as droughts or floods since women are the primary caregivers for the family (UNDP 2011). An analysis of data from 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (2006–2009), representing 48% of the region’s population, reveals that women bear the primary responsibility of water collection. In all the households without water on the premises 62% women were responsible for water collection as compared to only 29% men. While the women spent a combined total of at least 16 million hours every day collecting drinking water, the men spent only six million hours followed by children who spend about four million hours (WHO/UNICEF, JMP 2012). In order to explore gender differences in water collection, a cross-sectional survey was conducted covering 602 households spread across 15 villages in Makondo Parish in Uganda. The results clearly revealed that the burden of water collection was mostly borne by women and children (Asaba et al. 2014).

An analysis of water collection among 24 sub-Saharan countries revealed that adult females were primarily responsible for water collection ranging from 46% in Liberia to 90% in Côte d’ Ivoire. Across countries, a significantly higher number of female children (62%) were shouldering the responsibility of water collection as compared to the (38%) male children (Graham et al. 2016). To assess the impact of water insecurity on the families especially women, a study conducted in Kenya highlighted that water insecurity was harmful to women and their families in five different domains including physical health. It was highlighted that a large majority of women (women 78%) were responsible for water collection spending 4.5 h per week, which was also calorically very expensive (Collins et al. 2017). A study conducted by WHO/UNICEF, Joint Monitoring Program, 2017, for water supply and sanitation across 61 developing countries has documented that women (73%) shoulder the major bulk of water collection load. Women are twice as likely as men to fetch water for the household (WHO/UNICEF 2017).

The Indian scenario is even bleaker and likely to worsen because of climatic stresses, variability, and extremes. The time spent by women in fetching water in rural India represents nearly 22% of their working days representing a significant unproductive component of their work time (Mkhize et al. 2012). An assessment covering 183 villages in 28 districts of nine drought-affected states of India revealed that the scarcity of water during drought conditions compelled women to spend extra hours and trudge longer distances to fetch water for the family. The women across these states were spending 2 to 6 h each day walking several kilometers to fetch water. The study also highlighted three- to sixfold increase in time spent by women in queuing up and fetching water since the distance to the source had increased forcing women to travel farther for water collection (UNICEF 2016). Carrying water over long distances is not only a time-consuming task but also leads to various health hazards for women (Geere et al. 2010; Asaba et al. 2014).

Access to Water: Impact on Education

It is not only women but also children especially female children who often share the temporal and physical burden of carrying water, often leading to very large gender gaps in school attendance in many countries. A study conducted in Ethiopia assessing the perception of girls about their domestic tasks including fetching water found that all young girls felt that water collection limited their ability to participate and succeed in school (Abebaw et al. 2010). Another study conducted in Africa has shown that one-third of girls and boys in Ghana and 8% of girls and 3% of boys in Malawi reported to arrive late for school because of water collection activities (Porter et al. 2012). Research conducted in Ethiopia and Bangladesh has shown that as water sources are being depleted by increased frequency of extreme events and rapidly rising population, girls are spending greater time collecting water for drinking and other household purposes. Fetching water could take up to 6 h a day in the future, whereas previously it had taken around 2 h (Swarup et al. 2011). A study conducted in the least developed countries in the Asia-Pacific has shown that women and girls generally have the primary responsibility for collecting and managing water, spending up to 6 h per day, traveling as far as 6 km to collect water. Often girls are forced to drop out of school to assist in this household task (Brown Kourtnii 2012). Over 98% of the respondents in Nakuru, in Kenya, reported that their children had to walk long distances to fetch water for the family and did not attend school on several days, negatively impacting their mental and physical development due to lost opportunities of education (Jonah et al. 2015). A survey was conducted in eight secondary schools in two watershed areas in Gujarat and Rajasthan to assess the student’s perceptions about groundwater scarcity and its impact on their educational opportunities. School absenteeism was found to be gender differentiated as female students were missing schools more frequently as compared to male children. The study highlighted that the scarcity of groundwater leads to an enhanced burden of household work including water collection on female children, thus limiting their educational and economic opportunities (Kookana et al. 2016). It has been estimated that women and girls across the world collectively spend about 200 million hours every day collecting water (WHO/UNICEF, JMP 2010) that could be spent in undertaking income-generating activities and contributing to the formal economy. Thus fetching water takes several hours and shortens the time that girls have for schooling, thus impacting their overall development. Carrying water from distant places not only causes physical disorders in women but also reduces their opportunities for formal education, income generation, community and political participation, skill development, leisure, recreation, and training. Although developing countries including India have made great strides in terms of all-round development including water and sanitation works, such development is not able to keep pace with the demographic changes, thus diluting the efforts. Women in these regions continue to spend massive amount of time and energy in fulfilling the water requirements of the family. Translating the losses borne by girls and women in terms of (woman) hours showed a loss of human capital and reduced ability of the household to capitalize fully on its other resources. This is depicted by an estimate of women’s contribution of 150 million workdays per year on water collection for the household, which is equivalent to a loss of whopping 10 billion rupees per year (RFSTE 2005).

