Connecting The Drops - Understanding the Ecosystem and Social Behaviour Regarding Water in Bangalore by Maddalen Gil

CONNECTING THE DROPS Understanding the Ecosystem and Social Behaviour Regarding Water in Bangalore.

Maddalen Gil Master's Thesis: Transcultural Design India L'Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique 2013-2014 School year

CONNECTING THE DROPS Understanding the Ecosystem and Social Behaviour Regarding Water in Bangalore.

Maddalen Gil Master's Thesis: Transcultural Design India L'Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique 2013-2014 School year

Abstract This dissertation focuses on understanding the complexity and interrelations within the Water ecosystem in Bangalore, India. The situation around water safety and accessibility has been dramatic for the last decade and is deteriorating rapidly in this growing urban agglomeration. Therefore, this dissertation, further than just naming the facts, focuses on understanding the awareness level and attitudes that Bangaloreans have around the system, aiming towards designing a responsible and sustainable behaviour around water in a future design stage. Thus, I have started my exploration by understanding the origins of the Indian culture of water and the traditional spiritual meaning related to it, learning about the historical evolution in which the actual social attitudes have been rooted in. Secondly, I have focused on making an in-depth research on the causes and effects of the present situation, which involves the depletion of the water table, the disappearance of lakes, the pollution of the water sources, the untreated waste water, the extortion of the water mafia and the inefficiency of the municipal water supply agency. In addition, rainwater harvesting was proposed by the authorities as the solution to the water situation in Bangalore, but this measure has proven unsuccessful. Therefore, the next step was to explore the rainwater harvesting regulations and technologies in order to understand the failure on their implementation. Afterwards, since the design project is dealing with a behaviour change, the emotional aspect was required to be explored through a deep ethnographic research between different participants within the water system. Thus, 14 different case studies have been developed through primary research based in observation and interviews. Finally, the dissertation concludes by exploring different fields such as Education Entertainment, Social Marketing or Strategic Communication, in order to understand how a behaviour change can be designed successfully. Connecting the Drops

Author’s Note I have always drank big quantities of water, around 2 litres a day. My mother would always say that must have been because I was born in the year when my native territory, the Basque Country, in Spain, suffered the biggest drought in decades. During her pregnancy, she had to face abnormal water restrictions. The water was cut off between 8 and 10 hours a day, mostly during the nights. She must have transmitted the care and respect towards water to me even before I was born. The truth is that it has always been difficult to explain why I would rather pay for that “odourless”, “tasteless”, “colourless” liquid to quench my thirst and not buy myself a soft drink or a juice. Or why I would run around closing running taps if they were being neglected only for a second. Though I had never been as conscious towards access to safe water as I am since I arrived in Bangalore in September 2013. My first sight of the city was a sky cut by black plastic rooftop water tanks. I then started wondering why each house would need an individual tank. Did it mean they did not have municipal water? No access to regular water supply? How did they fill the tanks? Where was that water coming from? The questions multiplied when I later saw rows of colourful plastic vessels lining up next to the public water taps near the slum areas, water tankers with the faces of local politicians printed on them distributing free water in the neighbourhood, water canals being buried under piles of garbage and broken pipes flooding roads for several days. Even more when I had to forget the strongly rooted habit of drinking water from the tap and start buying cans of bulk water. How could a basic necessity like water not be regularized? How could some segments of the society be deprived of such a basic right? Why was the local governance not taking over such a dramatic situation? Why was the Bangalorean society, specially the well-off communities, being so apathetic and careless about the need to conserve water? My “foreign” mindset was not able to understand this complex ecosystem at first but the more I immersed myself in the discovery, the more intriguing it happened to be. Therefore, this Master’s thesis is directed to understand not only the facts and figures -causes and effects- but also the emotions and attitudes around water between the Bangaloreans. I hope you find this as revealing and interesting as it was for me to carry out this research.

Maddalen Gil Lopez de Lacalle Connecting the Drops

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction............................................... 7

3 Rainwater Harvesting............................... 91

1 History of Water in India.......................... 11

Understanding the origins of Indian culture of water

1.1 Precolonial Community Based Water Systems............... 1.1.1 Sacred Water...................................................... 1.2 British Colonialism............................................................. 1.3 After Independence........................................................... 1.3.1 The Green Revolution.......................................

1.3.2 The Privatization Era.........................................

12 21 25 30 30 36

2 Location: Bangalore................................ 45 Why is Bangalore Suffering a Water Crisis?

46 47 2.1.2 History & Demography.................................... 49 2.2 The Present Situation of Water....................................... 52 2.2.1 Municipal Distribution Pipeline and Sewage. 52 2.2.2 Groundwater Table........................................... 59 2.2.3 Water Bodies & Lakes....................................... 65 2.3 The Water Market.............................................................. 73 2.3.1 The Legal Market............................................... 73 2.3.2 The Illegal Market: The Water Mafia.............. 84

2.1 Presenting Bangalore........................................................ 2.1.1 Climate & Geography.......................................

Why is RWH Not Being a Successful Solution in Bangalore?

92 98 3.3 RWH Systems............................................................................. 105 3.3.1 RWH in the Indian Market........................................ 105 3.3.2 Innovative RWH Designs Globally........................... 109 3.1 RWH Mandatory: BWSSB Act................................................... 3.2 RWH Theme Park.......................................................................

4 In Field Research.......................................... 117

Discovering the Relationship with Water of the Different Actors 4.1 Stakeholder Map........................................................................ 118 4.2 Research Methods...................................................................... 121 4.3 Gated Communities: M-U Income Population........................ 122 4.4 Gated Communities: House Keeping Staff.............................. 133 4.5 Irregular Housing: Lower Income Population........................ 140

5 Social Activism............................................ 147 How to Change to a Proactive Society?

5.1 Strategic Communication for Behaviour Change................... 5.1.1 Education Entertainment..........................................

5.1.2 Social Marketing........................................................

5.2 Social Business Initiatives (impacting social movilization)... 5.2.1 Daily Dump.................................................................

148 151 154 159 159

General Conclusions........................................ 165 A Glance to the Future..................................... 167 Connecting the Drops

Introduction The situation of water in Bangalore is heading to the level of a humanitarian crisis. The facts are clear, the water table is being depleted, thousands of bore-wells are drying, the quality of groundwater is being endangered by high rates of contaminants, the recharge of aquifers by rainfall is obstructed by the new urbanism patterns, the capacity to extract water from surrounding rivers is limited, the local water supply system is unable to meet the demand and the water mafia is taking over the water supply of the most needed citizens. The effects are, that thousands of people have no regular access to safe water and the environmental catastrophe hitting the Bangalorean ecosystem is reaching an irreversible level. The main reasons are, the rapid demographic growth Bangalore has witnessed in the last decade and the consequent unplanned urbanization and irregularities in the city’s development. But behind these facts and figures there is a community, there are people. People who use water on an everyday basis and whose behaviour around its usage and conservation can make a difference. People that could form a community of common interests and force the local governance and decision-making stakeholders to take the responsibility of ensuring access to water for the whole society and an environmentally responsible and sustainable ecosystem. Thus, understanding the different actors within the community I have to design for and how they inter-relate and inter-depend between each other and with the water ecosystem has been one of the main purposes of my research. Through ethnographic research, I have learnt about how the attitudes towards water are deeply influenced by historical-social structures, traditions and spirituality. Behaviours are rooted in emotions and experiences and strongly linked to culture. Therefore, to design social impact in a successful way, it is necessary to understand the relationship of the stakeholders with water. Then, develop ideas on how to influence their perception on the topic with the goal in mind, that they adopt a sustainable and responsible behaviour.

I also analyse the different solutions already proposed to solve the water problematic and the reasons of their failure. Finally, I learn about several communication strategy techniques for an effective behaviour change. Basing on this multi-directional research, the aim is to gather enough knowledge and insights to ensure the best design adapted to the Bangalore’s locality and it’s community. To empathise with them and design according to the community’s needs and wishes. Finally, I also have ensured the continuity of the conversations with the actors. Bringing them back into the picture in farther design stages and creating a participatory design process that will ensure the most effective and successful transcultural design from a Spanish designer for the Bangalorean community.

The objectives (overview): 1. To understand the cultural notions around water in India. 2. To get an overview of the complexity of water situation in Bangalore and the interdependence of the different elements. 3. To understand the law and initiatives given in Bangalore around RWH and to see where it has failed as a solution. 4. To explain the ethnographic research that has been developed in-field with the different stakeholders or social segments. 5. To learn about the different strategies to provoke a behaviour change around water conservation in the present Bangalorean society

This dissertation relates the evolution of water management throughout the history with the complexity of the water ecosystem and the insights gathered from the conversations I had with the different actors on their behaviour within this ecosystem.

Connecting the Drops

1 History of Water in India Connecting the Drops

1 History of Water in India Understanding the origins of Indian culture of water

The objective of this chapter is to analyse the different stages of the History of Water in India and patterns of behaviour in different strata of Indian society in each of these stages. Understanding the spiritual, cultural and traditional meaning of water inherited from the ancestors is vital to decide which approach to take towards a behaviour change. Basically, it is all about learning from past happenings and attitudes to influence the present understanding and involvement of the community around the topic.

Bukka’s aqueduct, Hampi.

A remain of Vijayanagara’s old hydraulic system

The research developed for this chapter centred in Historical Analysis, is mainly based on secondary research method, which has been developed with the Analysis of contemporary records including: Books: “Waternama: A collection of traditional practices for water conservation and management in Karnataka” by Sandhya Iyengar and “Jalyatra, a journey through India’s water wisdom” by Nitya Jacob

Research Papers

Documentaries: “Water makes money” by Leslie Franke and Herdolor Lorenz and “Flow: For Love of Water” by Irena Salina

In addition, during the semi-structured interviews carried out with the participants, which is explained in detail in the fourth chapter, I have been able to collect some primary source historical data-records from the testimonies of the participants around their own past life and family accounts. Also, as explained later in this chapter, the understanding of traditional water structures has been enriched through a primary research based on Observation, developed in Nandi Hills, where the remains of the traditional water bodies, called Sarovars, are still conserved.

1 History of Water in India

1.1 PRECOLONIAL COMMUNITY BASED WATER SYSTEMS To understand the present culture of water within the Bangalorean society, it is necessary to contextualize water management in India in recent times in terms of the historical and cultural notions. From prehistoric times and during centuries of pre-colonial ruler dynasties, specially between the 10th -14th centuries, the main resources of livelihood in India, such as water, were managed in a local and communitarian way. The rulers could not afford a centralized way of governance in such vast kingdoms. They would approve and finance the construction of infrastructure and give a set of rules on how to manage them. Then they would delegate the responsibility of protection and maintenance to the local authorities. Each local community would appoint a person with responsibilities concerning water infrastructures, commonly known as Neeruganti. The only duty of the Neeruganti was to ensure the proper maintenance of the water body, protect it from being polluted or misused and ensure a fair and egalitarian distribution of water.

Connecting the Drops

Even if the Neeruganti was responsible to look after the water systems and the decision making around them, it was the duty of the whole community to contribute to the maintenance. It was a punishable sin to refuse to cooperate when the individual was called by the Neeruganti. Thus, every member of the community had a sense of ownership towards the water body and a proactive and contributory attitude towards its conservation. These traditional infrastructures were locally designed, adjusted to climatic and geological characteristics of the area and had a minimal ecological footprint. These systems were the result of local knowledge gathered through observing the nature of water, orally transmitted through generations. In Southern India the climate provides intense rains during the monsoon season which lasts 3 months, from August to October. Traditional water bodies where mainly based on the principle of rainwater harvesting. Water would be collected during monsoon and stored for the rest of the season. This ensured accessibility to water throughout the year. There were different systems according to different needs: some of them would collect the rainwater directly as it fell from the sky and store it for different purposes such as bathing, washing, drinking, religious rituals, etc. Others would be placed along streams and rivers and had channelling systems attached for irrigation and agricultural purposes.

1 History of Water in India

Old man rowing a Coracle, Hampi. Connecting the Drops

Traditional bowl-shaped boat made out of woven leaves.

In Addition: Design of Water Systems as Architectural Monuments The architecture of these systems would vary from one region to another. Some of the systems would be natural water bodies with minimal man-made modifications to adapt them to the human needs. Some examples of this natural systems are:

Chand Baori

Stepwell situated in the village of Abhaneri, Rajasthan.

The Keres: traditional irrigation method in Central Karnataka, fed by channels built in and along natural streams to distribute the water equitably. The Zings: small tanks found in Ladakh to collect melted glacier water. The Bhanadaras: check dams found across rivers in Maharastra to raise the water level of the streams and direct the flow in the channels.

Others, would be rich and complex architectural works with high artistic and technical values that could even nowadays be inspirational and enriching for contemporary design: The Baolis or Stepwells, are wells reached by descending steps. They are of high architectural significance for the pattern-like visual embellishment done by playing with the arrangement of the steps. The Kunds are circular ground-wells surrounded in the surface by a saucer-shaped catchment area with an inclined surface to direct the rainwater towards the central ground-well. They have a dome-shaped cover to protect the water, which adds aesthetic value to the structure.

Bamboo Drip Irrigation

Technique used by Meghalayas in North-East India

The Bamboo Drip Irrigation developed by the Meghalayas in North-East India is based on using bamboo pipes to redirect spring water to irrigate plantations by gravity, releasing drops in each spice plant. The Suranga located in Kasagord in Kerala is a horizontal well excavated in hard laterite soil formations from which water seeps out to be collected in open ponds.

Design Ideas:

I would be interested in taking these ingenious and inspirational systems to bring them into a future product design on a further stage of this project, to revive the old traditions in a new redesign of water harvesting.

1 History of Water in India

Connecting the Drops Kund Shyampura

Kund situated in Shyampura village, Rajasthan.

As per primary research, the most underlining fieldwork done throughout this chapter was the visit to Nandi Hills (70 km from Bangalore). This hilltop was once the residence of Tipu Sultan (1750-1799), ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore and the warrior resisting longest to British colonization in South India, which was delayed until his death in 1799. Thanks to his resistance to the foreign intruders, most of his palaces, such as the one in Nandi Hills, remain nearly untouched and traditional water structures such as Sarovars can be found in the palace grounds. The observation carried out allowed me to better visualize the architecture and system around the Sarovars, holy water tanks or pools placed around temples. There are two Sarovars in Nandi Hills, the biggest one is Amrutha Sarovar, placed right next to Tipu Sultanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Summer Palace. The smaller one is in the Gavi Veerbhadra Swamy temple on top of the hill. Both water bodies are walled and have descending stairs, similar to the Baolis. The rivers Pennar, Palar and Arkavati are originated from these hills and their water, as well as the rainwater falling directly on the Sarovars, are the only water sources of these traditional structures. My observations in the Sarovars led me to the conclusion that the architecture and design in these water bodies, was a conscious decision to give importance and dignify the central water body. By descending the stepped trajectory towards the water, people would gain consciousness around the quality and quantity of the central element, water. Apart from making it impossible to cows and other big animals to reach and pollute the water, having to walk down at least 30 steps until the water, required an effort from the people. The more water there is, the less stairs you need to descend, but, the bigger the scarcity, the bigger the effort. This raised consciousness about the value of water and the need for its conservation. This probably worked as a method of dissuasion of using water carelessly and a way to promote water conservation. An example of how a design can influence an experience and therefore, modify ones behaviour.

Map of Nandi Hills, Bangalore.

1 History of Water in India

The royal grounds contain traditional water structures Sarovars. Connecting thecalled Drops

Gavi Veerbhadra Swamy temple. Situated in the pick of Nandi Hills.

1 History of Water in India Amrutha Sarovar, Nandi Hills.

Placed next to Tipu Sultanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s summer palace.

Temple Sarovar, Nandi Hills.

The access to water happens following a descending stepped trajectory.

Drops Hills. AmruthaConnecting Sarovar,theNandi

An altar is placed in the Sarovar to perform pujas around water.

1.1.1 SACRED WATER The relationship with water and the Indian population has always been something deeper. Water is not just a mere commodity for subsistence. Water always had a cultural meaning and a spiritual link with the individuals. Here some examples of the religious and spiritual meaning of water in pre-colonial India. Ganga -the goddess of river-, Indra -the god of rain and thunderstorm- and Varuna -the god of ocean- have always been strongly worshipped in the Hindu mythology. Rivers have generally a strong spiritual meaning in Hinduism. This is symbolized through the tanks which are a central element in temples. Ganga, according to Hinduism, is a lock of hair of Lord Shiva -Supreme god- sent to earth to wash all the sins of humans away, meant to be the origin of the culture and civilization in India. Every empire is thought to be born from Mother Gangaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s river banks. For these reasons, every Hindu believes that life is not complete without a bath in Ganges river and the bodies of the deceased are returned to Ganga after cremation. In the time of pre-colonial rulers, it was a royal duty and honour to build as many water infrastructures as possible during the reign of a king. Providing such water bodies was meant to relief any sin in life and was considered more meritorious than having 1000 sons. For this reason, the kings grew in popularity depending on the number of water bodies they gave to the people. The Chalukya and the Hoysala dynasties (10th -14th centuries) were responsible of the Golden Era of the construction of tanks in Southern India, building thousands of such water bodies and witnessing an era of plentiful unlimited healthy water all over the country. Apart from this, every water body was claimed as sacred which ensured their protection. A holy ritual would be held at the beginning of the construction of each of the structures, erecting a pole in the middle of the tank with gold and fruits on its base and an image of Lord Shiva on its body. Scriptures and symbols prohibiting defecating or wearing footwear near the water body would be displayed around it. Breaking these rules would mean enraging Lord Shiva and the individual would be punished by the local authorities. This understanding of water as the sacred base of life, protected traditional water bodies and ensured their dignity in the society. However, water bodies were ruled following the traditional cast segregation and social dominance of India. Upper and lower castes were expected to use different

1 History of Water in India

Goddess Ganga, Hinduism. Connecting the Drops

Is believed to be a lock of hair of Lord Shiva sent to earth to wash the human sins.

water bodies. The socially discriminatory rules told that the lower castes spiritually polluted the water. If a member of the lower cast was found using the water of upper castes, they were prosecuted and often killed. These crimes were justified as a protection of the spiritual purity of the upper castes. Even if the decision making around the water infrastructures would be done involving all the community levels, it would generally be controlled by a member from the upper cast. Anyway, in every traditional Hindu family, indistinctly of the cast, there would be a deep spiritual understanding of cleanliness and every day would start with a sort of purification ritual, in which the whole house would be cleaned and every member would have a bath, before having the first meal of the day. The access to water would depend on the cast, but the deeply rooted sacred habits would be the same for all.

