Back to news
11 Apr 2017 | Blog

Waist-High In Wastewater

Nuvodita Singh

1 min Read

70% Complete
Photo Credit: Eklavya Prasad, MEGH PYNE ABHIYAN

A colleague and I were discussing the theme for this year’s World Water Day – Wastewater. Immediately my mind conjured images of industries and factories churning out chemical laden waste, of urban sewage systems, and of frothy rivers as a result. The common themes running through all these images are- ‘Structure’, ‘Organization’, and ‘Linear Systems’.

These systems are designed to take wastewater away for disposal from its original source of production so that the order of mundane operations can be maintained, notwithstanding the occasional spanner in the works. A useful response to the ill effects of these operations is the implementation of infrastructure such as wastewater treatment plants that essentially create ‘feedback loops’ in an otherwise linear system and help further the cause of the ‘circular economy’. This is easy to visualize for an urban setting where the ‘building blocks’ such as procurement of land, labour, and resources are already in place, or at least available at hand. It is also a very sustainable pathway for urban development.

But what of communities far removed from these cityscapes? What of rural settings that might be relatively disorganized, or informal settlements marked by the absence of those ‘building blocks’, or any structural sewage or waste disposal system? Let us look at ‘Exhibit A’, Naya Tola Bishambharpur (NTB), a small village in the floodplains of Bihar’s West Champaran district.

<<READ MORE>>

Stay current

Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.

Sign Up

Related Content

Continue exploring this topic

14 Aug 2017 Blog
It’s not just about the Money – a Story from Rasuwa, Nepal

Lower-income Nepalese youth have improved their earning capacity by opting for foreign employment, working as migrant labourers. Working in countries ...

3 Oct 2016 Blog
Researchers collaborate for studying the effects of climate change in the HKH region

The changes happening in Himalayan Rivers has been widely discussed in last decades which ranges from single catchment to large ...

6 Mar 2020 Gender in Koshi
Thinking beyond Each for Equal

When I opened the newspaper in early February, a news article immediately caught my eye – “

11 Sep 2017 Gender in Koshi
Why China should Include a Gender Perspective in its Climate Change Policies

In Haitang, off-farm wage labour outside the community has, for some years, been an important income-generating strategy. As the drought ...

13 Mar 2018 RMS
Empowering rural women: A shift from household chores to construction work

During recent fieldwork in Nuwakot, our team came across a group of women decked in safety gear doing construction work. ...

2 Aug 2019 Cryosphere
Keeping track of our melting glaciers

I have been part of expeditions to the Khumbu Glacier in the Everest region since 2016. It is quite a ...

10 Jun 2016 Cryosphere
AWS On Ice

One of the biggest unknowns in how glaciers will respond to climate change are the meteorological conditions and melt rates ...

12 May 2017 Blog
REDD+ to Use Electric Fences to Address Human-wildlife Conflict

The relationship between humans and wildlife is a challenging one. While people place and recognize boundaries around their houses, communities, ...