Climatic changes coupled with demographic and technological factors will further confound this scenario, since climate change has a significant impact on the availability of water (Bates et al. 2008). It is estimated that the demand for water in India will rise by 20–40% in the next 20 years due to rapid urbanization, modernization, and associated changes in lifestyle (Planning Commission 2002). The per capita availability of water in India has drastically reduced from 5177 m³ in 1951 to 1654 m³in 2007and is likely to go down to as low as 1100 m³/year by 2050, leading to exacerbation of the water crisis (Krishna and De 2010; MOWR 2011). It is important to highlight that research has shown that India is not poor in terms of water resources; it lacks the ability to efficiently capture and effectively utilize the available resources for maximum benefit. Due to large spatial and temporal variability of rainfall, conservation of water through proper storage is of utmost importance. The decisively lower level of storage capacity is an important area of concern. The per capita storage in the country is about 225 m³ which is far below the storage capacity of Russia (6103 m³), Australia (4733 m³), and China (1111 m³) (MOWR 2011; MoEF 2012). Thus the lack of water storage facilities enhances the level of vulnerability of the Indian population especially women who are the prime procurers and mangers of water.

Impact of Improved Services on Women

There is substantial evidence to show that access to water at the household level helps women save time which can be put to several income-generating or productive tasks such as agricultural production, food preparation, technical training, and education, all of which may contribute to growth and improving their quality of life. The women may also have increased time for rest and leisure, become healthier and happier, gain confidence, and attain a greater sense of personal dignity (Ray 2007; Mkhize et al. 2012; Van Houweling et al. 2012; Crow et al. 2013). Freed-up time may also be devoted to child nutrition and health needs including visits to health centers (Sorenson et al. 2011; Koolwal and van de Walle 2013).

Studies have also shown that provision of water at or near the household has a positive effect on the attendance of girls and their enrolment in school.

A study conducted in Tanzania has depicted a very strong relationship between school attendance and distance of water source from home. It was found that when the source of water was 15 min or less from the home, the school attendance of girls was 12% higher as compared to homes where water source was an hour or more away. This was not the case with boys since their attendance rates in school was far less sensitive to distance of water source from home, highlighting the integral role that girls play in fetching water (Hanchate and Dyson 2004). In Morocco, as a result of rural water supply and sanitation project, attendance of girls in school increased by 20% over 4 years. It also reduced the time spent in water collection by 50–90% (World Bank 2003). In Ghana four rounds of Demographic and Health Survey indicated that 50% reduction in the time to haul water on an average would increase the proportion of girls 5 to 15 years attending school by 2.4% points with stronger effect for rural communities than in the urban areas (Nauges and Strand 2013).

Trends of Urbanization

Due to massive increase in urbanization, managing urban areas has become one of the most important development challenges of the twenty-first century to which India is no exception. The world’s population is becoming increasingly urban as almost half of the world’s population (54%) resides in the urban areas and is expected to increase to 66% by 2050. It is projected that largest urban growth will take place in three developing countries including India. The rate of India’s urbanization is 1.1%, which is much higher as compared to global average of 0.9% (UNDESA 2014; UN-Habitat 2016). Trends suggest that the urban population in India is likely to grow from 410 million in 2014 to 814 million in 2050 constituting almost 50% of the total population (International Organization for Migration Report 2015). Of this, a considerable number will reside in slums and slum-like settlements giving India a character of a giant slum to the country (Sankhe et al. 2010). The 2-3-4-5 phenomenon has often been used to describe the character of Indian demography. This implies that the overall population of India has grown at an average rate of 2%, the urban areas at 3%, the big cities at 4%, and the slum population at 5% (USAID 2007), indicating the phenomenal growth in the slum population. This segment of the society faces a high level of vulnerability due to limited access to basic services such as housing facilities with reliable water supply and sanitation.