Elephant bath, Hampi.

The elephant bath happens every Sunday after the early-morning puja.

The root of the Indian culture of water is a community united effort towards ensuring common welfare. This is an idealistic but at the same time pragmatic concept that was once brought into reality and its practice lasted centuries. Even in a highly segmented traditional Indian society, with its strong cast system, the understanding of common needs and the interdependence of the different society members was stronger than the need to draw the segregating line. Design Ideas: Attaching spiritual and religious meaning to water conservation served as an effective tool to protect the water bodies and put them in the centre of community life.Design can be used to provoke an experience in the individual, which will relate to certain sensations, and conclude in the rethinking of values or opinions. It can all derive into behaviour change. Thus, the challenge will be to plan experiences which could result in the desired change of mindset and behaviour. Woman washing clothes in the river, Hampi. 1 History of Water in India

Washing and bathing rituals are carried out in the river banks every Sunday.

Connecting the Drops

1.2 BRITISH COLONIALISM Starting in the 16th century, European colonial powers started conquering India in order to control and exploit the trade market on this rich sub-continent. First the Portuguese and then the Dutch, the Danish, the French and the British rushed to claim ownership of natural resources in the name of their nations. The colonial rulers who managed to expand their power over the whole subcontinent were the British rulers from the 17th to the 20th century. The British rulers claimed in the name of the Crown every property that was not in private domain in the territories they colonized. This gradually shifted the sense of ownership on those previously public resources, such as lands and water bodies, by taxing citizens directly on their use of those resources. Farmers and villagers started to pay for the water that had been unlimited and free until then. Water became a source of revenue and a mean of social control. Much later, in the name of Modern India, the British colonial rulers claimed the traditional water bodies to be old-fashioned and non-regulated structures improvised by illiterate people, so they created the Public Work Department, 1839, with the aim to standardize and regulate the water management -canals and irrigation- and other public infrastructures -railways and telegraphs-. They wanted to have a full governmental control of every resource in India so they immersed themselves in a mega-construction project to cover the 3.3 million square kilometres of India with a centralized water system through dams, channels and pipelines. Meanwhile, the traditional local structures were not under the community control any more and could not be maintained in the ways the ancestors had defined. The Public Work Department had fixed standardized procedures on how to maintain them, without taking into account the peculiarity of each locality or material. When water bodies were damaged or endangered, it would take long time for the PWD to respond, due to the bureaucratic process of the now centralized system. The Public Work Department could not sustain the thousands of traditional water structures that therefore started falling apart.

1 History of Water in India

Sikh Soldiers, Connecting the British Drops Army.

The control over the resources was shifted to a centralized way of governance.

The community that once had a sense of ownership and responsibility towards the water bodies, gradually abdicated their duties towards them. Paying taxes to the central government was understood as recognizing the government as the sole responsible of the protection and maintenance of the water bodies. Over time the resignation of the society towards the colonial rulers and the apathy, that they used as a silent rebellion, led to a total disconnection of the people from their rights and responsibilities towards their own land and water sources. Shifting from understanding water as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;holy giftâ&#x20AC;? from nature to a highly profitable free product, changed the respect towards water.

1 History of Water in India

Irrigation Kerala. ConnectingCanal, the Drops

Artificial canal to irrigate paddy field next to backwaters in Alleppey.

1.3 AFTER INDEPENDENCE 1.3.1 THE GREEN REVOLUTION After the Indian Independence in 1947, one of the biggest political movements in the young democracy, called the Green Revolution, promoted and developed during the 1970s a modernisation of agriculture with the aim to eradicate hunger and malnourishment in India. During British colonialism the hunger period in 1943 known as the Bengal Famine killed 4 million people in Eastern India. The objective of the Green revolution was to avoid famine in future by ensuring food security for the totality of the population. To achieve this plan, the democratic government promoted intensive farming to reach a self-sufficient national grain production level. Several measures were taken: quantitative expansion of farmland through claiming natural lands, double-cropping methods, genetically modified seeds and the introduction of fertilizers and pesticides to allow crops to grow in more than their natural seasons. To respond to this intensive agricultural program, the water infrastructures also had to be modified to meet the requirements of the new irrigation patterns. To reach this aim, new mega-constructions were erected:

Immense dams were built with much bigger capacities than the existing ones, which caused displacement of thousands of people. The dams guaranteed an increase of power production.

The large-scale civil engineering project called Indian Rivers Inter-link started. In this project, the majority of Indian rivers were linked with canals to facilitate the water shortage in some rivers with the surplus of others.

Farmers all over India started digging tube-wells and bore-wells all over the country to be able to extract the abundant groundwater under the Indian ground surface.

After three decades of Green Revolution, the over-extraction of groundwater and the usage of agrochemical products has led to important groundwater table depletion and soil salinity, making big farmland areas infertile. Being unable to make a living from their farming activities any longer, between other reasons, millions of people from rural areas have been forced to move to the urban cities in search of a job for survival. This has led to an uncontrolled urban demographic expansion. This sudden growth of the population has derived in the lack

Paddy fields, Andra Pradesh. 1 History of Water in India

Intensive agriculture has been promoted to erradicate malnutrition.

Connecting the Drops

Krishnaraja Sagar Dam, Mysore.

The dam holding Cauvery water has a 1.4 cubic kilometre capacity.

of ability of the local governance bodies to respond to some infrastructural needs, such as water supply, sewage, garbage management, etc. Being unable to make a living from their farming activities any longer, millions of people from rural areas have been forced to move to the urban cities in search of a job for survival. This has led to an uncontrolled urban demographic expansion and the lack of ability of the local governance bodies to respond to the infrastructural needs, such as water supply, sewage, garbage management, etc.

What was meant to be the solution for the severe food problem in India ended up being an even bigger problem for water. Every over-extraction and mega-construction was justified under the ideal of this new “food-for-all” policy. The Green revolution became the Blue catastrophe. Without even realizing it, the majority of rural farmers, as well as huge multinational factories withdrawing water carelessly, dried up and polluted the lands. Without any help or ability to solve this problem, most of these farmers found themselves forced to migrate massively to the urban cities in search of a way to survive. 31

1 History of Water in India

But the water scarcity did not just limit in the rural area, it came following the crowd, from the rural to the urban. Once there, the main water bodies of the cities could not respond the new demand any more. A clear example of this situation is Bangalore, as I will describe in the next chapter, where rural and urban populations are coexisting and “competing” to get what they can from the degrading local resources. The main problem of the coexistence of very different urban and rural communities is that they do not relate to each other, they live their lifes in different realities, with different value-systems and traditions. Therefore, it is difficult to get people to engage together in one cause, like water, or ask them to take social responsibility for each other. Anyway, there are already some citizen initiatives uniting forces to revive lakes and clean streets. Promoting them can be the way to encourage new initiatives in other topics. Connecting the Drops

In Addition: The Coca Cola Catastrophy The massive and accelerated degradation of the natural water sources in rural India was not only caused by intensive agricultural practices, but also due to industrial development with mushrooming factories. In the 1990â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, the new Indian democracy opened its market gradually from the protectionist national market to the introduction of multinational companies, which started installing industrial factories in Indian territory. This companies were attracted by low land rates, cheap manpower and non-existing environmental protection policies. An example of this development is the international soft-drink company, Coca Cola. Since its arrival in India, Coca Cola has been constantly accused of indiscriminately discharging and polluting rivers and groundwater bodies in the localities where the factories are placed. The biggest scandal around the practice of this company in India evolved in 2006 in Plachimada, a community in the Southern State of Kerala. Since the installation of the Coca Cola factory in the locality in 2000, the company had been extracting 500,000 litres of groundwater daily nearly free of charge, except for a small fee for waste-water disposal. When a severe drought hit the area in 2004, the locality was declared â&#x20AC;&#x153;water impoverished areaâ&#x20AC;?, which led to farmer mobilizations against Coca Cola for its over-extraction of natural resources. Demonstrations of farmers ended up in violent battles with the authorities, which called the attention of the international media. When the BBC researched the matter, it was found that apart from having depleted the water table to erratic levels, the Coca Cola factory had been producing thousands of litres of toxic sludge in this locality which contained carcinogenic cadmium and had been selling it to local farmers as fertilizer. Apart from that, the soft drinks produced in this plant contained high levels of pesticides. After this scandal, hundreds of other demonstrations have happened in the localities where Coca Cola placed their factories, but without any legal punishment or inability imposed, the company keeps doing the same practices by just shifting the localities.

1 History of Water in India

Painted Coca Cola ad, Bangalore.

Connecting Drops The company hasthe been accused for indiscriminately polluting water bodies all over India.

1.3.2 THE ERA OF PRIVATIZATION Currently, with the municipal water infrastructures being unable to provide continuous safe water supply to their growing amount of citizens in the urban areas, many local policy makers have engaged a new strategy: Privatization of public water systems. This solution is promoted by bodies like the World Trade Organization -WTO- and the International Monetary Fund -IMF- since the 1990â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. It involves taking the control of water management services -collection, purification, distribution and waste-water treatment-, which traditionally are in hands of the municipality or the city council, and transferring it to private companies. The pro-privatization lobby mainly composed by private water companies, the WTO and the IMF, argue that increasing the water tariff will reduce the water consumption and promote water conservation. In addition, the profit from this increased tariff would finance the upgrading and development of the infrastructures. On the other hand, human right activists, citizen groups and NGOs claim that water and its infrastructure being transferred into private control has the following negative impacts on the society:

Farmer looking at hisinfield with dismay, Morigoan. 1 History of Water India

The droughts and soil infertility make farming a unstable practice in Karnataka.

Because of the considerable costs involved in upgrading the water systems to meet the promises done in the new public-private contracts, the price of water rises to levels that becomes unaffordable to the poor. For the system upgrading projects, the private companies take private loans, with high interest rates, and recover the money by charging the final users extra. Even if this price rise is claimed to be a strategy to reduce consumption, it is doubtful that this can happen in areas where the water consumption of the average end user is already reduced to a minimum. This denies people their basic right of access to water.

To meet their objectives specified in the contract with the authorities and maximize their profits, the private companies extract as much water as they need, without being controlled on the quantity or quality of the resource and with total impunity because they are legally backed with their contracts. Discharging in a much higher speed than charging often leads to unsustainable water extraction and has catastrophic environmental effects. Connecting the Drops

The unlimited access of these companies to fresh water also leads them to make bigger profit through exporting this resource to markets with stronger purchasing power, where they can sell the same amount of water for higher prices, leaving local poor communities facing even a bigger scarcity.

The profit ridden policies of these companies bring them to maximize benefits by minimizing costs, especially by cutting down on maintenance services. This means that after the big investment has been done to build the new system, very little investment is done for maintenance works and system upgrading. This leads to the piping and sewage channelling infrastructures get obsolete and often compromising on the safety and quality of water.

Once the public resource of water is handed over to a private domain, it becomes extremely difficult to reverse the control, due to the fact that not many public institution could afford the expenses required by the new private system to keep the work going. In addition, some private companies ensure fidelity of the policy makers through bribes and promotion in higher institutions.

The plant was being supplied 140 MGD of raw water to provide 140 MGD of treated water in exchange. With such a simple principle, Degremont never produced its stipulated amount of treated water and the loss of water during the process was much higher than the acceptable levels. The plant was allegedly consuming much higher electricity in comparison to any other plant of the same type and the resultant water quality was much more inferior than the acceptable by the Water Quality Assessment Authority of the government of India. Protests led by the social activist and party leader of AAP, Arvind Kejriwal in 2005 concluded in the revocation of the contract with Degremont. Meanwhile, the Government of Karnataka has already allowed the privatization of local water sources in four mayor cities -Mysore, Hubl, Dharward, Belgaum and Gulbarga- and is planning to open contracts for 16 cities more. All this Rs. 32,000,000 agreement has been done behind closed doors without consulting the public. Responding to that, more than 30 non-for-profit organizations such as Action Aid or Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Summit for Right to Water have come together to protest against what they claim to be a non-democratic process.

Worldwide, the monopoly of privately managed water infrastructures is mainly controlled by four major companies, between which the French companies Suez and Veolia are the biggest ones. In the Indian territory, the privatization movement has been effusively promoted since 2002, when Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s National Water Policy was stipulated. This policy recommends water privatization as the only way to address the increasing scarcity. Following this recommendation, several municipalities signed public-private contracts with companies. Officially, 19 privatization projects are being developed in ten states of the Indian territory, including Karnataka, while in unofficial the number rises to 40 projects. Half of these official projects are being developed by the French companies Suez and Veolia, while the others are in the hands of Japanese and Australian companies. Right now, every big international water privatization company is addressing the Indian water market worth $2000 million. In some cases these led to natural catastrophes and the local authorities having to revoke the contracts paying a high penalty rate. For example: In 2000, the Government of Delhi signed a contract of Rs. 2 billion with Degremont -a subsidiary of Suez Company- to construct the Sonia Vihar waste water treatment plant.

1 History of Water in India

Connecting the Drops

In Addition: Veolia in the World The documentary “Water Makes Money” by Leslie Franke and Herdolor Lorenz offers a review on the trajectory of the water privatization business carried out by the French companies Veolia and Suez internationally, being the two major private water companies in the world. The film reviews several cases in Europe and South America where the privatization of water has led to environmental disasters and contract revocations. In Brussels, for example, Veolia was commissioned as a private partner of the Brussels Refinery Plant to introduce a new technique for dispense of sewage sludge in 2001. The new plant called Athos would turn tons of sludge into 50kg sand piles. For reasons not clear, the plant unexpectedly shut down for 10 days in 2009. During this period, the waste water of millions of citizens could not be treated in the plant, going back untreated to the waterways and down the river, causing an absolute ecological catastrophe. In Uruguay, Suez had been in charge of water and sanitation department since 1993 in the department of Maldonado. During this period, the water price had increased 700% compared to its previous public price. In 2005, the access to water was integrated in the Constitutional Reform after citizens protested. The pressure of the community lead to a democratic referendum after which Suez was forced to leave Uruguay and retreat even from Argentina and Bolivia. One of the most violent movements against the privatization by Suez happened in Bolivia. The World Bank and the International Development Bank had extorted the government to adopt privatization in order to retain ongoing state loans. The company had two major concessions in La Paz and Cochabamba where the access to water was not ensured and water prices drastically increased. In 2000 in Cochabamba and in 2005 in La Paz, two popular uprisings happened, often called “consumer rebellion”. These violent riots were strongly oppressed by the local authorities and the violence of their acts brought the topic to the international news thanks to the mass media.

1 History of Water in India

Connecting the Drops Water Makes Money.

Documentary explaining the impact of water privatization .

Transferring the control of public resources to private operators is highly dangerous because it commonly happens unbeknownst to the society, plus the general public loses the right to decide. Every society should have control of at least the main resources necessary for survival and ensure the egalitarian distribution within the community. Even if the privatization of water resources is generally justified as a way to improve the efficiency and expand the water infrastructures with new and sophisticated technologies, we have seen clear examples on how these profit-ridden companies are not always ensuring quality or accessibility. Instead, they will always raise the price to levels that becomes unaffordable for the poorest segment of the society. And in some dramatic situations, the careless management of these companies will lead to natural disasters affecting deeply the economy and health of the localities where they take action. On the other hand, it is a relief to see that after privatization not everything is lost, and social movements can force the government to revoke the contracts and return the right to decide back to the citizens. To build a social activism movement, we need to involve the different segments of the community and become a united force. A community whose members are concerned and ready to fight for a common interest, in this case, water.

1 History of Water in India

Men bathing in the Tungabhadra Hampi. Connecting River, the Drops

The water resources were traditionally under public control available for everyone.

2 Location: Bangalore

2.1 PRESENTING BANGALORE

This chapter focuses on analysing the humanitarian crisis that the city of Bangalore -Karnataka, South India- is suffering around water at present.

Bangalore or Bengaluru, is the capital of the state of Karnataka, South India. This urban agglomeration is known as the most cosmopolitan and vibrant city in India. The population is very heterogeneous, hosting ethnicities from all over South India as well as a growing number of expatriate population and migrant workers from North India. Bangalore is the centre of several well-recognised research and education institutions and also known for its green spaces and preserving its colonial heritage.

