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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Cat ButtonORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Economic values have dominated water policy discourse over the last four decades. Very little has been written on social, cultural, and ecological values and their roles in enhancing water security. The primary objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of diverse water values with a case study of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, India. To achieve this, a review of the existing scholarship on water values was conducted to develop a set of water values. Field surveys and interviews were conducted to comprehend the water values held by various stakeholders in Delhi. This paper is an attempt to show that viewing water security through the lens of diverse water values (social, cultural, economic and ecological) provides a better understanding of water policies, and enhanced comprehension could potentially result in better policies to promote water security. In the case of Delhi, we additionally found that the claimed predominance of water values such as efficiency, equity, equality, religiosity, and purity does not mean that these values are also actualized in water practices. Another major finding is that all four sets of values are integrated with one another, and policies underpinned by the identified values would be relatively better than policies solely based on economic values.
Author(s): Kumar A, Biswas R, Modi R, Button C
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Water
Year: 2024
Volume: 16
Issue: 5
Print publication date: 01/03/2024
Online publication date: 24/02/2024
Acceptance date: 19/02/2024
Date deposited: 19/07/2024
ISSN (electronic): 2073-4441
Publisher: MDPI
URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/w16050662
DOI: 10.3390/w16050662
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