Thus in the coming years, problems of climate change coupled with urbanization and modernization will put an increased pressure on water as well as other resources. The decreased availability of overall water supply in the future is further likely to affect the quality of life of people and is bound to impact the lives of women who are responsible for procurement and management of water. Poor women living in the rural and urban areas will suffer the most because of their limited adaptive capacity.

The primary objective of the present study was to assess the vulnerability of poor urban women residing in slums and related settlements to climate-linked water stresses using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. The other objective of the study was to create evidence of the need to focus on sound adaptation strategies, which could enable women greater participation in socioeconomic development and lead to greater gender equity and equality in societies.

Methodology

As per the Census of India 2011, about 17.4% of urban households in India live in slums. This study has been conducted in Delhi, the capital city of India, since it has more than considerable population (16%) living in slums (Census of India 2011). These numbers continue to grow at a fast pace. Since the capital city represents the highest level of infrastructure and socioeconomic development, this study would provide a show window to the vulnerability of poor women and their families living in impoverished areas of other cities and towns in India and other developing countries facing similar problems.

The study was conducted across 300 households in five main regions in the National Capital Territory of Delhi, namely, North, South, Central, East, and West. The number of households selected from each region was propionate to the percentage of slum clusters in that region (Fig. 1a).

Fig. 1

(a) Percentage of slum clusters across regions of Delhi. (b) Percentage of households selected from each region. (Source: Based on Fig. 1a; Ward wise Data of Delhi Slums, Census of India 2001)

A two-stage sampling technique was used. In the primary stage, slums were selected randomly from each of the five regions of National Capital Territory of Delhi. Circular systematic sampling was used for selecting the households from the selected slums/JJ* clusters. The number of households covered from each region was proportionate to the number of slum population in the five regions of Delhi. Out of 300 households, varying number of households were selected as per the distribution of slums across different regions (Fig. 1b).

The quantitative assessment was done by a primary survey using an interview-administered questionnaire focusing on water-related vulnerability of slum families especially women living in Delhi, the capital city of India. This was accomplished by collecting gender disaggregated data on the mode of water accession, distance of water source from home, impact of water collection on income generation and education of children and skill development opportunities on women, use of newer methods or technologies for water accession, and storage and coping strategies to deal with water supply shortage. Data was collected over a period of 1 year in the five regions of Delhi. Several visits were made to the slums to establish rapport with the women, observe their water management practices, and later collect data. The data was later used to quantify Climate Vulnerability Index for Water at the Household (CVI-WH) level to indicate the extent of vulnerability.

The CVI-WH is based on Water Poverty Index (WPI) and Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) developed between 2002 and 2005 by a group of hydrologists, water practitioners, and social scientists (Lawrence et al. 2002; Sullivan and Meigh 2005).

CVI-WH has been adapted to capture the water- and climate-related vulnerability in India at different temporal and spatial scales keeping in mind suitability of indicators used as well as feasibility of data availability. CVI-WH is characterized by six components, namely, resources (aims to capture the overall availability of water), access (includes the access of the population to safe drinking water at a reasonable distance), human capacity (the ability of people to manage water), use (consumption of water in different sectors), environment (reflect the state of the environment), and geospatial characteristics (geographical characteristics of the location that make it vulnerable to climatic stresses and extremes). The computation of CVI-WH has been done using normalization method; the index values of CVI-WH as well all its components ranged from zero (least vulnerable) to one (most vulnerable). For the detailed methodology of CVI-WH, refer to (MoEF 2012).

The qualitative data was captured by a number of Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) tools such as focus group discussions, resource maps, seasonal calendars, and in-depth interviews. Guidelines for conducting focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were made to get deeper insights into the problems faced by women and focused on water-related issues, mode of accession, the time spent by different family members on water collection, and hardships faced and missed opportunities for women and children due to their involvement in water collection. These exercises were conducted with a group of 8–10 women in an open area available in the slum or in the compound of the house of one of the respondents; in some areas, men and adolescent girls and boys also participated in the activity. Data triangulation was done to get a clearer picture of the issues under study. To get deeper insights about various issues, the findings from qualitative study have been presented along with quantitative data analysis.