Why Bangalore is suffering a water crisis

The water crisis is not generated by only one element. Instead, is a complex system which involves and interconnects different actors. The situation keeps deteriorating, mainly due to the exponentially accelerating growth that the city is suffering for the last decade and leading to a crisis. The objective of this chapter is to enable the reader to get an overview of the water situation in Bangalore and identify the areas where design actions can derive the intended behaviour change. Thus, the aim is, to identify the flaws of the system that can eventually be approached by design actions, The research methods applied in this chapter about the present situation in Bangalore, have been mainly based on the Content analysis of the following secondary sources:

Newspaper Reports and Editorials Government documents, including archives and regulations/ordinances Opinions and editorials on websites and internet forums TV news Research Papers Advertising and Publicity records

Bangalore

2 Location: Bangalore

Connecting the Drops

2.1.1 CLIMATE & GEOGRAPHY Bangalore is placed at a height of 914.4m above the sea level on what is known as the Deccan Plateau. This plateau rises about a kilometre above the coastline in most Southern part of the Indian subcontinent. Thank to this elevation, Bangalore is known for having a pleasant climate which is relatively constant throughout the year. The temperatures during the year rarely go below 11ยบC or above 36ยบC. The annual rainfall in Bangalore is of around 970 mm per square metre and precipitates mainly during the monsoon season, which lasts from August to October. Most of the rainfall happens in thunderstorms at the late evening and night with the 85% of the rainfall occurring between 4.30 p.m. to 4.30 a.m. The topography of the city is constituted by radial slopes that slant towards the eastern and western areas of the city and a light crest crossing the city from North to South. Therefore, the rainfall descends over the slopes of the crest and the undulating terrain of the city allows the rainwater to be captured and stored in valleys, forming natural lakes. There are no major rivers passing across the city, thus the water system of the city relies on surface water bodies -tanks and lakes-, groundwater storag.The river Cauvery is situated 120 km away from Bangalore.

2 Location: Bangalore

Connecting Drops Monsoon Rains,theBangalore..

The heavy precipitations mostly happen in the evening.

2.1.2 HISTORY & DEMOGRAPHY Bangalore was once known as the “Garden City” of India due to its big extensions of green areas and natural spaces. The origin of this reputation started in 1927 with the construction of parks and gardens for the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the rule of Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV1 in the state of Mysore. In less than a century, the nickname of Bangalore has become the Asian “Silicon Valley”, for the mushrooming IT -Information Technology- companies and multinational industries, inside and around the city. The first multinational corporation, Texas Instruments, was set up in Bangalore in 1985. Ever since, the city has been a hub of outsourcing by the biggest international IT companies who searched for highly educated, though inexpensive manpower, favourable governmental policies and pleasant climate. In the last decade (2001-2011), Bangalore has suffered a demographic growth of 47%, mainly due to two reasons: the new IT companies creating jobs for a third of the total 1 million IT professionals in India and the rural farmers searching for construction work in the urban areas as an alternative to the difficulties to grow their own crops. The actual population of Bangalore is estimated to be 9 million inhabitants, becoming the third most populated city in India after Delhi and Mumbai. The daily demand of water of this population is 1200 MLD -Million Litres a Day-. This demographic explosion means that during the last decade, the city has expanded 570 square kilometres more from its original 230 square kilometres, which means Bangalore has nearly quadrupled its size. Consequently, the development of municipal infrastructures has not been able to catch up with this quick urbanization. Therefore, many of the newly constructed buildings and gated communities lack the basic access to the water and sanitation pipeline systems. In addition, a big part of the population, mainly migrants from the rural areas, that could not afford a regular housing, have seen themselves forced to build their own houses in an informal manner. This has lead to the developments of new slum settlements, which face severe water shortage and sewage problems. The rapid urbanization has accentuated the social inequalities within Bangalore’s population and made access to basic resources more difficult for many.

2 Location: Bangalore

Connecting theBangalore. Drops Traffic,

The big demographic growth has provoked diverse infrastructural inefficiencies.

2.2 THE PRESENT SITUATION OF WATER 2.2.1 MUNICIPAL DISTRIBUTION & PIPELINE The municipal government agency in charge of the water infrastructure in Bangalore is the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage Board (BWSSB). The main source -about 80%- of the BWSSB water supply is the river Cauvery, known as Kaveri in Kannada2, which is situated 120 km in the south and 500m altitude below Bangalore. The other 20% are taken from the Thippagondanahalli and Hesaraghatta reservoirs of the Arkavathi river, 65 km away from Bangalore. Pumping and raising the water from such distant sources, entails a particularly high energetic consumption, which costs the municipality Rs. 5,000 million every year. Furthermore, the effort of BWSSB to transport water from such distant sources, only provides 540 MLD -Million Litres a Day- to Bangalore. This means only the 60% of the total demand. The rest of the demand is covered mainly by groundwater extraction and since recently, by rainwater harvesting systems. The decision of limiting the amount of water to 540 MLD was dictated by the Supreme Court of India, to control the retention of Cauvery river by the state of Karnataka as a temporary solution to the dispute between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Following this court decision, BWSSB started supplying this limited amount of water in a scheduled manner, covering different city sections in different days of the week. The access to this supply within the newly expanded area is mostly limited to three days a week. Thus, most of these buildings fill their tanks on the scheduled days to ensure access to water for the rest of the week. During the secondary research of this chapter I came across online forums and websites in which citizens raised their opinions about issues with Bangalore’s municipality -bangalore.citizenmatters.com, indiawaterportal.org or dnaindia.com, for example-. These sites gather several complaints about the inefficiency of the BWSSB management concerning the water supply system. Most of them write about the deficient and slow response of the BWSSB officers to the citizen’s complaints, which sometimes take weeks to be solved.

Location: Bangalore Public2Tap, India.

Thousands of people don’t get regular access to municipal water.

Connecting the Drops

The main reason for these slow procedures is, that for any infrastructural repair, several agencies are usually involved simultaneously. There are four different government departments dealing with the water management issues in Bangalore: the Mines and Geology Department, the Central Groundwater Board, the Pollution Control Board and the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage Board. Therefore, to fix a broken pipe in the road, for example, BWSSB has to obtain permission from the rest of the departments involved in the matter, in addition to the approval from the local Corporator3 and the local police office. All this paper-work delays the response causing big amounts of water being wasted or polluted through leakages and breakages of the supply system. Concerning the sewage system, 1000 MLD of waste water flow from the Bangalorean households every day and are drained through an underground piping network to the larger drains placed below the side-walks of the city. This waste water is then directed to the three main sewage treatment plants from BWSSB, distributed across the city in the areas of Mysore Road, Koramangala and Hebbal. Moreover, most of the buildings in the peripheral areas do not have access to this municipal drainage system. Thus, the Corporator or the Apartment Community Welfare Associations are forced to invest in private treatment plants. The problematic around sewage is, that the untreated waste water pollutes ground water bodies and lakes. The cause does not rely on the treatment plants themselves, which are technologically well developed and efficient, but on the UGD -Underground Drainage- pipes which are leaky and outdated. These unmonitored pipes contaminate the groundwater bodies they pass through on their way to the treatment plants. In addition, several complaints have been raised against BWSSB officials and valve-men6 for being corrupt and demanding for a bribe to turn the supply on in some areas. There are 190 regular BWSSB valve-men4 for the 28 sub-divisions covered by BWSSB, so other 180 men have been outsourced from different agencies to cover the newly added areas to BBMP. Mostly the outsourced workers are said to be the ones extorting the citizens.

2 Location: Bangalore

Collaborating with government agencies towards improving the municipal water supply and sewage system can be quite complicated due to the changing governance, opposing powers and complex bureaucratic procedures.

Design Ideas: To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the actual water supply systems, one of the first steps to be taken by BWSSB would be to simplify the action process to respond to complaints from the citizens. The communication and approachability of the government agency should be improved, to allow the participation of the citizens and their right to defend the public water system. The maintenance and updating processes should be simplified and an emergency response plan put into place, avoiding the waste of water as a priority. In order to avoid the corrupt activities of the BWSSB officers, it would be required to educate them on the bigger picture they are working for and reward them for their contribution to this bigger mission. Feeling empowered and their actions dignified would be enough satisfaction for them to stop looking on their own individual interests.

Connecting the Drops

In Addition: The Dispute About Cauvery Water The distribution of the Cauvery river water has always been disputed between the two mayor South Indian states through which the river passes, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Cauvery river has its birthplace in the region of Coorg in the state of Karnataka and crosses the subcontinent from the Western coast of the Arabian sea to the Eastern coast, where the Cauvery Delta merges with the Gulf of Bengal. During its 800 km trajectory across the two states, Cauvery has 32000 square kilometres of basin area in Karnataka, and 44000 square kilometres in Tamil Nadu. The controversy on the distribution of water between both states started already in the 19th century between the Madras Presidency -now Tamil Nadu- which was still under the British rule, and the Princely State of Mysore -now Karnataka- which had gone back to be ruled by the dynasty of the Mysore Kings. The big Indian Famine in 1943, which is estimated to have killed around 4 million people from the 60 million Bengali population. To avoid similar situations in the future, the state of Mysore suggested a plan to revive the irrigation plan that was opposed by the Madras Presidency because it would mean less water reaching the Tamil state. After long discussions, the first agreement was signed in 1892. Even after that, the state of Mysore claimed being assigned less than what should be the proportional share due to the state. This agreement did not last long because in 1910, Mysore constructed a dam in Kannambadi district, to retain 11000 million cubic litres. After Independence, the South Indian territory was reorganized into the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondycherry -which had been part of the French colony- and the dispute around Cauvery water continued in an inter-state level. Several other actions of Karnataka holding the Cauvery river through dams muddied the relationships and worsened the situation with its neighbouring states during the 70â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and 80â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

Pro-Karnataka Demonstration, Bangalore. 2 Location: Bangalore

Farmers from Karnataka demonstrate against the Connecting the Drops distribution of Cauvery water between the two states.

Finally, in 1991 an extraordinary tribunal dictated the following temporary measures:

Firstly, the amount of water that had to be released by Karnataka into Tamil Nadu was specified on a monthly base, with a total of 5.8 cubic kilometres of water per year. Thus, the water supply to Bangalore is limited to 560 MLD.

Secondly, Karnataka was banned from increasing its irrigated farmland area more than the existing 4,500 square kilometres.

This sentence led to violent demonstrations in different points of both states, specially provoked by farmers from Karnataka. These revolts continued intermittently throughout the years, becoming stronger in the years when the monsoons failed. In 2011, the situation aggravated when the Madras Institute of Development Studies released a report about the quality of the Cauvery water reaching Tamil Nadu. The report claimed that this water was being highly polluted due to the industrial over-exploitation when passing through Bangalore.

In front of the rural mobilizations around Cauvery water, the urban population shows an attitude of unrelated feeling and fear to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;outsidersâ&#x20AC;?. This only emphasizes the social disparities and inter-community alienation of this rapidly growing urban agglomeration. Design Ideas: Therefore, finding a common interest point to create a union link between the now segregated communities is vital. Thus, the different actors can be enabled to empathize between each other and take a socially responsible behaviour.

After my arrival in Bangalore in September 2012, I had barely been one month in the city when I started my first research on the behaviour of people around this topic. On 19th September, Karnataka had been told to release 9000 cubic litres every day to Tamil Nadu to face the lack of monsoon. As a response to this measure, a state-strike was called and thousands of farmers came from the rural areas to Bangalore to demonstrate their anger and disagreement. The response of most of the urban population to this situation, among which I include my colleagues from the design agency I was interning in, was to follow the strike partly because they agreed with the cause, but mainly fearing the persecution of the pro-Kannada radical movement if they went to work. Most of my colleagues even advised not stepping out of the house under any circumstances in case the situation became violent in the streets.

2 Location: Bangalore

Connecting the Drops

2.2.2 GROUNDWATER TABLE While the BWSSB municipal agency is being unable to supply the totality of the demand of water in Bangalore, and is currently providing only the 60% of it through the Cauvery pipeline, 40% of the citizens are forced to depend on groundwater to meet their daily water requirements. According to the study “Status of groundwater quality in Bangalore and its environs” developed by Dr. M. Basappa Reddy for the Mines and Geology Department of Bangalore in 2003, the quality of groundwater has degraded significantly in the last few years of the expansion of the city. According to this study, the availability of groundwater bodies is limited in Bangalore due to the geological pattern of the area, which has wide areas of underlying rock formations. This formations are mainly granite originated, a material with not enough porosity to allow water storage. For this reason, most of the groundwater is stored in the outer layers, between 100 and 200m under the surface. Going deeper than this, the holding capacity falls down to only 1%. Thus, the recharge of groundwater bodies is mainly done by rainfall filtration through the surface of earth. With the new urbanization patterns in Bangalore, where most of the constructed areas are being covered with concrete and pavements, there is little open-earth area left for rainwater to flow to the inner layers. This is causing a big imbalance between the discharge and recharge. The exploitation of these bodies are two times higher than sustainable levels. This derives in a depletion of the groundwater tables and in some cases leads to total drying of the storage. According to the same study, the proliferation of private bore-wells in respond to the increasing water need and limitations of the municipal water supply, is exponentially increasing. In the year between 2009-2010, 14,483 new bore-wells were dug only in the “Core Area”5 of Bangalore. Assuming that the well-drilling in the newly expanded areas must be the same or even higher in number than in the “Core Area” -since these areas have limited access to pipeline-, there are estimated 225,000 bore-wells in Bangalore. In the same study, 2,209 bore-well water samples were analysed from random points across the city. This analysis concluded that 31% of the samples where polluted into levels much higher than the permissible for drinking standards. The main contaminant elements found in the samples were:

2 Location: Bangalore

Public tap from borewell, Connecting theBangalore. Drops

The city is full of bore-wells that are dug to extract the groundwater.

Nitrate, an element that in excess, affects the capacity of red blood cells to transport oxygen.

Fluoride, which affects the bones, leading to fractures and teeth problems.

Heavy Metals -Zinc, Manganese and Chromium- which affect the kidneys and the nervous system. Particularly the Chromium causes chronic skin irritations mainly in the upper extremities.

All of these elements cause especially damaging health effects in babies and children. These contaminants supposedly originate from industrial waste water -since the water bodies around industrial are the most polluted with heavy metals- and untreated sewage. In addition, the low water table entails the inability of these elements getting dissolved, thus appearing in big concentrations and increasing their negative effects in health.

The climatic and geographic conditions of Bangalore make the city highly dependent on groundwater bodies. This dependency continues increasing in the short-middle term, until other alternatives, such as rainwater harvesting, become popular and scale up. An urban plan which ensures the replenishment of the groundwater tables is highly required.

Design Ideas: Public spaces, should be redesigned in a way that the pavements ensure the filtration of rainfall through them. This could be explored by analysing different filtration materials -as an alternative to concrete cement- and structural holey-patterns. The recharge of groundwater should be reinforced and the extraction limited. BWSSB should monitor the bore-well drilling and colour code them according to the pollution level to display the recommended use and limit negative health impacts. The underground sewage pipelines should also be updated to avoid the pollution of the groundwater bodies with waste water leakages. The pipelines should be designed in a way that even if the leakage happens, the damaging impact of it is somehow limited and not hazardous.

Map of polluted groundwater in Bangalore. The blue areas point the acquifers with polluted water.

2 Location: Bangalore

Connecting the Drops

In Addition: The HoneySuckers BWSSB is not only failing to provide a piped municipal water supply, but even sewage connections are missing in the new construction areas. As an alternative, many Bangaloreans are digging their own septic pits which then need to be emptied by people known as Honeysuckers. The short documentary film “Honeysucker” by Gautam Vishwanath6, narrates the life and system around these individuals, gathering the testimony of a Honeysucker called Chandru. “If a septic pit in a house is blocked, I remove the dirt. If a pipe is blocked, I have to break it and change it. If a septic tank is full, I remove everything and put it in a vehicle” relates Chandru, whose living is based on immersing himself in septic pits that store the defecation and waste water of individual housing. The short film relates the difficulty of this way of making a living. Chandru, for example, admits drinking big quantities of alcohol to be able to handle the smell while his mother tells with disgust the impossibility to stand the sight of his son working inside a pit. The documentary also tracks the destination of this waste water originated in the septic pits, which is used to manure vegetable and fruit plantations in the surroundings of Bangalore. The tanker trucks bring the waste water into the fields and release it, simultaneously watering and manuring the plants. “We are allowing this waste water in our banana fields, if we see a negative effect we will stop and then give only pure water to the plants” tells a banana-field owner who applies this manuring system in his fields in the outskirts of Bangalore. In the same locality where these banana-fields are manured with septic waste water, the river Kengeri brings its waters covered with detergent-like foam, directly to the natural environment. This is an example of the deficient control on the treatment of waste water

2 Location: Bangalore

Honeysucker Truck emptying load, Bangalore. The waste water collected from the septic pits is used Connecting Drops to manure and water farmland.

2.2.3 WATER BODIES & LAKES In the 16th century, Kempe Gowda I, the ruler of Karnataka under the Vijayanagara Empire7 and known as the founder of modern Bangalore, constructed several lakes to respond to the water requirements of the newly constituted city. These man-made lakes and tanks covered the main drinking and irrigation necessities and were also used for fishing. These multiple artificial water bodies favourably influenced the climate of the city by reducing the overall temperatures and creating the pleasant weather characteristic from Bangalore. The lakes would also help to replenish the groundwater storage. Until 1895, the four main lakes Dharmambudhi, Sankey, Millers, and Ulsoor were the main source of the municipal water supply in Bangalore. The water would be distributed directly from the lakes without any need to treat it since it was naturally pure. When the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population started to grow at the beginning of the 20th century, the source of the water supply was shifted to the two bigger reservoirs of the Arkavathi river: Thippagondanahalli and Hesaraghatta. Finally, following the Indian Rivers Inter-link project in the 1970s, the water supply scheme was modified to pump water from Cauvery river. In the 1960s, Bangalore counted 280 waterbodies, such as tanks and lakes. 20 years ago there where less than 80 and nowadays there are only 17 healthy lakes. The disappearance of the lakes has its resons in the construction of new infrastructure and the urban expansion. From those original 280 waterbodies, 18 have been encroached without authorization for the construction of slums and private buildings, 14 have been leased by the Government for construction after having dried up and 28 have been distributed by the authorities to build extensions of residential areas. The remaining lakes are deteriorating fast, with 7 of them reduced to small pools and other 7 unable to be tracked back. As a consequence, the water of most of the lakes in Bangalore is supposed to be toxic for the extremely low amount of dissolved oxygen in it. The maintenance of most of the lakes has been delegated into public-private contracts, with the connotations that this brings on the quality of water and the decision making around them.

2 Location: Bangalore

Sewage and Garbage, ISRO lake.

Bangalorean lakes are clogged withConnecting garbage andthe waste water that Drops damage the local environment.

The main impacts of the disappearance of lakes are:

The climate of the city is changing: the temperatures are progressively rising and the precipitations throughout the year diminish, increasing the dependence on the monsoons.

The new constructions built in lands taken from lakes tend to get flooded and the impact on the life quality of their inhabitants is negatively affected.

Flora and the fauna are endangered and the migratory birds avoid Bangalore as a destination, affecting the biodiversity of the area.

Water-dependent occupations such as fishermen or washer-men8 often lose their ways of subsistence.

In addition, the deficiency of the drainage system of the city derives on storm-water going in to the drains where it gets mixed with sewage water. Sometimes it overflows, polluting bigger bodies like lakes and filling their bottoms with contaminated sludge. Recently, several groups of citizens have begun to come together to revive the lakes of the city. These neighbour associations approach BBMP to convince them to take action into the revival of water bodies and even collaborate directly in the restoration works. Mr. Johan Enqvist, who is currently doing his PhD in urban ecosystem management in Bangalore, introduced me to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Save Bangalore Lakesâ&#x20AC;? Google Group, an online forum initiated by Save Bangalore Lakes Trust to virtually gather citizens, associations and NGOs interested in the social activism around revival of lakes. The forum updates regularly with articles, studies, open conversations, workshops and social appeals. It is an effective tool to keep citizens interested and proactive on the topic.

Puttenahalli Lake revived, Bangalore.

Several citizen associations are working towards the revival of the city lakes.

These initiatives from the citizens have to be encouraged and rewarded. The importance of preserving healthy lakes has to be reinforced, as a sign of the development and well-being of the city. The whole water supply and groundwater systems are unseen so the lakes become the only visual representation of the hydrological system of the city. They are key elements in communicating environmental care and a mirror of the situation around water in Bangalore. If people gain awareness and engages in the works around the lakes, they will eventually be involved in the bigger picture around the whole water system.

2 Location: Bangalore

Connecting the Drops

In Addition: The Ganesha Festival Every year in the month of September, Bangalore prepares for one of the most important festivities in the Hindu religion, the Ganesha Festival or Ganesha Chaturthi. This event celebrates the day of Ganeshaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s birthday, the Elephant God, son of Lord Shiva and Parvati. The legend tells the story of Parvati who created Ganesha to be her loyal son. One day, when his mother was preparing for a bath, Ganesha was ordered to guard the door. During this time Lord Shiva tried to enter his own house. Being loyal to his mother, Ganesha refused to let Shiva in and on being treated like this, Shiva was enraged. He then beheaded the boy in his anger. Parvati, on finding out that Shiva had killed her loyal son, was infuriated. She then threatened to destroy the whole existence if Shiva did not bring an animal head one of which when alive was facing north. Shiva then found an elephant and brought back its head to place it in the body of the boy, creating Ganesha the elephant god. This birthday is celebrated by Ganesha Chaturthi.

Pottery Village, outskirts of Bangalore.

The Ganesha idols are sold in the roadsides by the potters .

The main characteristic of this festivity is that each Hindu individual, family or community buy a clay idol of Ganesha which can vary in sizes. Then they keep the idol home or in a communitarian space for several days -the number of days has to be an odd number until 11 days-. After this period, once the idols have purified and protected the house, they are brought to lakes, ponds or rivers and immersed in water to dissolve and return back to Earth. This close cycle is meant to represent the creation and dissolution in Nature. Lately, the new idols are being produced with plaster of Paris because it is easier to mass produce and apply colour on this material. They also happen to be lighter and cheaper than the original clay statues. Besides, these idols are being painted with chemical fluorescent and glittery spray-paints. This new commercial idols are highly environmentally damaging: the plaster is non-biodegradable and insoluble in water and the spray-paint contains heavy metals, like mercury and cadmium, which cause high levels of water-pollution. These environmental threats are repeated every year and are being addressed in several ways:

Going back to the traditional clay models which are easy to dissolve and degrade back into Nature.

Using a permanent idol made out of stone to reuse yearly in a symbolic manner.

2 Location: Bangalore

Pottery Village, outskirts of Bangalore. Connecting the Drops

The paints used to decorate the idols are highly toxic.

Rescuing the plaster idols from the water bodies, cleaning them and repainting them to be reused next year.

Banning the immersion of non-clay idols in lakes, rivers and open water bodies. This measure has been enforced in the state of Goa.

Introducing new biodegradable materials in the idol production, such as paper.

In Bangalore, the major immersion point is at Ulsoor lake. The municipality has built a pool next to the lake for the immersion of the idols during the pujas.9 This solution is meant to avoid polluting the totality of the lake by segregating the immersion area from the rest. The problem of this temporary solution is that the risk is high that the polluted water is leaking into the bigger body. In addition, this solution does not create an awareness of people about the inappropriateness of their action and does not lead to a change in behaviour.

Girgaum Chowpatty beach, Mumbai. 2 Location: Bangalore

The idols are immersed in water during the puja.

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2.3 THE WATER MARKET 2.3.1 THE LEGAL MARKET The water supplied through the BWSSB pipeline is hard-water and is not meant to be used for drinking purposes directly from the tap. Even the water extracted from bore-wells and wells needs some kind of treatment before becoming potable. For this reason, the market of drinkable water has grown strong, having two different fields within it: the canned drinking water, which people purchase and consume in a weekly basis and the Aqua-guards which filtrate the water directly from the tap.

Bottled Mineral Water

The shortage of safe drinkable water in the last years in India has lead to new market opportunities for the bottled water industry. Furthermore, the growing population of the country and the deficient urban water infrastructures only point to a growing tendency of this market. By definition, bottled water is water that has been treated to make it potable and has been packaged in plastic or glass containers to be sold in the market. According to the market research â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bottled Water Market in Indiaâ&#x20AC;? developed by Market Research Reports in September 2013, the bottled water industry is one of the most flourishing markets on the subcontinent. In the last 20 years, the number of new licenses for water bottling companies has increased and the market has achieved the significant size of 80,000 million rupees, with a growth rate of 20% per year in India. The small water bottles of less than 500ml have biggest growth rate of 140% in the last two decades on this market. The 20l bulk water containers attached to a dispenser have also been widely accepted as a constant drinking water supply in houses and offices.

20l bulk water can and dispenser.

Thousands of Bangaloreans purchase bulk mineral water for drinking pusposes.

tional companies have injected advanced technological solutions in the industry, with new purification methods and more effective bottling units. According to this market study, the two main problems of this industry in India are: the intrusion of fake products with similar branding hindering the value of the original brands, and the low ability to penetrate the rural market. In order to regulate the intrusion of fake water brands in the market in which the origin and quality of water are not verified, the Bureau of Indian Standards formulated two denominations ensuring the quality of the packaged water: the IS 14543:2004 Packaged Drinking Water and the IS 13428:2005 Packaged Natural Mineral Water. Thus, to obtain a water bottling license for the Indian market, the companies must pass several quality tests..

This growing market has called the attention of major multinational private companies, such as Coca-Cola, Danone Narang Beverages, PepsiCo, Eureka Forbes, Aqua Plus, Amust Water, Parle Agro, Mount Everest, Bisleri and others. These multina-

2 Location: Bangalore

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In Addition: The Bisleri Commitment The leading brand of bottled water in India is Bisleri International, way ahead of its nearest competitor Kinley from Coca Cola. Bisleri has built trust and loyalty within its users mainly by placing itself in the commitment market space. The market strategy followed by Bisleri has been based in Social Marketing13, selling the commitment of the brand with a social cause, here using the claim for a sustainable water cycle. As part of this Social Marketing campaign, Bisleri has developed a wide range of communication elements, from their website to the packaging of their products, transmitting clearly the brand as a mission towards water equity and sustainability. The vision that Bisleri displays in its website is â&#x20AC;&#x153;An India in which every person has uninterrupted access to scientifically purified and fortified drinking water, irrespective of geographical barriers or economic limitationsâ&#x20AC;?. For this cause, they have launched the Aqua Green Revolution movement, based on the values of Trust -in every single individual who interacts with the brand-, Innovation -approaching it as a must-, Transparency -in the smaller goals to achieve a larger objective- and Commitment -sowing it in every step of the movement-. To achieve this goal, Bisleri has built the Jayanti Lal Chauhan Trust, which works in replenishing groundwater and harvesting rainwater. Through this trust, Bisleri claims to harvest 10 billion litres of rainwater a year. This way, they compensate the water extraction they do for the drinking water bottling business. This move on balancing their discharge with water-charging initiatives has gained the confidence of the Indian population and converted it in the reference brand within this market.

2 Location: Bangalore

BisleriConnecting bottled mineral the Dropswater.

Bisleriâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s advertising strategy focuses on the environmental engagement.

The Social Marketing initiatives like the Aqua Green revolution by Bisleri are very effective social appeals, specially in the urban population that show awareness but not excessive involvement. This segment of the population is willing to make a positive and socially responsible choice if it does not require much time and effort from their side. A big part of the population agrees to pay more than double the price of the municipal tap water for this product that gathers quality, taste, comfort and social responsibility.

Aquaguards

The Aquaguards are the most extensively used solution for obtaining drinkable water in households and small businesses in India. These systems, also known as Water Purifiers, are based on filtering or treating the tap-water to make it potable. The techniques used for this purification process can be very different: The first Aquaguard systems mainly worked on slow sand filtration in which water was passed through different layers of sand of different grain sizes. Consequently, most of the contaminants -algae, viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites and particlesremain in the filter, obtaining clear water for drinkable purposes. Later, this filtration was developed by more sophisticated solutions such as:

Activated carbon: using chemical absorption to remove the contaminants. Metallic alloy filters: based on a single solid phase micro-structure. Micro-porous ceramic filters: relying in the small pore size of the ceramic material to filter the contaminants. Cloth filters: filtering the contaminants through the porosity of the fabric. Micro-filtration and Ultra-filtration membranes: depending on the size of microscopic molecules they retain.

Afterwards, several techniques other than filtration have been introduced for water purification systems: Water chlorination, which works in adding disinfectant chemicals to the water to kill the existing pathogens. It also provides some residual dose of chemical disinfectant to kill or inactivate micro-organisms that may pollute the water in later stages of storage. UV disinfection, which kills the bacteria and viruses on the water by exposure to UV light radiation. The only disadvantage is that it does not leave any residual protection or disinfectant so it has to be consumed immediately. Reversed osmosis, where pressure is applied in the water to pass through a semi-permeable membrane avoiding any solute passing through it. This purification systems, or commonly known Aquaguards, are the most selected solution for drinking water within the well-off society, for being a one time investment, having good maintenance services -mostly being serviced every six months- and being comfortable and easily accessible -no need to buy water cans in a weekly basis-.

2 Location: Bangalore

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Anyway, according to the chief chemist MN Shashirekha of the study “Urban Groundwater Hydrology and Groundwater Quality in and around Bangalore City”, the Reverse Osmosis and Ultra-filtration based systems soften the water in excess, removing all the minerals. According to her studies, “hard water” with high rate of contaminants might be bad for the kidney, but “soft water” with no minerals at all, may cause hypertension and heart attacks. For this reason, MN Shashirekha proposes rain water as the most reliable water composition, with the naturally adequate amount of minerals in it. As a matter of fact, rainwater is resultant of the most effective purification process carried out by the clouds in the hydrological cycle.

Kent aqua-guard with UV light purification. 2 Location: Bangalore

Aquaguards are used to purify tap water and make it potable.

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In Addition: Low Cost Water Purification For underprivileged people that have no access to sophisticated water purification systems such as the Aquaguards, different low-cost systems have been developed to ensure their access to drinkable water. SODIS, more known as solar disinfection, is an inexpensive disinfection system developed in the 1990s by the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology. The solar disinfection technique is based on filling reused plastic soda bottles with low turbidity water. The bottles are then shaked to oxygenate the water and then placed outdoors. The exposure to the sunlight will eliminate the bacteria and pathogens that origin diseases. The elimination process happens thank to the combination of three phenomenons: DNA alterations by UV light radiation, thermal reaction and photo-oxidation. The duration of the exposure to sunlight may vary depending on the weather, from 6 hours in a sunny day to 2 days if the sky is cloudy.

Solar Water Disinfection.

The water inside the bottles gets disinfected through the exposure to UV light.

The Life Sack developed by Korean designers Jung Uk Park, Myeong Hoon Lee and Dae Youl Lee, is based on the same solar disinfection technology. Used firstly as grain sacks to distribute food, the sack has a second life as a water purifier. The sack has straps to ease the transportation from the water source to the community. Potters for Peace, designed a low-cost system based on ceramic filtration in which a clay flowerpot works as the filter. This has a capacity for 10 litres and is placed inside a plastic or ceramic container where the clean water is stored. The ceramic flowerpot filters 1 to 3 litres of water per hour. The ceramic filtration shows high rate of effectiveness removing the biggest bacterial organisms but lower success with viruses. Eliodomestico is an open source project developed by the Italian designer Gabriele Diamanti. Made by terracotta, recycled plastic and anodised zinc, the device uses the heat of the sun rays to boil the water. The steam then is transferred to a second chamber where it condenses in form of clear drinkable water. This system is also used to distil saline water.

2 Location: Bangalore

Ceramic filtration.

A clay flowerpot is used as filter for bacteria.

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Eliodomestico.

Uses the evaporation process to purify water.

There is a whole wide range of purification and filtration technologies to make water potable.

2.3.2 THE ILLEGAL MARKET: THE WATER MAFIA

Design Ideas: These technologies could be implemented in order to ensure the highest quality of water within the rainwater harvesting systems.

The growing water market has called the attention of many individuals and businesses willing to take profit of the growing need of this resource.

The Aquaguards are effective to avoid people drinking contaminated water. However, the initial investment during the purchase and the servicing costs required periodically, make it unaffordable for a wide section of the population. Design Ideas: Moreover, the present systems show several points which could be improved such as the optimization of waste water and energetic consumption during the process. The level of filtration should also be controlled to avoid the water losing its mineral richness and health benefits.

According to an article by the journalist Saritha Ray in indianexpress.com the so called “Water Mafia” is controlling the water supply of many communities and small households within Bangalore. Mostly controlled by tanker operators and backed by some local politicians or Corporators, the private water supply touches the extortion and manipulation in many cases. In her writing, Saritha Ray explains the procedure of this mafia: first, a municipal water supply is reduced or the connection never reached the new building. Then, the habitants of these buildings are approached by the tankers to supply water, acquiring the monopoly over the pricing and supply schedule in the building. Most commonly, the water is extracted from an underground water body on the neighbourhood and then sold to the residents in that same area in high prices. The tankers rely on bore-wells located anywhere, making profit from water extracted even from burial grounds such as in Panathir Road. The guarantee on the quality or origin of the water becomes impossible to be tracked back by the customers. From the 25,000 tankers estimated to be working within the city, 80 private tankers are legally registered. Aware of this situation, the BWSSB chairman, S Suresh Kumar, said “It is high time the private water tankers are brought under control. It is the responsibility of BBMP to check the rates charged by the private water tankers and the quality of water supplied to residents of the city. Directions have been issued to BBMP officials to initiate action against water tankers that do not follow the guidelines.” In response to this decision, S R Dinesh, tanker operator owner of Punyakoti Water Supply, answered “We have formed an association of 300 water tanker owners and if BBMP tries to harass us, we will stop supplying water and go on a strike. It is not possible to do what they want”. This act of openly blackmailing to the government agency shows the impunity with which the water mafia acts in the city. Furthermore, these water suppliers not only sell water through tanks to communities and particular houses, they also bottle this water from uncertain origin and quality and sell it faking the multinational brands.

2 Location: Bangalore

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Women queue to get water from the tanker. 2 Location: Bangalore

Thousands of Bangaloreans depend on the tankers who extort the most needed citizens.

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According to Mr. Prashant Aaradhya, president of the Karnataka Packaged Drinking Water Manufacturers Association, in 2012 there were around 4000 unlicensed water packaging units against 216 certified ones in Karnataka. He also claims that maintaining the BIS denomination requires 10 times more investment than compared to an illegal unit due to the lab tests and trained staff required to obtain the certification and the requirement to pay taxes. The local authorities have done several raids where bottling units have been shut down, often placed in private garages or other businesses. But these illegal bottling units continue mushrooming in the city, while citizens are unable to distinguish them from the certified brands.

The presence of the “Water Mafia” constitutes a strong opposing power to any effort to democratise water. The Mafia has most influence in the most underprivileged social segments. These people have limited influential power, remaining condemned to accept the extorting measures of the Mafia. Under the protection of the corrupt local politicians, these organizations can develop their immoral activities with total impunity.

References 1

His Highness Maharaja Sri Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV ruled the state of Mysore from

1902 to his death in 1940. He was one of the most celebrated Indian ruler under the British colonialism. 2

Kannada is the local language of the state of Karnataka, South India.

The “Corporators” are the elected representatives of the city council that take care

of the civic and infrastructural assets of the different localities within the city. 4

Public workers assigned by BWSSB to open and close water supply

pipeline connections. 5

The Core Area responds to the area within the limits of old Bangalore, according

to the original municipality plans. 6

Gautam Vishwanath is son of the rainwater harvesting activist Mr. S Vishwanath,

mentor of this Master Thesis. 7

Vijayanagar Empire, also known as Karnata Empire, extended all over the Deccan

Plateau in South India from 1336 to 1646. 8

The washer-men usually work in a field next to a lake or water body and people

pay them for washing and watching out their clothes while they dry in hang in the field. 9

Water2 tanker Location:sponsored Bangalore by local politician.

Politicians sponsor free water tankers as part of their election campaigns.