Results

Demographic Profile of the Sample

Age Group

Majority of the women (almost 90%) were below 49 years of age, of which about 54% were in the age group of 20–34 years and 35% in the age group of 35–49 years. Only about 10.8% of women were aged 50 years and above (Table 1). This was because more young people had migrated to cities for jobs, while the parents stayed back in a more familiar environment of the village looking after land and property.

Table 1 Age group of the respondents (n = 300)

Religion

A large majority (88%) of the respondents belonged to Hindu religion, and the rest were Muslim. This composition was comparable to the religion-wise breakup at the national level. It was also found that Central and North Delhi had higher number of Hindus (91–99%), whereas West and East Delhi had higher number of Muslims (14.2–22.9%) as compared to other regions of Delhi. The other religions were not represented by the slum population (Table 2).

Table 2 Religion of the respondents

Family Size

Only 30% of the respondents had less than five members in their family; 52% had five to seven members. Overall, 82% of families had up to seven members in their family (Table 3). Across all the regions, a very small fraction of respondents (almost 4%) had a family size of more than 10 members.

Table 3 Number of family members per household

Family Type

The data highlighted the trend of nuclear families in the slums of Delhi since on an average 76% of the families were nuclear, the rest being either extended or joint families. The nuclear families across different regions ranged from 72 to 83% (Table 4). Since a large majority of the families had migrated from rural areas, the older members (parents, in-laws) of their families often stayed back in the village. Small size of houses in the slums was another reason cited by respondents for having nuclear families.

Table 4 Family type

Educational Level

The educational attainments of slum women were much below the national average literacy rate. It was startling to note that more than three-fourths of the women residing in the slum areas had never attended any kind of school and were totally illiterate as compared to 65% literacy rate of women in India. On an average, only 18% of women had education up to primary level and 4% up to secondary level, and less than 2% of women had any form of higher education (Fig. 2). These values are in sharp contrast to the female literacy values of the whole of Delhi placed at 77% (NSSO, 2004–2005). There were hardly any differences in educational level across different regions of Delhi. This clearly depicted the dismal state of education of women in slums of Delhi. Focus group discussions revealed that most women who reported studying up to primary level were also either semiliterate or illiterate as they had dropped out of school in first, second, or third grades and thereafter had never tried to read or write. They had attended school in their respective villages and had dropped out due to a variety of reasons such as lack of finances, lack of interest in studies, family-related problems, household work, or marriage.

Fig. 2

Educational level of the respondents. (Source: Primary Survey)

Monthly Family Income

There was a lot of skepticism in the families in reporting their monthly income. It is important to note that there may have been some underrepresentation while reporting the income by the respondents. Many women said their husbands were part-time employees, daily wagers, or entrepreneurs operating petty business; their incomes were never fixed. Majority of the families (90.5%) had reported monthly income up to INR* 5000/- (90 US $). The families were therefore eligible to get the BPL (below poverty line) cards. As many as 45% of the families earned a monthly income of Rs 3001–4000/- followed closely by 28% of the families who were placed in the income bracket of INR 2001–3000/- (Fig. 3). Only about 10% of the families earned a monthly income above five thousand Indian rupees. There were considerable variations across the different regions in terms of income distribution. In South Delhi, a much larger number of people earned more than INR 5000 as compared to other regions. One of the reasons for this was, higher salaries were being paid to workers in South Delhi since this region comprised of posh colonies of Delhi. The per capita annual income of people in the slums across different regions ranged from 8 to 10 thousand rupees. By comparison, the average per capita annual income for Delhi as a whole was much higher, placed at 36 thousand INR (Economic Survey 2003).

Fig. 3

Monthly Income families (INR). (Source: Primary Survey)

Women’s Occupation

It was quite surprising to find that despite low levels of income, only a quarter of the women respondents were engaged in any form of income-generating activities and the rest were homemakers. The women reported that it was not easy for them to find suitable jobs since they were preoccupied with household responsibilities and had little time to spare for working outside the home. The women needed to look after small children since most of them were in nuclear family setups. Among those who worked outside the home for earning a livelihood, about half of them worked as domestic helpers or petty sellers and the other half as daily wagers in factories or construction sites (Table 5). Maximum employment was seen in South and West Delhi perhaps due to greater availability of jobs there. During the FGDs, women reported that the male members were engaged in a variety of occupations and worked as rickshaw pullers, auto drivers, sellers, ear cleaners, or wage workers.