Puja is the Indian denomination for the act of worship in Hinduism.

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2 Location: Bangalore

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Why is RWH not being yet a successful solution? In 2009, the Karnataka Gazette Extra-ordinary first published the BWSSB Act Amendment making rainwater harvesting mandatory in Bangalore. Since then, several initiatives have started to promote rainwater harvesting as a possible and efficient solution for the water crisis of the city. Now, when 2013 is coming to its end, there has not been any significant respond to this solution from the majority of the population. The water situation continues to aggravate without embracing the capturing of rain as a free source of clean water. The objective of this chapter is to understand the law and initiatives given in Bangalore around RWH and to see where it has failed as a solution. We will also learn more about the modern rainwater harvesting systems, both globally and in the Indian market, to see how this systems could be redesigned in order to make them more appealing to the general public. The research methods applied during this chapter about the rainwater harvesting have been mainly based on the Content analysis of the following secondary sources: Newspaper Reports and Editorials Government documents, including archives and regulations/amendments/ guidelines/ordinances Opinions and editorials on websites and internet forums Blog and online social forums Advertising and Publicity records Also, as explained later in this chapter, the research around rainwater harvesting systems in Bangalore has been completed through an on-ground research carried out in “Sir. M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park” in Jayanagar, South of Bangalore.

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BWSSB Amendment to introduce section 72A.

The section 72A makes rainwater harvesting systems installation compulsory.

3.1 RWH MANDATORY: BWSSB ACT In the Extra-ordinary publication of the Karnataka Gazette in the 27th of May of 2009, BWSSB published the insertion of the new 72A section in the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage Act from 1964, making rainwater harvesting mandatory in the city of Bangalore. The amendment of the BWSSB Act dictates: “72A-Obligation to provide rain water harvesting structure.- Every owner or occupier of a building having a site area of not less than 2400 square feet or every owner who propose to construct a building on a site area of not less than 1200 square feet shall provide rain water harvesting structure for storage for use or for ground water recharge (...)” 10

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3.1.1 REGULATIONS This law that makes rainwater harvesting mandatory also provides several regulations to be followed in the design and construction of the structures: Concerning the roof based rainwater harvesting, water collected from sloped/tiled and flat/concrete roofs using drainage gutters and pipe lines must be filtered and disinfected before being stored in a collection tank. The reason is that rainwater, which is pure and clear when it falls, may get polluted when entering in contact with the rooftop surface. According to this regulation, this harvested water must be used for non potable purposes unless the user treats it under the IS-10500 standards before consuming it for drinking. The surplus water of these structures must be diverted to an open well or any other groundwater recharge structure. The capacity of the storage structure in the roof must be of 20l per m2 of rooftop area. On the other hand, in the land based rainwater harvesting, the collection must be done using an adequate recharge structure or pit, which will depend on the soil conditions. The capacity of the ground storage structure must be of 10l per m2 of the land surface. Groundwater can be replenished in two ways: through open wells, where filtration and disinfection methods have to be applied before returning water to the nature, and through bore-wells, where water must be filtered, stored and stabilized in a sedimentation tank before going back to the bore-well to be later used for household activities.

BWSSB â&#x20AC;&#x153;Safe water, safe Bangaloreâ&#x20AC;? campaign.

Even though it has been displayed in billboards, this campaign has failed to rise awareness between the Bangaloreans.

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3.1.2 GUIDELINES For a better understanding of rainwater harvesting and to encourage the population to adopt it, the amendment document also contains certain guidelines in order to educate and advice people on how to install these structures. In these guidelines, the reader can learn about the different components of the catchment system -gutters, down-pipes, first-flush system...-, the alternatives on filtering units, the diversity on storage tanks and the process to calculate the appropriate storage capacity. In order to convince the readers on the adoption of rainwater harvesting, several benefits derived from this practice are listed:

The water is free except for the expenses for the collection. Rainwater has nearly neutral pH and is free from contaminants.

The harvested water is available where it is required without distribution cost.

Provides a fresh water source where groundwater is poor and can be used to recharge the aquifer.

The zero hardness of rainwater helps prevent oxidation in the appliances and extends their working life. Also eliminates the need for a water softener for drinking purposes.

Is sodium-free and good for people with low-sodium diets.

The collection reduces flow to storm water drains reducing urban flooding and the pollution of surface and groundwater.

Helps to manage the water scarcity in summer season through groundwater banking.

Reduces the water bill.

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3.1.3 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LAW The first deadline date for all the buildings within the stipulated conditions to install rainwater harvesting structures was the 27th of August 2009. Seeing the slow response of the population to adopt the mandate, the date has been shifted several times, being the last one in August 2013. In order to push people to adopt the measure, BWSSB published in July 2011 a notification about the municipal water supply being disconnected to all those buildings that failed to provide the rainwater harvesting structures. This would happen within 30 days from the publication of the notification. Within 15 days of the enforcement of this measure, BWSSB received 8,000 letters applying to postpone implementation of this law. Anyway, this punitive measure has never been brought into reality by BWSSB. They claim that cutting water supply would only make people rely on the private tankers and cutting the sanitary connection may lead to more contamination of water. According to an interview to Mr. S. Vishwanath as part of the on-ground research of this chapter, who is a Bangalore based rainwater harvesting consultant and the mentor or this Masters thesis: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The pilot project for this law that makes rainwater harvesting mandatory contemplated the implementation in 55000 private properties and also every institutional and industrial building. So far, it has been implemented in around 46000 of such private properties (90%).â&#x20AC;? On the contrary, according to the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (KSCST), out of 1,600,000 properties in Bangalore, only those 55,000 properties have installed the RWH system immediately after it became mandatory. This means only the 3% of the properties in Bangalore. Now, the movement is losing strength and being ignored by the rest of the citizens. According to an article of The New Indian Express11, this declining trend on the installation of RWH, is mainly due to the lack of severity of BWSSB enforcing the sanctions and allowing several deadline extensions. In addition, the figures provided by BWSSB on the numbers of rainwater harvesting systems installed are based on the construction plans presented by the citizens or the constructors in BWSSB to obtain the permission of construction. The problem is that the installations have not been fully monitored, just some erratic inspection for 5% of the households have been done. In several cases, especially in the new construction sites, the systems have not been materialized from the plans to the reality. The reason Connecting the Drops

3.2 RHW THEME PARK

for this is mainly that is constitutes an additional cost and effort from the owner or constructor. Furthermore, the government is failing on giving example to the society, with only 82 of the 2,523 government buildings in the city had installed RWH systems by 2012.

The fact of making RWH legally mandatory shows a political commitment from the Bangalorean governance. Unfortunately, the implementation of the law is failing mainly due to the unawareness of the population about the measure. The initiatives around RWH have been unsuccessfully communicated, being treated as an imposition more than a beneficial measure. People have been told that they must harvest rain, but very little emphasize has been done on how this practice can work for the citizens’ own interests. If BWSSB does not threaten people directly, they purposely ignore the law and continue with their old water habits. The RWH systems as they are designed in the present, attract very little interest from the population and happen to be inconvenient and overpriced in the eyes of the Bangaloreans. The challenge lies in how to make RWH systems so attractive that people embraces it willingly without the need of any mandate behind it.

As part of my on-ground research, I visited “Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park” in Jayanagar, South of Bangalore. During my visit, I could analyse the communication system carried out by BWSSB to educate and convince the Bangalore’s population around RWH. The theme park is composed by three main parts:

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The Landscape is an outdoor area where 26 different RWH models are showcased to understand the different manners of harvesting, filtering and storing rain water. The different models vary depending on the requirements of the building and the local climate. Between this models we can find several levels of sophistication: from the simple water collection in a clay vessel by filtering it through a cotton sari, to the most technologically advanced 5 stage filtration self-cleaning and self-maintained system. The ground of this outdoor area is covered by Pervious Paver, a pavement designed with holes to allow storm-water to filtrate through the soil and recharge groundwater. The Landscape area also has an amphitheatre for cultural happenings, such as theatre plays related to water. The Gallery is an exposition divided in three sections: The Water Gallery, where different models present the usage of water that people do in everyday life and also through industry/agriculture. The Sewage Gallery, which explains sewage solutions and ways to reuse waste water in home-appliances. The Central Gallery, where the hydrological cycle and the natural local water resources are explained and viewed through a photographic gallery. The Auditorium is a hall with the capacity of 72 seats in which the training programmes on RWH are carried out for architects, civil constructors, engineers and plumbers. 2,000 people have taken part in the one day free training program so far, after which a certificate is issued. This certificate is now compulsory to get a plumber license and to get the architectural plans approved. The Auditorium is also used for film projections are also done for school children visits about RWH and water conservation tips.

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Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park. Connecting the Drops 26 different real RWH models are displayed in the Theme Park.

Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park. 26 different real RWH models are displayed in the Theme Park.

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The “Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park” is being designed in a way that mainly works as a technical exhibition space where people interested in the practice of collecting rainfall can see the variety of technological options in the market and receive free advice.

Bhargavi, guide and consultant in the RWH Theme Park.

The Theme Park offers free advise to any interested in the installation of RWH.

In the interview taken during my fieldwork research to Bhargavi, a guide and consultant in the theme park, she explained that the most common audience in the park are children coming in school trips. According to her records, there is an average of 5 schools per month visiting the park, translated in about 3,200 students in a monthly basis. She also explained that the theme park was created after the 2009 law making RWH mandatory, to have a space to provide free information and advice in order to build awareness and promote the installation of RWH systems. The main problem of the theme park according to her, is the poor communication done around it and the lack of awareness of the existence of the park. Is a space of engineers giving information, ideas, interaction and advice that falls in the ignorance for not being well communicated or advertised.

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Ironically, the major audience that the park receives is composed by school children. Most of the communication elements of the park, such as the brochures and posters, are not adapted to the visual language required to approach the young public. The way it is exposed in the park, RWH looks technical and sober, making it difficult to attract and rise the awareness of the children. The adult public that could be more keen on receiving such level of communication do not visit the park, simply because they are unaware of its existence, due to the deficient advertising done around it. Design Ideas: If the space is named theme park, the public expects a joyful and exciting experience. Through positive emotional sensations, the learnings are naturally absorbed and the attitude build around the topic becomes more proactive. Thus, the “Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park” should be redesigned to expose RWH in this attractive and exciting manner.

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3.3 RWH SYSTEMS

Catchment Area

Gutter

3.3.1 RWH IN THE INDIAN MARKET

Down Pipe

The RWH structures available in the Indian market are very functional, designed in order to improve the efficiency and capacity of the system. These RWH systems are formed with the following basic components:

Catchment surface: The surface from which the rainfall runs off and is collected, normally the roof of the building or an open ground area. In case of the roofs, this can be of two types: Sloping roofs, in which the collection happens by attaching pipes in the edges to which the water flows gravitationally. Flat roofs, in which the pipes are fixed in the surrounding wall to drain the overflow of accumulated rainfall.

Gutters: Half pipes installed horizontally to collect the water in the periphery of the roof. The gutters are placed with slope towards the down-pipe to conduct the flow of water. Most commonly done in PVC, they can also be produced in metal or in local materials such as bamboo.

Down-pipes: Pipes that carry out the water from the gutters around the roof to the filter unit of the storage tank. These pipes are usually made out of PVC.

First-flush system: Is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tâ&#x20AC;? shaped junction added in the end of the down-pipe where the dirt and dust that have been collected during the non-rainy period inside the system is washed out with the first rain. This way the contamination of the storage tank is avoided.

Filter unit: The rainwater is passed through a filter unit to purify it before entering the storage tank. The filtration systems can be various, but the most common in the Indian market are: The Sand bed filter, a chamber filled with thick and fine sand, charcoal, pebbles and gravel to retain the dirt. The Wall mounted filters, which are placed on the wall across the pipes and contain metallic or plastic meshes for the filtering, sometimes reinforced with activated carbon.

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First Flush Filtration Tank

Storage Tank Recharge Pit

RWH model showcasing the differentthecomponents. Connecting Drops

RWH systems contain different components for collection, filtration and storage of rain.

And the Cloth filters, a fabric piece fixed in the top entry of the storage tank.

Storage tank: Is the component where the rainwater gets stored for posterior uses after being purified. It requires big capacity, strength and durability to ensure the quality of the water it contains. The storage unit can be done in RCC -Reinforced cement concrete-, Masonry -bricks-, Ferro-cement -material that allows flexibility on the shape- or PVC -mass-produced fixed-shape plastic tanks-. It can be situated in the surface or hidden in an underground sump.

Delivery system: Is the pipeline system connecting the storage unit with the end-use. This can be done gravitationally or pumped.

Groundwater recharge pit: Is the structure through which the surplus water from the rainwater harvesting is used to replenish the underground table. Is usually composed by RCC rings divided by 50mm layers of sand through which the water can filtrate to the surrounding ground. The pit is usually 2-3m deep and the bottom is filled with boulders, gravels and sand to clean the waste before returning it to the natural environment.

These structures require installation work from specialists like qualified plumbers and engineers. The cost of the installation ranges between Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 50,000 depending on the size of the area. The cost of the material depends on the chosen components. The components are very industrial looking and voluptuous, so they require a relatively large spare area to be installed. According to the website of the Rainwater Club, an initiative from Mr. S. Vishwanath, mentor of this Master’s thesis, there is a necessity to integrate design in two levels: To improve the RWH systems, making them interfere minimally with the building and reducing cost. And to face the lack of awareness around the quantity and quality of water in Bangalore. The Rainwater Club suggests that the best design solution is by starting with the lowest cost options covering just a part of the roof. That way people first gets the feel of the benefits of rainwater harvesting and starts noticing the other part of the roof as going on “waste”. Then, they themselves get motivated on investing to capture the rainfall in the whole rooftop area.

The website also expresses the need to involve the mass-media in spreading the information and giving it credibility. The children are also mentioned to be the main target to be involved in water conservation and RWH, while they also become a source of creativity and ideas.

Rainfall harvesting is a very simple process based on collecting-cleaning-storing water. Therefore, the RWH systems should communicate this simplicity and make it easily understandable for everybody. As they are designed currently, the systems look very technical and do not showcase the process that is carried out within them. They give a feeling of inaccessibility and technological sophistication that looks too complicated for the understanding of the average citizen. Thus, most individual and community associations rely on the expertise of technicians to install RWH, ignoring the specifications around it. They remain ignorant of the process thinking that making the effort to understand it will derive in a headache. Delegating the decision making to external sources makes it difficult to control, innovate and improve their systems. Design Ideas: Redesigning the systems into simple educational elements will help people gain awareness and control on their rainfall collection systems. Thus, build a more proactive behaviour around them.

As explained in the calculations made by the Rainwater Club: “In an average year of rainfall a 100 square metre roof area would theoretically generate 97,000 litres of water of which about 77,600 litres could be harvested assuming 80% capture efficiency. With a consumption of 100l per day and a family size of 4 members rainwater should theoretically suffice for 194 days in a year.” This means the RWH systems being able to cover the basic water need of a family for more than half a year.

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3.3.2 INNOVATIVE RWH DESIGNS GLOBALLY In order to promote rainwater harvesting as a solution to the global water scarcity, several designers all over the world have come with innovative concepts on how to make RWH more attractive, fun and adapted to the needs of the different stakeholders. These innovative systems are designed approaching RWH from different perspectives, as we can see in the following exemplar recompilation:

Cost effectiveness and sustainability: Aiming to provide solutions to the population with lack of accessibility to safe water in an inexpensive way.

“Rain Drops”, by Evan Gant, allows the user reuse the plastic/soda bottles by attaching them to the gutter/down-pipe system of a house and using them for non-potable uses once they are full.

RainDrops

by Evan Gants.

Cista

by Fig Forty and Moss Sund Architects.

Decorative: Working on adding aesthetic value to the RWH in order to increase its attractiveness.

“Cista”, designed by Fig Forty and Moss Sund Architects, is a collection deposit placed in the end of the down-pipe which can contain 380l of rainwater. It is decorated with a climbing plant for its integration in the garden. “Lotus Flower”, a system designed in collaboration with Green Cross Italia, is an example of Biomimetic design in its process. Like the lotus flower, the system opens its copper metals during the monsoon, to catch all the possible rainfall. Then the petals are closed to preserve the purity and quality of the water during the rest of the year.

Process: Showcasing the rain harvesting process in order to educate people and call their attention.

“Rain Chain”, based on the Japanese way of collecting rainfall, this chain substituted the down-pipes by an open chain where the user can witness the flow of the water. Based on the same principle, “Acqua Viva”, by the Mexican Araceli de la Parra, uses sculptural shapes that encourage the flow of water to descend down the system and enable the user to witness its movement.

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Lotus Flower

by Green Cross Italia.

Connecting theAcqua Drops Viva by Araceli de la Parra.

Added functional value: Have different ways of adding some other function to the RWH system to optimize its use even in non-rainy days.

“Watree”, by the Australian Chris Buerckner, looks like an upside down collapsible umbrella which provides rain shelter apart from collecting rainfall and transferring it to the collection tank. “Slow Water”, by Freddie Yauner, follows exactly the same principle with the difference of providing two seats that also function as water deposits. “Eol’eau”, by Julien Bergignat, is a multitasking gadget that apart from harvesting up to 600l of rainwater and keeping it clean, it produces electricity through the wind generator during the thunderstorms. “AquaHarvest”, by the industrial designer Bernardo Bajana, is a transparent deposit placed in the end of the down-pipe, which allows to see the amount of rainfall that has been collected. In addition, “AquaHarvest” contains a hose and two watering cans for gardening purposes. With the same principle but a more attractive design, the Dutch designer Bas van der Veer proposes “Pure Raindrop”. This has a capacity of only 75l.

AquaHarvest

by Bernardo Bajana.

Pure Raindrop

by Bas van der Veer.

Portable/Flexible: They are product propositions basing on the principle of unlinking RWH from the building.

“Filterbrella”, by Andrew Leinonen, is an umbrella whose rods are hollow and filled with activated carbon. The rainwater can enter the rod, get purified with the activated carbon and then be collected in a bottle attached in the handle of the system. “PetalDrops”, by Pieter Laga, are funnels made out of 100% recycled HDPE that are screwed into the top of old plastic or glass bottles. The reused bottles are then placed outdoors to collect rainfall through the flower-shaped funnels. Finally, the “Rainwater Pillow”, is a flexible storage chamber with a filter in the intake and a small pump in the outflow. It has 3800l capacity and it is made out of reinforced polymer alloy. Its size grows according to the amount of water in it and can be placed in different points of the building.

References 10

Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board, “Rain water harvesting amendments,

regulations and guidelines” 11

The New Indian Express is an English language newspaper published in the Indian

territory.

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Filterbrella

by Andrew Leinonen.

Connecting the PetalDrops Drops

by Pieter Laga.

In Addition: Biomimicry, Natural RWH Biomimicry is the design-field based on taking inspiration from natural processes or elements and imitating them into design solutions for human needs. Therefore, the ways that rainwater is collected in natural processes across different arid parts of the world, could be used as an inspiration to redesign commercial RWH systems. In the online portal around Biomimicry “asknature.org”, we can find several initiatives around natural water collection processes from all over the world. In the inspiration taken from the flora, we have the example of the designer Stephen Salter, who in 2009 proposed a solar pump that cleans water, based on the water cycle inside the trees. Like a tree, the pump has “roots” made out of jute. These roots slowly absorb the groundwater and bring it up to the main body in the surface, where the solar heat evaporates it from the ropes. The evaporated water is then condensed in the plastic surface and stored for human-use.

Elf Shelter

by Drew Withington.

Ulmus Glabra

inspiration for Elf Shelter..

The “Elf Shelter”, by Drew Withington, is a 15 m2 leaf-shaped shelter made out of recycled wood. The shelter imitates the leaf structure of the Ulmus Glabra tree as it encourages the flow of rainfall towards a single collection point while optimizing the catchment area. In the inspiration from the fauna, an example of rainwater harvesting can be found in the Texas Horned Lizard. During rainstorms, this lizard adopts a body posture in which the laterals of its body are deployed to increase the catchment area. The skin of the lizard has inter-scalar channels that combined with the inclination of the body, direct the rainwater towards the jaws of the animal. Another example could be found in the Namib Dessert Beetle which uses its shell structure to collect fog water from the air. The structure is composed of hydrophilic bumps that absorb the water directed by the hydrophilic surface towards them. The bumps are connected to channels that bring the fog water to the mouth of the beetle.

Design Ideas:

Looking to the natural environment of Bangalore and its surroundings can be an inspirational step. Learning from the local flora and fauna that have evolved and adapted to the specifications of the locality is the best way to adapt the RWH systems and make them most efficient to the Bangalorean climate.

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23 Location: RainWater Bangalore Harvesting

Texas Horned Lizard

harvests rain through its body position.

Connecting the DropsBeetle Namib Dessert

collects water particles from the fog.

4 In Field Research

4.1 STAKEHOLDER MAP

Discovering the Relationship with water of the different stakeholders

This design project is dealing with a behaviour change, which is a very emotional aspect of design. Thus, the design process of this Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis is aimed to be participatory and inclusive with the end-users, to maximize the empathy and understanding of their perception around the topic. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to explain the ethnographic research that has been developed in-field with the different stakeholders or social segments. The idea is to discover the behaviour of each stakeholder group around their consumption of water. Also to measure the awareness level they have on the reality of water in Bangalore. This primary research has finally derived in the creation of archetypes for each of the stakeholder groups, trying to simplify the complexity of the Bangalorean social structures and just focusing it in the perception and attitude of each archetype around water.

As often mentioned before, the social structure in Bangalore is very complex, having not only urban and rural people coexisting in the same streets, but also differing in the cultural, linguistic, religious, ideological, economical, political and folkloric identities of the innumerable communities. Therefore, the stakeholder mapping for this project has been simplified by defining the different generic actors that are affected by or can influence the water situation in Bangalore. These map also defines the hierarchy of the implication level required from each participant group during this design process. This means that the map defines which are the primary, secondary and tertiary participants. Eventually an action plan on how to approach each of these groups will be draw, with different design opportunities. The primary participants targeted by this Master thesis are the Middle-Upper Income Population living in gated communities, for being the ones consuming most water and showing less care or awareness with the water habits they perform in their everyday life. Thus, these social segment are most eligible for the behaviour change that this Master thesis aims to provoke through design. In the same primary level, we include the house-keeping staff of the gated communities. These staff members can be placed in the Lower Income Population segment for their personal social-economical origin and for facing water scarcity issues in their everyday life. But when it comes to the house-keeping activities they perform in these gated communities, these members adopt a different attitude consuming big quantities of water in their cleaning activities. For this reason, they are also targeted as primary stakeholders for a behaviour change. The secondary participants, are meant to be the Lower Income Population living in irregular housing such as slums. This social segment is probably the most aware of the water crisis that Bangalore is living. They are the part of the population who face most water scarcity. Therefore, the behaviour change required from this stakeholder group will not be that much about establishing a more proactive and responsible water consumption as for the primary participants. Instead, the main behaviour development aimed for this participant group is to educate them by dignifying the rainwater harvesting process as a valid and safe water source to face the water scarcity they live.

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Finally, the tertiary participants aimed during this design process will be the organizations that can influence the social movement in the higher spheres. They can rather help scale up or, on the contrary, obstructing and limiting its impact. In this tertiary group we wan include the policy makers or local government, the mass-media and the associations and NGOs that can collaborate with the behaviour change process. Also, the water mafia and private companies that can oppose its development.

Primary: Gated Communities

Affluent families and house keeping staff.

Secondary: Irregular Housing Unpriviledged families living in slums.

Tertiary: Influencers

Mass-media, policy makers, NGOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, citizen associations and opposing powers (Mafia)

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4.2 RESEARCH METHODS The research approach for this chapter has been mainly qualitative. I was seeking the emotional and subjective insights of the participants which will influence their attitude and understanding of the topic. For this qualitative research, the applied ethnographic research techniques have been: Participant and Situational Observation and Photo- and Video-Ethnography of the water usage and cleaning habits of the different participants.

Semi-structured Interviewing collecting both Substantive -main observations and conversations- and Methodological -subjective impressions of the researcher- field-notes from the conversations. The interviews were structured following a three-part scheme: firstly they were ask about their past and spiritual experiences with water, secondly a review of their usage and relationship with water currently and finally their opinion and awareness level on news and topics around water actuality.

Participatory Intervention by showing them already existing material in the field and documenting their reactions.

Building the Personas or Archetypes of each of the social segments defined during the ethnographic research.

Following the above mentioned techniques, a total of 14 case studies have been developed by interviewing: 6 middle-upper income families living in different gated communities, 4 house-keeping staff members and the community association manager in one gated-community and 3 lower income families living in an irregular housing in the same area.

4.3 GATED COMMUNITIES: MIDDLE-UPPER INCOME POPULATION To understand the social segment primarily targeted by this Masters thesis, the interviews and observations have been carried out in 6 different middle-upper income families. Four of these families stay in their own properties in the same gated community, Harmony Homes, in Hennur, North of Bangalore. Between the other two, we find a young couple living in an apartment block as tenants, and a family living in another gated community in the South of Bangalore. The majority of these 6 families are originally from humble family backgrounds which have escalated socially to a more comfortable position, thanks to the professional successes of the family-heads. All of them have moved house several times and all, except the young couple, have purchased the final property where they have settled down. When asked about their relationship with water in their childhood and throughout their previous housing experiences, four out of the six families admit having faced water scarcity or rationalized use of water at some point in their lives. “In our childhood, we were taught to use water judiciously. Our water containers would be filled once a day in the early morning and water was used frugally during the day. In summer, we would reduce the size of the mugs to conserve water. We first discovered running tap water when we moved to Bangalore. Suddenly we had an unlimited access to water.” recall Jaicy and Richard, the young couple tenant in the apartment complex. “When I moved to the city and embraced the new lifestyle, I forgot the importance of conservation, specially water conservation.” regrets Jaicy. “In our second house in Bangalore, there was no BWSSB pipeline installation. The plans said there was a connection but it was a fraud from the owner to get tenants. The main source of water was a bore-well but the quality was too bad, not even the Aquaguard could clean it. We could not complain much because we were only tenants” says Soma, the mother of one of the families in Harmony Homes. Most of them even relate water with some spiritual level in their own lives and family traditions. Water is very important in many Hindu rituals meaning cleanliness and purification. The monsoons have always been looked forward and venerated as a source of life and necessary to replenish the water bodies for the rest of the year.

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“We are Coorgis12 and our religion just idolizes two elements: our Ancestors, because they gave us life and the Nature, because it preserves life. Coorg is a region based on tea and spice plantations and for us Cauvery is a god. Every year we celebrate festivities around the sprout of the river.” explains Pavith, father of another family living in Harmony Homes. When asked about what Rain means to them and their everyday life, even though they all find monsoons necessary for life, they also find it inconvenient and tedious. “Due to the deficient infrastructure of the city, the roads get full of potholes and the city becomes a mess. The sewerage gets blocked because of bad storm-water drainage and unnecessary volumes of water get wasted and polluted.” says Mallika, a family-mother in Harmony Homes. The average water consumption of these families varies between 100 and 200 litres a day. This water is mainly used for washing and cleaning activities, cooking, drinking, personal hygiene and watering the plants. The cleaning habits of these Indian families vary from the habits observed in families from similar social segments in other countries. The image they sell to others is very important for these families. Specially in Hindu families, to start the day by washing oneself and cleaning the whole house before doing anything else, is a cultural habit. According to Richard, “People need to keep the car impeccable because is a social need, is an extension of yourself, it gives a reflect of you, specially in your workplace. It’s important to take care of how your colleagues see you. In the same way, if you don’t clean yourself in the morning, you get this icky feeling throughout the day, we are programmed like that from our childhood.” Consequently, people washing their cars with wet wipes, bucket and sponge or directly with the hose, are common views every early morning. In the families that follow the traditional Hindu hygiene rituals most closely, like in Soma’s house, the whole floor is mopped every morning with half a bucket of water, which is changed with new water in every room. The action of cleaning is understood as purification, therefore, cleaning a new space with dirty water from the previous space means polluting it. Other families are not so concerned about these cleaning rituals and prioritize the conservation of water in the cleaning activities. For this purpose, they use the same half bucket of water for all the house and tell their staff to use the leftover dirty water to water the plants. In houses where there is no house keeping staff working, the house is clean less often, every alternate day or only once a week. Five out of six families rely on the service of house keeping staff for their everyday cleaning activities. All five of them complain about the excessive amount of water

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Jaicy shows her water dispenser. Connecting the Drops

Theis tap water is purchased to water tankers so they don’t trust its quality.

used by their staff members and of having to watch over them to repeatedly tell them to conserve water. “The maids are certainly aware of the situation because they are the ones living most scarcity in their houses. But they think when there is abundance there is no need to conserve. They tell, “But madam, you have so much!”. They need to learn how to value and be aware even in time of opulence. They know conservation best themselves, now they have to understand the need to apply it in their work activities.” explains Soma. Concerning drinkable water, two out of the six families purchase a 20l Bisleri water can in a weekly basis. The other four families rely on Aquaguards to purify their tap water and transform it to potable. Three of the Aquaguards work in UV filtration technology, while the other one uses Reverse Osmosis. None of the families consumes water directly from the tap for being unsafe. “We can’t drink tap water, we don’t trust it. Is an ideological thing, we have learnt not to trust it since we are kids and now we can’t change that even when visiting countries where tap water is safe for drinking” explains Richard. The reason to chose can water, which in average doubles the price of the tap water, according to the Pinto family, from Harmony Homes is: “We buy Bislery because it tastes better than Aquaguard water and it saves electricity. We think that paying for tap water plus the electricity required to purify must be more expensive than already canned water. In addition, the process of purification generated big quantities of waste water. The tap water in this gated community is non-drinkable and we don’t trust its quality. So we decide to consume Bisleri, which we think tastes better for the qualitative way it is treated and stored.” Every of the six houses contain a big amount of plants and flower pots. The watering of the plants take a big part of the water consumption of the houses specially in dry seasons. For this reason, every family try to reuse water for this purpose and control the timing to water the plants when the evaporation is least to optimise the absorption. The watering will rarely be done in monsoon season because the excess of water would kill the plants. Once their own habits and attitudes around water usage were explored, the next step was to learn about the awareness level and opinions they had around the water scarcity that Bangalore. All of the six interviewed families were aware of the situation around water in Bangalore, mainly through self-education by reading newspapers and staying updated, but also through family and friends suffering scarcity themselves. “My in-laws live in Whitefields and they are forced to buy water from tankers. The tankers only want to make money and our family has to pay 5 times the price of the

Richard the underground water tank. 4 Inshows Field Research

This water is used for non-potable purposes such as cleaning and watering the plants..

Connecting the Drops

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municipal water.” tells Soma. All the families agree that the main problem is the lack of organization in the city and the inability to make a sustainable urbanization plan. They blame the ineffective local government, the corruption in the higher spheres and the people who build their housing without regularization. “In this country people only look on how to make their own profit and become financially successful even if that means pressurizing the people in the slums and villages. From our social slot, educated people, a big majority must be conserving water by now. The “others” have to be educated and the laws have to be enforced immediately. There is not much I can do about it.” complaints Mallika. Two out of six families emphasise that the problem mainly lies on the middle-upper income population and the apathetic attitude extended across this stakeholder group. They claim the need to direct the communicational efforts to this public in order to rise awareness and keep people thinking. “Middle-upper income families are the ones that can influence the change and the ones who use most water in their lifestyle. Economically, the return on the investment of a responsible or sustainable practice is difficult to calculate. Is about putting ones awareness into action without expecting anything in exchange” says Soma. “People are conscious but ignorant. The main populations is becoming economically stronger but arrogant. They think that if they pay for it, someone has to do things for them. For example, there are many residential areas built in lake beds. When rains come, they flood and the neighbors complain to the government. But it is their fault for building anywhere.” recounts a jaded Pavith. Concerning rainwater harvesting practices, 5 out of 6 families were aware about the possibility to collect rainfall for domestic use and recharge groundwater. However, none of the families was fully aware about the different initiatives to promote RWH in Bangalore. 50% of the families had not heard about the law making RWH mandatory in the city and none of them new about the existence of the “Sir. M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park” in Jayanagar, South of Bangalore. “When in Harmony Homes we decided to install RWH, we did not know about the theme park and therefore had to contact a private consultant. The consultant must have had just some of the options and advices us according to that. But probably there are better systems which we are unaware of. This consultant was not keen of harvesting balcony rain because of the difficulty of controlling the quality. But the truth is that a big amount of rain floods the individual balconies every monsoon and this water is wasted.” recalls Soma.

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Dhruv Pinto waters the more than 20Connecting plants ofthe their terrace. Drops Watering the plants is a big part of the water consumption of Indian houses.

In both gated communities observed in these case studies, the Community Welfare Associations had installed RWH in the common areas. In two cases the families were not aware that their own community was already harvesting rainfall. The only family not harvesting rain water was the young couple, Jaicy and Richard, who explained: â&#x20AC;&#x153;We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t own the house so we can not install the RWH system if there are construction works related to the installation, we have rent limitations. If there is a systems which is not attached to the building, then I would definitely install it. Concerning the use of this water, we would not return it directly to the earth because then it makes no sense for our own interests. The actual systems -after showing them some brochures containing different commercial RWH systems- do not look trustful to drinking purposes.â&#x20AC;?

Harmony Homes, Gated Community. 4 In Field Research

Gated communities are becoming highly popular between middle-upper income families.

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These stakeholder group commonly shows a high awareness level and the will to embrace responsible and sustainable practices if they are given the facilities to do so. However, they generally tend to adopt apathetic and hopeless attitudes, blaming the government and complaining about how things evolve instead of taking a stand and starting action. Design Ideas: For this reason, any design directed to this public has to be encouraging, attractive but mostly simple and easy to embrace. Design solutions that will not deprive them from time of require them to do any extra effort in their already saturated agenda.

4.3.1 BUILDING THE PERSONA (ARCHETYPE) Think Apathy Worried/Upset/Guilty “Can’t do much about it!” Blame the government “I forgot my origins”

See Updated/ Educates News/ Ads Street reality from the car

In addition, they are ready to fight for the right of others to access to water, but they are not ready to abstain themselves from the lifestyle level in which every commodity is unlimited. They have worked hard to reach this lifestyle and do refuse to be restricted from any acquired privilege.

Hear Family/Friends extorted Maids suffering scarcity

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Say/Do Cleanliness/Look Good Illimited access to water Educate “others” Complain Connecting the Drops

132

4.4 GATED COMMUNITIES: HOUSE KEEPING STAFF Five families living in the gated communities mentioned above, rely their housekeeping activities on employing outside staff. The main water consumption of these apartment communities is based on the cleaning activities carried out by these staff members, specially cleaning of the common areas within the communities. Most of the families have shown their discomfort with the way the staff carries out the cleaning activities due to the excessive amount of water being wasted. “They use a huge amount of water to clean the stairs, I have had fights with the staff members several times because the corridors were full of puddles and the water reached my ankles. They even clean the floor of the car garage in the basement every few days. Is it really required?” complaints an angry Mallika. When asked, the office manager in charge of the maintenance of Harmony Homes claimed that the staff members are given instructions to save water and perform their activities with the minimum waste. Facing this contradictory situation, the next step of the in-field research was carried out between the house-keeping staff, to know their attitude towards water both in their everyday life and in their workplace. Four staff members of Harmony Homes were interviewed, who belong to lower-middle income social segments. They live in humble houses which often face water shortage. They use water frugally mainly for having baths, cleaning clothes and drinking. “I try to reduce the amount of water I use at home all the time. Everyone needs water and it is limited. We have a pipeline connection at home that fills the tank once every three days. If we run out of water, the truck -water tanker- comes and we pay Rs. 350 to fill the tank.” tells Mala. However, when they perform their cleaning activities at work, they flood the areas that need to be mopped and leave the service taps open with clean water running directly to the sump. “We have to clean big corridor areas so we flood the last floor, scrub it with soap and then throw the water down through the staircase to the next floor. In each floor we need to add more water from the hose connected to the service tap to add clean

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Mala takes a break from her cleaning duties to drink water. The house keeping staff show very different patters water usage Connecting theofDrops in their private life and in the workplace.