Table 5 Occupation of the women respondents

Water Accession and Management at the Household Level

Source of Water in the Household

A small number of families (7%) had installed illegal water connections at home from the community point using plastic pipes with taps and therefore did not have to walk to the water source located at community point. These families however lived in fear of civic authorities since the water connections were illegal. The rest of the families, which constituted a large majority, collected water from a community point. Majority of the respondents (73%) used piped water supply from the taps installed at community points, while a smaller (11%) drew water from the tube wells followed by hand pumps (3.5%), both installed at community point. A small number of families (5%) filled up water from the tanker sent by the Delhi Jal Board or the waterworks authority of the local government. A few families (1.6%) had installed motorized hand pumps in the house either individually or in collaboration with other families so that the cost could be shared, and a very few (0.4%) had hand pumps within the house (Table 6). Overall 97% of the families had access to safe source of water (tap, hand pump, or tube well), which is almost the same as for whole of Delhi.

Table 6 Available sources of water for drinking for domestic use

It was found that most families were using more than one water source to meet their requirements depending upon the ease of availability, the quality of water, and the use it has to be put to. As an example, some families were using tube well water to meet their sanitation requirements and tanker water which was of better quality to meet their cooking and drinking requirements.

There were some variations across different regions in terms of source of water supply. These differences can be explained due to variation in population density, tap-to-user ratio because of differences in the number of installed taps and hand pumps, timings, regularity, and pressure of water supply. At some places, people had broken down the water pipelines, dug up holes in the ground to collect water, or used plastic pipes on the broken connection to withdraw water. Sometimes people had to buy water from water vendors (small-scale independent water providers) by paying substantial amounts of money.

Distance of Water Source from Home

The water source could be reached from home within 5 min time for almost 30% of the families and in 5–15 min for another 34% of the families. A considerable number of families (27%) reported that the water source was farther away and they had to travel more than 15 min from their homes to reach the water source (Table 7). These figures of safe location of water were in sharp contrast to Delhi, which was placed at 92% (Census of India 2001).

Table 7 Time taken to reach the water source from the house

There was variation across different regions of Delhi as only 4% of the families in East Delhi reported that they had to walk more than 15 min to the water source as compared to 63% in case of West Delhi. This is because of high population density, poor water supply, and high tap-to-user ratio. A small number of women (9.5%) did not have to spend any time in travel as they had installed water connections (illegally) at home.

Responsibility of Water Collection

Almost 95% of women were involved in water collection. More than 78% of water collection task was performed by the daughters-in-law followed by mothers-in-law (10.4%). The daughters-in-law involvement ranged from 63.6% to 85.4% across different regions of Delhi. The findings of the study are well supported by a number of research studies (mentioned earlier) conducted across the globe, which highlight a clear link between women and water accession and management. The children, especially girls (9.5%), also helped their mothers in fetching water (Fig. 4). Girls were frequently asked to skip school to help their mothers in water collection or to look after the young siblings while their mothers went for water collection especially in areas facing water shortages. This finding is also well supported by the studies conducted across a number of countries, which reveal high dropout rates among girls to fulfill the family requirements of water. The participation of men (3.6%) in water collection was found to be very low. The qualitative assessment using focus group discussions highlighted that men fetched water for the household only in some special situations as when their wives were away to their relatives or maternal home and were unwell and the older women were not physically fit to carry water. The study therefore has shown that water management in the slum households continued to be a deeply gendered task allocated almost exclusively to females. In fact in many instances, the women themselves said that if men would start collecting water, then who would earn money for the family?

Fig. 4

Persons normally responsible for water collection. (Source: Primary Survey)

Time Spent in Water Collection

More than 90% of women reported spending up to 4 h every day in water collection for meeting the household needs across different regions of Delhi. The timings of water supply were very erratic and kept fluctuating, causing hardships and forcing women to spent even greater amounts of time and energy in water collection. About (2%–31%) of women were spending more than 4 h in water collection across different regions in Delhi (Fig. 5). The seasonal calendars revealed that the availability of water was a problem in the slums throughout the year. However, the worst times were the months from April to July. During this time, the families had to suffer a lot due to highly inadequate supply of water. Women had to wake up early in the morning to queue up for filling water. During the summer months, they spent much more time in water collection and cut down time spent on household chores, childcare, leisure, sleep, as well as on income- generating activities. They also had no option but to involve their children in water collection as well. By comparison, the winter months from November to February were less problematic in terms of water scarcity and lower demand for water.