Watering the gardens consumes big quantities of water. 1000l of water are used every alternate day to water the gardens.

Excesive is used in the cleaning activities. 4 Inwater Field Research

The amount of water used in the cleaning-through-flooding is not monitored..

Excesive water is used in the cleaning activities.

The corridors are flooded every 15 days for scrubbing the floor.

The community has a water harvesting system. Connecting the Drops

This system brings leftover water from the cleaning activities to the drainage canals.

water. We can’t clean with already dirty water. We have not been taught anything, we learnt to clean by looking to other employees. The office does not tell us how to clean, but they just tell us to reduce the amount of water”. Says Ganesh. According to the records provided by the management office, this 100 family community has a 75000l underground tank for housekeeping purposes of the common areas and another 50000l tank for gardening. There are other two 50000l rooftop tanks that provide tap water to the particular houses. There is a swimming pool that contains 1,500,000 litres. Concerning the cleaning activities, the corridors are scrubbed with water every day, which requires approximately 500l of water per day, and are deeply cleaned -by flooding them- every 15 days. The garage-basement is also scrubbed every day and deeply washed once a month. Around 500l per day are used for car washing every morning. The leftover water goes to the RWH system to recharge groundwater through the drainage. In the gardening activities, 1000l are used for watering the gardens every alternate day. Concerning the opinion of the staff members around water conservation campaigns, Ganesh adopts a defensive tone “Every week we see some campaign to save water in the Tamil and Kannada newspapers of television. What you people do not know is that there is plenty of water in India. Cauvery has always water and if there is not much, we have the bore-wells which get replenished every season. Why should I be scared?”.

The cleaning habits of the staff members of the observed gated community are highly inefficient in terms of usage since they use way bigger amounts of water than required. They lack the training and instruments to perform their profession in a more sustainable way. Furthermore, the fact of forgetting to close the open taps and allowing big amounts of water being wasted shows a deep careless behaviour that needs to be addressed urgently. Design Ideas: Firstly, they need to be educated about the reality of the water situation of Bangalore and understand its gravity. Their ignorance or misconceptions lead them to assume harmful behaviours without even realizing it. They need to understand the need to conserve even when there is opulence. Secondly, they need to be instructed on how to perform cleaning with the minimum amount of water and be rewarded when adopting the responsible practice.

When asked about using RWH as a response to the scarcity of water in Bangalore, one of the staff members claims to already collect some rainfall in buckets to wash the vessels of the clothes. However they refuse to use rainwater for other uses such as drinking or cooking: “We already get good water from Cauvery and the bore-wells, there is no need to harvest rainwater. If you have rainwater you get a cold and you get sick”. Few days after this interview, I came back to my apartment in Harmony Homes around midnight and found the tap of the service toilet in the staircase fully open with a strong water-jet flowing directly to the sump. The house keeping staff finish their workday at 6pm. This means, that the tap had been wasting litres and litres of clean water for at least six hours without no one noticing it.

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4.5 IRREGULAR HOUSING: LOWER INCOME POPULATION

4.4.1 BUILDING THE PERSONA (ARCHETYPE) Think Ignorance/Unawareness “If you drink rain you get sick” “But madam, you have so much!” Trust on borewells “There is plenty of water, why should I be scared?”

See News/TV Campaigns (Kannada, Tamil)

The last intervention of the Ethnographic research was carried out between the lower income population living in irregular housing, and therefore, without regular access to safe water. The idea behind this part of the research was to observe and understand the inequities around water that take place in Bangalore. Then, try to address them in the posterior design actions by creating a new community level around water. This would include both social extremes and unite them to promote a socially responsible behaviour. Three different families were observed in the same geographical area than the previous gated community in the North of Bangalore. One of the families practice pottery for a living and stay in a hut made out of Tarpaulin in the roadside. The other two families are construction workers that stay in small one-room shacks made out of cement bricks and tin sheets lent by the constructor. They live in these huts for the period until the building is over. All the three migrant families live in an irregular infrastructures temporarily. They can not afford making any financial investment to improve their housings because they will not last long. The main water sources of the potter family are a connection done to a nearby building under construction, with the permission of the Corporator. In exchange some family members work in the construction of the building. They also buy water to tankers that pass by and sell them small amounts in affordable prices -Rs 10 for filling a 30l barrel-. The other two families are allowed to withdraw the little water they need for their everyday basis from the bore-well of the same buildings they are working to build.

Hear Office/Neighbours tell to safe water

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Say/Do Frugal use of water at home Opulent use of water at work “Forget” conservation instructions

The use of water of this families is very frugal: they do not use water for cleaning of the houses -they just dry-wipe the floor-, they rarely wash their clothes since they have work-clothes for the work activities, they bath once a week -on Sundays- and mainly use water for drinking and cooking. These families relate in a negative way to rain for understanding it as a big risk and inconvenience for their housing and businesses since they are very vulnerable to climatic circumstances. They do not know how it would become a resource for them since they ignore how and can not afford to.

Connecting the Drops

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Potter family living in irregular housing. This hut is constructed by using wood and Tarpaulin.

Water is stored in different vessels.

4 In are Field Research The vessels filled in the early morning from public taps or tanker-water.

Water is used frugally.

Cooking is the activity that consumes most water, about 3l a day.

They perceive rain as a harmful element.

It ruins their work and housing and they believe itConnecting makes you the sickDrops if you drink it.

The design priority for this social segment has to be the normalization of their situation as Bangalorean citizens. They are socially discriminated and ignored by the municipal policy makers when it comes to include them in the basic infrastructures. The common approach of designers and NGOs towards these stakeholders is giving them a solution within their limitations in a quite patronizing manner. Design Ideas: What these stakeholders need is to be included in the municipal plans and be provided an adequate water supply and sewage systems. Only this recognition will provide them social empowerment and s dignified level of life. The designs directed to these stakeholders have to be inclusive and educative, to allow them look at the bigger picture they are part of.

4.5.1 BUILDING THE PERSONA (ARCHETYPE) Think Conformism Ignorance about rain/systems Can’t waste Thoughtful use

See Street ads Mouth to mouth

References 12

From the region of Coorg, North-west Karnataka, origin of river Cauvery.

Hear Own’s family living scarcity

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Say/Do Public tap or tankers Don’t clean often Frugal use of water

Connecting the Drops

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5 Social Activism

5.1 STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION FOR BEHAVIOUR CHANGE

How to change citizens to become proactive?

The aim of this chapter is to learn more about the techniques that are being developed globally to approach behavioural change and awareness building projects. All over the world, individuals and institutions are developing methodologies around strategic communication to achieve social behaviour changes around diverse topics. These methodologies have an interdisciplinary approach where marketing, psychology, communication design, service development and other fields are explored. During this chapter, we will also explore different business initiatives working in social impact and behavioural change in Bangalore itself. The resulting insights from this chapter will be vital on drawing the strategy to be followed by this Master’s Thesis project in further phases. The research methods applied during this chapter have been based on the Content analysis of secondary sources:

Working papers Research papers Newspaper editorials Online PPT presentations

In the other hand, the primary research for this chapter has been developed by visiting a social business, Daily Dump, that carries out environmentally sustainable practices. During the Observation and Interviews done to the representative of this company, I have been able to understand the different communicational and service strategies adopted by them to approach the Bangalorean public.

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According to the report “Strategic Communication for Behaviour and Social Change in South Asia” published by UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) in 2005, a good communication strategy is essential to promote development goals. Strategic Communication provides relevant information with the appropriate motivation to impact in the attitudes of the society. The communication has to go beyond building awareness and has to stimulate long-lasting positive changes in the behaviour of the people. Thus, as explained by UNICEF, the communication must be strategic, participatory/inclusive, based on evidence from audience research, result-oriented and well-funded. The approach of UNICEF towards Strategic Communication involves a mix of multiple directions, ranging from policy advocacy, social/community mobilisation, to interpersonal communication. This multiple directions can be approached through different communication tools: mass-media campaigns, graphic communication, Entertainment Education, Social Marketing, interpersonal communication, participatory events and social activism. Strategic Communication makes a shift on the basic values done in previous awareness campaigns:

From aiming an individual behaviour change to searching a collective action and social change.

From treating the audience as beneficiaries or recipients to include them as active partners in social development.

From top to down information dissemination campaigns to community-based participatory learning approach.

From looking to needs to fighting for rights.

From selling a message and products to having a dialogue and interaction.

From mass-media dissemination to interpersonal and traditional communication.

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Since the term Behaviour Change implies that the previous behaviour was incorrect, it can also be called Behaviour Development. It is necessary to analyse carefully which is the new behaviour that wants to be promoted and how this fits in the local traditions and culture. Is required to see the local culture as an ally and to build on the existing local language and knowledge. In addition, it is easy to fall in assumptions of what we think the audience knows about the matter, so an audience research based on direct interaction, observation and interviews (Ethnographic research) is essential.

UNICEF India. 5 Social Activism

The organization works in behaviour-change all over the sub-continent.

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“Kyunki Jeena Issi Ka Naam Hai”soap-opera.

The TV show by Doordarshan and UNICEF is a successful example of Education Entertainment in India..

5.1.1 EDUCATION ENTERTAINMENT “Education Entertainment is the process of purposely designing and implementing a media message to both entertain and educate, in order to increase audience knowledge about an educational issue, create favourable attitudes, and change overt behaviour” (Singhal and Rogers, 1999) During the history, this phenomenon happened through fables, songs, poems and dramas that were transmitted orally from one generation to the next, in order to promote certain value systems and behaviours. Nowadays, is called Education Entertainment. Education Entertainment is based on socio-psychology and human communication theories and follows the principle of disseminating information in order to provoke a behaviour change in the society. In Education Entertainment, important social messages are delivered to the audience through role models that gradually evolve to the intended behaviour. This way, the public is encouraged to change their attitude following the example of the role model.

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Rather than directly showing the benefits of the behaviour the audience should adopt, which happens in the awareness campaigns, in Education Entertainment the primary objective is to engage the emotional attention of the public. Once this attention is retained, the recommended behaviour is introduced naturally and gradually. These programmes commonly show good models, bad models and the transition of some of the models from bad to good behaviour. To be effective, these programmes must present examples guiding the audience on How to achieve the recommended behaviour and What results can be obtained. According to the Sabido methodology of Education Entertainment, this has to follow a Whole-society strategy, approaching the several stakeholders within a society across multiple communication platforms. This means that the behaviour change is spread through Transmedia storytelling which can combine old media -printed, television, radio, music, theatre, cinema, books, etc.- and new media -comics, video-games, internet videos, websites, blogs, text messages in cell-phones, etc.-.

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In emerging countries, radio has shown a big success rate for being widely expanded and relying in the imagination of the audience. Whereas in television programmes the locations and the actors have to be carefully chosen to ensure that the public will empathize with them. Through the radio is easier for people to imagine themselves as actors in the story which is told. In the other hand, the radio has limited ability to demonstrate elements that require visual representation for their correct understanding. The Education Entertainment programmes have to be based on audience researched that analyse the linguistic, cultural, tribal, economic and social structures of the population. They must also be designed by local people who understand the essence of the effective local communication and the techniques on how to engage the local audience. Finally, it is interesting to bring the storytelling from virtual to a reality. To allow the members of the audience encounter parts of the story in daily events, by meeting the role models or sharing experiences between each other.

5.1.2 SOCIAL MARKETING â&#x20AC;&#x153;Social Marketing is the application of marketing principles to shape markets that are more effective, efficient, sustainable and just in advancing peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s well-being and social welfareâ&#x20AC;? (Phils et Al, 2008) Social Marketing is the application of commercial marketing techniques to influence the key audience and promote pro-social attitudes within this audience. In the one hand, the outcomes of this process are to achieve voluntary individual behaviour changes for the good of the whole society. In the other hand, building or strengthening a trust and engagement for the brand of the host company. Social Marketing is based on a corporate-customer exchange which promotes a societal benefit rather than a profit for the company. The customer obtains benefits for its society in exchange of giving something to achieve it. The key point is to make the audience understand that the benefits received will be greater than the cost for them. The audience can be either uniform in their perceptions around the topic approached by the behaviour change or divided in different opinions. In this case the audience has to be segmented in groups with similar interests and opinions. Social Marketing is focused on targeting the needs and motivations of the audience to ease the behaviour change. Before changing their behaviour, people go through five different stages:

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Pre-contemplation: There is no need or intention from the individual to change the behaviour, for not finding personal relevance in the topic. The approach in this stage has to focus on educating the audience around the topic.

Contemplation: The individual knows about the existence of the issue and considers taking some action around it. The approach has to be on building a deeper understanding and attempting behavioural patterns.

Preparation: The individual is not fully engaged but is getting ready for embracing the new behaviour. The approach has to address the barriers that the individual may show and promoting small preparatory trials for the final behaviour change.

Action: The individual takes action. The program then has to support, encourage and reinforce the change. Connecting the Drops

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Maintenance/Advocacy: After the change has happened it has to be sustained. The approach has to be on encouraging the audience to influence others and spread the behaviour.

This process is non-linear and the individual could regret and go back to the original behaviour at any point. Thus, is important to be flexible and able to monitor and redesign every stage if is required to keep the audience engaged. The social product promoted by the Social Marketing program can be an ideology, a practice or a tangible object. Some Social Marketing examples developed in the Indian territory can be found in the advertising of Idea, a cell-phone company, which strongly promoted saving trees through their paper-free billing system. Or the campaign Jaago Re of Tata Tea against corruption in 2007 mobilizing youth to vote in the elections that year. Most recently, several brands have launched advertising campaigns showing their solidarity with the gay and lesbian movement and against the new section 377 approved by the Supreme Court prohibiting homosexuality.

Indian brands using a social cause in their advertising.

Social Activism Tanishq5the jeweler company and Amul the dairy company protest against the section 377 recently approved by the Supreme Court of India prohibiting homosexuality.

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In Addition: Examples of Innovative Awareness Campaignes The awareness campaigns launched by NGOs and Institutions have explored new creative ways to approach their public in order to promote the intended behaviour change:

The Tidy Street project. by John Bird.

The Tidy Street project (Brighton, UK) by John Bird, was carried out in order to make the neighbours of Tidy Street aware of their consumption of electricity. In an info-graphic painted in the road asphalt, the electric consumption of the previous 24h of each participant would be displayed every day. Every passer-by would be aware of the evolution of the consumption. This exposure made the participants be more conscious of their electric use and reduce the usage in 15%. The Peruvian university UTEC presented a billboard that generated potable water from the humidity in the air. Placed in one of the driest deserts in the world, the Atacama Desert, it provides 96 litres of free water purified through reverse osmosis. The installation of the billboard was a Social Marketing strategy from the university to increase the number of student inscriptions. In the semester after the installation of the system, the number of inscriptions for engineering increased in 26%. The game “Let’s Catch the Rain” is an initiative of Tulipa Publishers to promote their book for children with the same name. The aim of the game is to build behaviour around RWH between school kids. The game basically consists in using different containers to collect rain drops and comparing the efficiency of each of them. It can be played online or downloaded as a phone application.

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Billboard that produces potable water. by UTEC university..

Connecting the Drops Let’s Catch the Rain. by Tulipa publishers.

5.2 SOCIAL BUSINESS INITIATIVES (IMPACTING SOCIAL MOBILIZATION) In order to learn more about the specific cultural and communicational requirements for a behaviour change of the Bangalorean public, this chapter has been concluded by doing some on-ground primary research. Learning more about a social business which is currently working on changing the attitude of people around sustainable issues. The insights gathered during this primary research will be very useful in order to define the strategic plan to follow by my own project.

5.2.1 DAILY DUMP â&#x20AC;&#x153;Daily Dump is about creating a new perception of waste and enabling dignified actionâ&#x20AC;? (Poonam Bir Kasturi) Mrs. Poonam Bir Kasturi is the designer and creator of the social-business Daily Dump. This company works on promoting waste segregation and composting. It has achieved an impactful behaviour transformation within the Bangalorean middle-upper income society. This is the same social segment targeted by this Masters thesis. Therefore, this is an important model on how to communicate to the stakeholders in order to change their attitude. The fieldwork research developed to learn more about Daily Dump was made by visiting the shop and then accompanying a part of the team to the Garden Fair that the Association of People with Disability was hosting in the centre of Bangalore. The shop itself happened to be a very strong communication element of the project: impeccably clean, the space works as an exhibition about waste and composting. The average amount of waste per person, the composition of the garbage, the process behind it, the different actors involved in the waste collection/recycling systems and every other notion around composting is explained by simple info-graphics, posters, mock-ups, experiments and tangible examples. In addition, the composting products sold in the shop are showcased in a way day acquire relevance and dignity, attracting the view of the visitors.

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The Daily Dump shop, Indranagar.

The shop works as a communication element, Connecting changing thethe perception Drops of the visitors around waste and composting.