Fig. 5

Time spent by slum women in water collection. (Source: Primary Survey)

Number of Trips to the Water Source

The women reported making several trips every day to collect water in buckets and jerry cans of about 15–20 l capacity. A large majority of the women (36.3–66.6%) across different regions were making more than six trips per day for collecting water reflecting the vulnerability of women to inadequate system of water supply (Fig. 6). Almost 42% of the respondents made up to six trips per day to collect water for the family. The resource maps revealed the uneven distribution of the location of water supply sources causing even greater hardships to women whose houses were located away. In-depth interviews with the women leaders of the area highlight the increasing population of the slum areas over the years without a proportionate increase in the water supply sources leading to overcrowding, long queues, and fights over water collection. When water was in short supply, especially during the summer months, there was a corresponding increase in the number of trips for water collection. A few trips had to be made just to find out whether the water tanker had arrived or the water pump had been started by the in charge as well as to place the cans/buckets in the queue. In times of water shortage, the women had to depend on alternate sources of water supply (taps, hand pumps) located in the adjoining colonies. During such periods, their waiting and collection time increased substantially causing them even greater hardship. Thus the vulnerability of slum dwellers especially of women and children increased tremendously during such environmentally stressful periods.

Fig. 6

Number of trips made for water collection per day. (Source: Primary Survey)

Frequency and Time of Water Supply

The tap water supply at community point was available two times a day in the morning and evening for 1 to 2 h as stated by majority of respondents (73%), while the rest (26.7%) reported receiving water supply throughout the day. Round-the-clock availability of water ranged from 5.4% in South Delhi to 45% in Central Delhi. The women however pointed out that the water supply from the hand pumps if present was available all the time, bringing some relief to the families. The tankers of the city water corporation had no fixed time at all and, despite a fixed schedule on paper, would arrive at any time of the day or week. Due to this, the residents had considerable problems especially during periods of water shortage as they had to be continuously alert for filling up water. About 62% said that the timings of water supply were not convenient to them, since they clashed with their working hours. A smaller number (less than 40%) said the timings were convenient.

Water Quality

About 68% of the respondents were satisfied with the quality of water supplied to them, while the rest were not. Those who were not satisfied reported multiple problems such as muddy water (25%); hard water (23%); unpleasant smell, taste, and color (14%); and health-related problems due to poor quality of water (6%). It is important to mention that few women from East Delhi also reported presence of worms and insects in the water supply.

Problems Faced in Water Collection

Multiple problems were reported by the respondents during water collection such as very long queues, low pressure of water, and too much consumption of time as well as the occurrence of regular fights and conflicts. As many as 78% of the respondents found water collection to be a time-consuming task, whereas 44% said that the long queues was one of the major problems faced during water collection. About 70% of the respondents reported fights and conflicts at the time of filling water (Fig. 7). All these lead to great physical hardship for the women, tensions in the community, and mental stress. While majority of the conflicts were resolved by the people themselves, on some occasions the police had to be called in. Moreover, some families said they have been doing it all their life and had got used to it. A small percentage (6%) also reported incidents of eve teasing during water collection. Due to these numerous issues, almost 90% of the respondents reported body pain and general tiredness as a result of filling and carrying water every day. The variations across the different regions in terms of problems experienced by people in water accession and collection reflected the differences in water supply infrastructure and demographic characteristics.

Fig. 7

Problems faced in water accession. (Source: Primary Survey)

Coping Strategies of Women During Water Stress Periods

Such times were very common in the lives of these poor women such as during the summer months from April to June when there is dwindling of water supply due to peak demand and lowered water availability. The women adopted several strategies to tide over periods of environmental and water stress. Almost 80% of the respondents reported that they spent less time on household work, cut down on leisure time (16%), and sought help of children (8%) and help of other family members (8.3%). Of the almost 25% of women who were engaged in paid employment, 10% of women reported cutting down time on income-generating activities (Fig. 8). There were some differences across regions in the coping strategies practiced by women. Whereas 67% of women from North Delhi said that they cut down time spent on household work, as many as 88% reported the same from West and Central Delhi. Except in North and Central region, the help of both male and female children was taken across the remaining regions. A relatively higher number of families in South Delhi took the help of children in water accession since the water sources were few and far off and the women alone could not manage the water collection task.