Thanks to the shop and the other creative communication elements, the perception of waste management is shifted from the “disgust”, “dirty”, “stinky”, “sticky” notions to seeing it as a resource to give new uses to. It is dignified, it gains the respect of the people and it becomes an attractive social activity to become part of. The observation about Daily Dump continued in the stall of the Garden Fair where the products were exposed to the visitors. In addition, the composting process explained through a live demonstration of the products. The stall worked as an educational point on “how to compost your own waste” where the awareness of the visitors was risen. If interested, the visitors could purchase the Daily Dump products directly in the site, but the main point was to convince people about adopting this practice, even if they used products from the competitor companies. During the interaction with Daily Dump I interviewed Chaitali, an employee recently joint to the team that had been a customer of the company for 6 years. Through her experience I could witness how the conversion of a middle-upper income citizen could happen. From being totally unaware to becoming an active compost maker herself and a promoter of the social movement as part of the team. According to her, the success of Daily Dump in such a difficult field in the waste industry is due to: The simplification of the products and easiness of the process. The Daily Dump composting products have been designed for urban people, who are usually very busy and just want to dump the waste. This stakeholder group is not very committed, they are not environmentalists. But they want to do something good and it’s important to encourage them to do whatever they can. Therefore, the products are easy to use and simple to understand. They are also aesthetically attractive and avoid the unpleasant aspects of the waste (odour, leaks, etc.). Many facilities are given to the user to encourage the engagement with composting. If there is a surplus of compost produced by the users, Daily Dump buys it back to resell it in the shop. Even the composting products can be returned for the refund of 60% of the original price. Since there are always non-interested people that may not convert into composters, Daily Dump has started to target community welfare associations to implement composting products without asking people to commit, leaving the association do it for them.

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Daily Dump communication elements.

The graphic universe created around composting Connecting the Dropsmakes it attractive and easy to understand.

Impactful communication. Daily Dump has developed a wide range of communicational elements. Storytelling around the process of composting in a very simple and clear way, with attractive graphic design and very direct/colloquial language. All this communicational elements (posters, books, comics...) are Open Source and can be downloaded free from the website. The distributors are encouraged to place the posters in their business areas.

The website even explains the steps and tips to clone Daily Dump as a social-business in order to expand it to other localities. It is all about encouraging composting, even if that means promoting competitors. Daily Dump even works in delivered conversion, by approaching associations and institutions in a direct communication. Finally, in her advice on how to approach a behaviour change around RWH, she explained that from her experience RWH happens to be too technical, that the process is never explained and it’s seen as a distant thing in charge of the vendors.

Design Ideas: Therefore, the communication strategy should focus on simplifying and making the process understandable and the products easy to use. She also mentioned the need to show the flow of the water coming inside the house and the nice feeling/emotional aspect around it. A new social and sustainable behaviour around water in Bangalore is possible. People are aware and they want to do something about it. They just need design to facilitate the action. Daily Dump already made giant steps around waste management. If they could change the mentality of people around something as “unpleasant” and “irrelevant” as waste, what can be done with water which is a basic element for life? Following the communication strategies that Daily Dump applied in the same social segment aimed by this design project may facilitate the communication barrier that sometimes happens between a foreign designer and the local public. The behaviour change has to be approached from different directions simultaneously. Is necessary to get partnerships with important brands to develop Social Marketing campaigns or with mass-media to emit Education Entertainment campaigns.

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General Conclusions The objective of this dissertation was to gather the required knowledge to answer the following intent: How to create a society with a proactive and responsible behaviour towards water? A society that understands the value and the richness of the water ecosystem and takes action towards its democratization and dignity? How to design in order to change attitudes and provoke the behaviour of conservation and sustainability around water?

The participants that live in gated communities are aware and educated on the topic but show highly apathetic attitudes. Is necessary to encourage these stakeholders, who have most influential power and consume the biggest quantities of water to embrace responsible habits and a proactive lifestyle. This public is ready to take responsible choices if they are leaded to do so in an easy and effortless way. By adapting the future designs to their lifestyle and requirements, water conservation and rainwater harvesting will become an attractive topic to them. They will show willingness to adopt it.

Throughout the dissertation we have discovered that experiences and emotions can influence the attitude and the positioning that the public takes around water conservation and sustainability. In addition, the traditions, spirituality and the intricate Indian social structures have a special importance in the decision making of the Bangaloreans. Being respectful and understanding with their local and traditional heritage is the best way to help them embrace a responsible attitude towards water. Recalling the past times when the community was responsible and proactive towards water management can encourage people to revive that behaviour again.

A behaviour change is impactful if it happens as an extended social experience. Therefore, the main intent of the future design work has to be to create a community around the common interest, water sustainability. The initiatives of the citizens have to be encouraged and rewarded. The benefits of the water conservation and rain harvesting have to be the engines of this social movement. According to the communication strategies for behavioural change, the communication has to be multi-directional, targeting different social segments at a time and adapting the speech to each of the participants.

During the exploration of the complexity of the actual situation of water in Bangalore, we have understood that there are several influencing elements which are inter-dependant between each other and derive in the whole deficiency of the system. The geographic location of Bangalore limits the natural water resources within it and it turns it in highly dependant and vulnerable. The rapid and uncontrolled urbanization is being the main reason for the unbalanced water situation and this growing tendency is still not being regulated by the local authorities. We have also seen that targeting the municipal water supply system can be complicated for being under changing governance and factual powers such as the water mafia altering the already deficient regular procedures. Ideally, a good design challenge would be to redesign the bureaucratic procedures happening around water. This way we could improve the optimization and efficiency of the local water supply. However, due to the complexity of the Indian government procedures, this solution would take a very long period to be implemented, whereas the water situation aggravating rapidly needs a short term action. In the other hand, the efforts of the local water agencies to implement rainwater harvesting as a solution to the water scarcity situation in Bangalore has resulted unsuccessful. This is due to the lack of communication done around it and to commercial system designs that are not adapted to the Indian public. Rethinking rainwater harvesting and adapting it to the needs of the Bangaloreans is necessary to help this solution succeed.

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A Glance to the Future Based on the insights gathered throughout this dissertation, the next step of the Final Diploma Project of this Master’s thesis has been to create the platform that will provoke the intended united social movement. “The Drop” has been created as a participatory organization that targets the behaviour change of the different levels of the Bangalorean society. This happens throughout different initiatives. This mission is materialized in products specifically designed to provoke the behaviour of water conservation and sustainability in their usage. These products evoke emotions during their usage-experience and lead to a change on the attitude towards water between the users. So far, three initiatives have been developed to the product level: The first initiative, “The Sponge Streets” targets the urban infrastructures and new urbanization patterns. It proposes the inclusion of rainwater harvesting systems in the design of urban development. The water harvested through these infrastructures is meant to be directed directly to the aquifers, to replenish the underground water tables. The second one is called “The Caring Communities” and targets the gated communities where the well-off population live. This initiative is based on proposing water conserving tools for the maintenance and cleaning activities of these communities. This will ensure water efficiency and a reduction on water consumption. “Welcome Home, Rain” is the third initiative developed towards ensuring water independence in the individual house level, allows a domestic rainwater harvesting system to all those citizens that have no decision control over the building they live in. This initiative is based on balcony level rain collection which can later be used for domestic activities. Currently, the three initiatives are being subject of a participatory prototyping during which the opinions of the different participants about the implementability and effectiveness of the concepts are being gathered in order to choose the most adequate concept to bring to the next realization step.

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Books

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[18] Centre for Science and Environment, India’s water harvesting techniques <http://www.rainwaterharvesting.org/rural/Tradition-al2.htm> [19] Arghyam, India water portal <http://www.indiawaterportal.org> [20] Diligent Media Corporation Ltd, DNA <http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore> [21] The Hindu online newspaper <http://www.thehindu.com> [22] Times of India online newspaper <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com> [23] Government of Karnataka, Department of Mines & Geology <http://mines.kar.nic.in/> [24] The Water Channel <http://www.thewaterchannel.tv> [25] Water.org <http://water.org/country/india/> [26] Government of Karnataka, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board <http://bwssb.org/> [27] Citizen Matters Bangalore <http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in> [28] S. Vishwanath, Rainwater Club <http://www.rainwaterclub.org/> [29] S. Vishwanath, Rainwater Harvesting Blog <http://rainwaterharvesting.wordpress.com> [30] The Indian Express Ltd., Water mafia and the City <http://m.indianexpress.com/news/water-mafia-and-the-city/977955/> [31] Share The World’s Resources <http://www.stwr.org/land-energy-water/-implication-of-water-privatization-in-india.html> [32] Documentary Film Network <http://www.documentary-film.net/search/watch. php?&ref=212> [33] Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., Bangalore Mirror online newspaper <http://www.bangaloremirror.com> [34] IWA Publishing’s Water and Wastewater Online Journals <http://www.iwaponline.com/> [35] Xegent Consultants Private Limited, India Water Review <http://www.indiawaterreview.in> [36] Design Indaba <http://www.designindaba.com> [37] TED Ideas worth spreading <http://www.ted.com/talks> [38] Eshi Internatioan Pte Ltd, Ecofriend: Promoting Eco Friendly Lifestyle to Safe Environment <http://www.ecofriend.com>

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Photo-Credits p29- Pro-Kannada demonstration, Bangalore. <http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.

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p1 – Connecting the Drops. Maddalen Gil

asp?n_id=151956>

p2 – Drop in the wall. Maddalen Gil

p30- Public tap from borewell, Bangalore. <http://bangalore-city.blogspot.in/2006_11_01_ar-

p3 - 1 History of Water in India. <http://listdose.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Ugrasen-

chive.html>

Baoli.jpg>

p31- Honeysucker truck emptying load, Bangalore. <http://rainwaterharvesting.wordpress.

p4- Bukka’s aqueduct, Hampi. <http://evenfewergoats.blogspot.in/2013/07/anegondi.html>

com/2011/11/10/eliminating-manual-scavenging/>

p5- Old man rowing a Coracle, Hampi. Maddalen Gil

p32- Sewage and Garbage, ISRO Lake. <http://grasshopperfiles.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/

p6- Chand Baori. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChandBaori.jpg>

lake-rejuvenation-understanding-the-basics/>

p7- Bamboo Drip Irrigation. <http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/hAOBWQ8rsho/maxresdefault.jpg>

p33- Puttenahalli Lake revived, Bangalore. <http://plog.puttenahallilake.in/2013_09_01_archi-

p8- Shyampura Kund. <http://churumonument.blogspot.in/2013/03/kund-drinking-water-

ve.html>

device-in-churu.html>

p34- Pottery Village, outskirts of Bangalore. Maddalen Gil

p9- Map of Nandi Hills, Bangalore. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nandi_Hills_top.jpg>

p35- Pottery Village, outskirts of Bangalore. Maddalen Gil

p10- Gavi Veerbhadra Swamy temple. Maddalen Gil

p36- Girgaum Chowpatty beach, Mumbai. <http://cerfi.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/h01_

p11- Amrutha Sarovar, Nandi Hills. Maddalen Gil

rtr2r4oi.jpg>

p12- Temple Sarovar, Nandi Hills. Maddalen Gil

p37- 20l bulk water can and dispenser. Maddalen Gil

p13- Amrutha Sarovar, Nandi Hills. Maddalen Gil

p38- Bisleri bottled mineral water. <http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jnph3E3MCdM/UGFOAZfkF8I/

p14- Goddess Ganga, Hinduism. <http://blog.practicalsanskrit.com/2011/10/dashahara-vija-

AAAAAAAAAdA/KT2Z4kX39CY/s640/BISLERI.jpg>

yadashami-and-happy.html>

p39- Kent aqua-guard with UV light purification. Maddalen Gil

p15- Woman washing clother in the river, Hampi. Maddalen Gil

p40- Solar Water Disinfection. <http://the-probe.com/sodis.jpg>

p16- Elephant bath, Hampi. Maddalen Gil

p41- Ceramic filtration.

p17- Sikh soldiers, British Army. <http://www.britishbattles.com/north-west-frontier-india/

<http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1E0Yfg2F5Uw/StqyLyX_BJI/AAAAAAAAAqk/cZHG3Zv_JrM/

black-mountain/soldiers-2nd-sikhs-l.jpg>

s1600-h/ceramic%2Bfilter.jpg>

p18- Irrigation canal, Kerala. Maddalen Gil

p42- Eliodomestico.

p19- Paddy fields, Andra Pradesh. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:View_of_paddy_fields_

<https://www.domusweb.it/content/dam/domusweb/it/design/2011/11/19/prix-mile-

from_Bojjannakonda_hilllock,_Sankaram.jpg>

herm-s-2011/big_367931_7972_Eliodomestico_1%20%C2%A9DISKO_UPD.jpg>

p20- Krishnaraja Sagar Dam, Mysore. <http://churumuri.wordpress.com/tag/krs/>

p43- Women queue to get water from the tanker. <http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/

p21- Coca Cola advertising, Bangalore. Maddalen Gil

Components/Photo/_new/pb-120322-water-05.photoblog900.jpg>

p22- Farmer looking his field with dismay, Morigoan. http://www.livemint.com/Politics/TAeh-

p44- Water tanker sponsored by local politician. <http://www.observv.com/photos/bangalo-

FiQTVxigZPjswhUVPM/Drought-fears-rise-in-India.html>

re3b.jpg>

p23- Water Makes Money. <http://waterculture.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/14/>

p45- 3 Rainwater Harvesting. Maddalen Gil

p24- Men bathing in river, Hampi. Maddalen Gil

p46- BWSSB Amendment to introduce section 72A. Maddalen Gil

p25- 2 Location: Bangalore. Maddalen Gil

p47- BWSSB “Safe water, safe Bangalore” campaign. <http://bwssb.org/savewater/>

p26- Monsoon rains, Bangalore. Maddalen Gil

p48- Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park. Maddalen Gil

p27- Traffic, Bangalore. <http://www.mockingnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/traffic.

p49- Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park. Maddalen Gil

jpg>

p50- Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park. Maddalen Gil

p28-Public tap, India. <http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/category/your-say/>

p51- Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park. Maddalen Gil

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p52- Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park. Maddalen Gil

p80- Water is stored in different vessels. Maddalen Gil

p53- Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rain Water Harvesting Theme Park. Maddalen Gil

p81- They perceive rain as a harmful element. Maddalen Gil

p54- Bhargavi, guide and consultant in the RWH Theme Park. Maddalen Gil

p82- 5 Social Activism. <http://www.poliofreechad.org/article_detail.php?id=3>

p55- RWH model showcasing the different components. Maddalen Gil

p83- UNICEF India. <http://indianewsdiary.com/?p=12381>

p56-

p84- “Kyunki Jeena Issi Ka Naam Hai”soap-opera. <http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/UOiyV6LGPTM/

RainDrops

<http://www.designindaba.com/sites/default/files/node/news/6557/ga-

llery/altitudeincraindrops5_0.jpg>

maxresdefault.jpg>

p57- Cista <http://www.designindaba.com/sites/default/files/node/news/6559/gallery/cis-

p85- Indian brands using a social cause in their advertising. <http://www.buzzfeed.com/tas-

ta-hose-photo-daniel-harrison-10_0.jpg>

neemnashrulla/15-heartening-ways-indian-brands-and-bollywood-are-fighting>

p58- Lotus Flower <http://www.coroflot.com/puntosoave/Lotus-flower-Eco-Design>

p86- Indian brands using a social cause in their advertising. <http://www.buzzfeed.com/tas-

p59- Acqua Viva <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JVihX-l5dug/TpO33mqTI-I/AAAAAAAAADw/

neemnashrulla/15-heartening-ways-indian-brands-and-bollywood-are-fighting>

GauV-Ac6yjA/s1600/image001.jpg>

p87- The Tidy Street project. <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/apr/12/

p60- AquaHarvest.

energy-use-households-monitor-electricity>

<http://s3images.coroflot.com/user_files/individual_files/original_350823_CxI_69d5vsDE-

p88- Billboard that produces potable water. <http://57thestreet.co.nz/wp-content/

L88Ay2qYKx7EE.jpg>

uploads/2013/04/UTEC1.jpg>

p61- Pure Raindrop. <http://www.hydroflora.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9d-

p89- Let’s Catch the Rain. <http://catchtherain.org/how_to_play.html>

f78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/r/a/raindrop_front_side.jpg>

p90- The Daily Dump shop, Indranagar. Maddalen Gil

p62- Filterbrella. <http://www.designindaba.com/sites/default/files/node/news/6560/ga-

p91- The Daily Dump shop, Indranagar. Maddalen Gil

llery/filterbrella_0.jpg>

p92- Daily Dump communication elements. Maddalen Gil

p63- PetalDrops <http://www.shft.com/files/rain_catcher_Petal_Drops_3-8651.jpeg>

p93- Daily Dump communication elements. Maddalen Gil

p64- Elf Shelter. <http://www.asknature.org/product/8cb076fafce8b95b379adc020d7ed705> p65- Ulmus Glabra. <http://www.asknature.org/product/8cb076fafce8b95b379adc020d7ed705> p66- Texas Horned Lizard. <http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/images/reptiles/horned_lizardlarge.jpg> p67- Namib Dessert Beetle. <http://www.natgeocreative.com/comp/MI/001/1156870.jpg> p68- 4 In Field Research. Maddalen Gil p69- Jaicy shows her water dispenser. Maddalen Gil p70- Richard shows the underground water tank. Maddalen Gil p71- Dhruv Pinto waters the more than 20 plants of their terrace. Maddalen Gil p72- Harmony Homes, Gated Community. Maddalen Gil p73- Mala takes a break from her cleaning duties to drink water. Maddalen Gil p74- Watering the gardens consumes big quantities of water. Maddalen Gil p75- Excesive water is used in the cleaning activities. Maddalen Gil P76- Excesive water is used in the cleaning activities. Maddalen Gil p77- The community has a water harvesting system. Maddalen Gil p78- Potter family living in irregular housing. Maddalen Gil P79- Water is used frugally. Maddalen Gil

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Connecting the Drops

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