Fig. 8

Coping strategies to cope with water shortage. (Source: Primary Survey)

Availability of Sanitation Facilities

Toilet Facilities

Only a small number of women (4%) had access to sanitary (pit) latrines. Majority of the women (77%) were using community toilets though not exclusively. Of these, 45% of women reported practicing open defecation sometimes. By comparison, almost 62% of the population of whole of Delhi had access to sanitary toilets (Census of India 2001).

The women complained that there was a dearth of sanitation facilities as each slum had only one toilet block and accessing it in the peak hours was almost impossible. Community toilets were often very dirty, so the families preferred to use open areas for defecation. Moreover, people were forced to use open areas at night after 10 P.M. since the toilets were locked due to security reasons. Many women left home before dawn or after nightfall to maintain privacy. It was reported that women have to wait until dark to defecate and urinate in the open and they tend to drink less during the day, resulting in serious health problems. The findings of the study are well supported by a number of researches conducted in different parts of the developing world where women adopt practices such as inadequate food and water intake to avoid defecating during nighttime (Fisher 2006; McFarlane 2008; O’Reilly 2010; Truelove 2011; Khanna and Das 2016).

In case of males, a higher proportion (76%) were using community toilets, and when the community toilets were not available due to the abovementioned reasons, 71% of them were practicing open defecation. There was a large variation across different regions of Delhi with regard to use of community toilets or open defecation. Whereas 97% of women used the community toilets in Central Delhi, only 50% of women did so in the South Delhi. This was because of differences in population density, availability of and access to useable toilets, their upkeep and level of cleanliness, as well as the availability of open areas for defecation in and around the slum. The practice of open defecation made the areas very unhygienic and filthy. The findings of the study is supported by a report by Water Aid (2017) that reports India has the highest number of people (723 million) without access to toilets. Women and girls are among the worst hit with 350 million of them lacking access to basic sanitation. According to a study by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) in India, the economic impacts of inadequate sanitation at the national level are estimated at 53.8 billion US$ (World Bank 2003; Water and Sanitation Programme 2011). A study has also reported that whereas only 31% of the population in India had access to sanitary toilets in 2008, a much higher number (45%) owned mobile phones. These statistics not only indicate lack of knowledge and awareness in people regarding good hygiene and sanitation facilities (UNU-INWEH 2010) but also the difficulties involved in building sanitary toilets.

Bathroom Facilities

A very large number of families (84%) did not have any bathrooms in the house and had to manage with a makeshift bathroom without proper drainage or door. By comparison, almost 71% of households in the city of Delhi had bathroom facilities within the house (Census of India 2001). Across different regions of Delhi, only 5% of the slum families had bathrooms with drainage facility in their houses, whereas 10% used the community bathrooms. The rest used makeshift bathroom created from their living space. There were considerable variations across the regions of Delhi in terms of the availability of proper bathrooms ranging from a mere 1.5% in West Delhi to 6.2% in East Delhi. Similarly, the use of community bathrooms were much higher in West and East Delhi (20–27%) in sharp contrast to nil usage in Central and South Delhi and mere 2% in the slums of North Delhi (Fig. 10). This was because of differences in the availability as well as management of community bathrooms across the different regions (Fig. 9). During the focus group discussions, the women complained that because of absence of drainage facilities, there was flooding in the slums even after light rains leading to breeding of mosquitoes and a high incidence of diseases. The use of makeshift bathrooms led to severe drainage problems in the areas, leading to formation of sludge and creation of breeding areas for flies and mosquitoes depicting poor state of environment across all the slums in Delhi.

Fig. 9

Defecation pattern of the community (women). (Source: Primary Survey)

Fig. 10

Bathroom facility at home. (Source: Primary Survey)

Per Capita Water Usage by Families

On an average the per capita water consumption per day across Delhi slums was 37.6 l. The values ranged from 36.76 l per capita per day in East Delhi to 40 l in the case of North Delhi slums, significantly lower as compared to 57.98 l of water consumption per capita in the entire city of Delhi. It is important to highlight that safe water and sanitation are essential for healthy living, dignity, empowerment, and prosperity and have been declared by UN as fundamental human rights of every person.

It can be inferred that water and sanitation facilities in the slums in Delhi were dismal. Since women are closely related to water and allied activities, the results indicate their high vulnerability, and changing climate in the near future will make the scenario even worse. This is well supported by Climate Survey, 2017, of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) which reports extreme weather events, natural disasters, and a failure of climate change adaptation as three of the environmental risks that made it to the top ten risks facing humankind. A comparison of the income level (people below poverty line), literacy of women, and state of water and sanitation facilities in the slums with the whole of Delhi highlights stark differences between the two pointing to the vulnerability of women since they are at the core of household activities (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11

Differences in Human capacity and state of environment of slums and whole of Delhi. (Source: Slums data-primary survey: Delhi-Secondary sources)

Quantification of Vulnerability

In order to assess the vulnerability of families to climatic and water stresses at the household level across different regions of Delhi, the index values of CVI-WH were computed. The values collected by the primary survey were converted into index values, to generate the CVI-WH values across different regions of Delhi. Though the slum areas were exposed to the same climatic variability and extremes as the whole of Delhi, the results of this study have shown that the slums across all the regions in Delhi were extremely vulnerable and had high CVI-WH values ranging from 0.62 in case of North Delhi to 0.67 in case of West Delhi (the higher the value, the greater the vulnerability) with an average vulnerability index of 0.63 across the regions. By comparison, Delhi as a whole faced much lower level of vulnerability with its CVI-WH value at 0.36 (Fig. 12). The slums were extremely vulnerable in terms of poor state of environment due to poor sanitation facilities followed by limited human capacity and limited use and access to water.

Fig. 12

Index values of CVI-WH and its sub-components across slums in different regions of Delhi. (Source: Authors calculation)

The vulnerability of slum women of Delhi was found to be comparable to the general city dwellers of the most vulnerable states in India such as Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Orissa (for state level values, refer to MoEF 2012) (Fig. 13). The high vulnerability of urban poor in Delhi suggests that the situation in urban slums and rural areas of vulnerable states could be much worse since Delhi being the capital city of India presumably represents the highest level of development.

Fig. 13

Comparison of CVI-WH values of slums in Delhi with most vulnerable states in India (Source: Authors calculations)

The situation is not likely to improve considering the high levels of urbanization, population growth reducing the per capita availability of water, climatic changes, and no significant changes in the gendered distribution of household responsibilities. Looking at trends of rapidly rising urban population, India is expected to add 300 million new urban residents by 2050. In India, urban areas already contribute more than 60% of GDP, and an extra 300 million new urban residents will contribute to GDP growth of the country but will create additional pressure on the already stressed or limited resources of the cities (UN Habitat 2016). Trends have shown that greater access to jobs, educational opportunities, and health-care facilities is attracting more people to the cities, thereby compounding the problem. All these factors make the slum population especially women and children highly vulnerable to environmental stresses related to water, sanitation, as well as climatic extremes.

Conclusion

The results of the study using both qualitative and quantitative techniques revealed high vulnerability of the slum dwellers especially women and children to climate- and water-linked stresses because of their prime role in water accession and management (Ballesteros 2010; Duflo et al. 2012; Yasmin 2016). The quantification of CVI-WH at the micro level can help to identify the population most at risk to water- and climate-related stresses and can provide evidence to trigger targeted action. The qualitative tools were instrumental in highlighting the problems and vulnerabilities of the poor slum women to climate- and water-related stresses. The number of slum dwellers is rising at a tremendous pace since as many as 55 million new slum dwellers have been added to the global population since 2000 (Chopra et al. 2016). On one hand, increased income, employment opportunities, and multifaceted facilities are attracting more and more people to the cities; on the other hand, the cities do not have enough infrastructure and resources to support this migrant population. The result is the ever-increasing number of slums as well as the population in existing slums. Without access to basic housing and water and sanitation facilities and the reducing per capita availability of water, the slum population especially women and children are likely to be highly vulnerable to water-related stresses which will be compounded by climatic changes and extremes.

To meet the goals of gender equality in society, it is crucial to pay special attention to the provision of clean water and sanitation, which are important needs of women. On the one hand, it is necessary to integrate housing of economically weaker sections of society into the smart city model equipped with water- and sanitation-related infrastructure; on the other hand, it is important to build adaptive capacity of poorer sections and most vulnerable groups such as women to face challenges posed by climatic and non-climatic drivers. This can be done by enhancing human capacity especially of women through more education, awareness, knowledge, and infusion of new technology. Such efforts have the potential to address the gender gaps in society in different domains and enable women to use their time more productively and equip them to lead climate-resilient lives.

Note: This study has been conducted as part of India’s second national communication to the UNFCCC and was funded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.