Small and medium towns are increasingly becoming the centre of rapid urbanisation in South Asia. Yet these towns often remain outside major planning and investment conversations, especially in critical sectors like water and sanitation. To understand how these systems actually function in emerging urban centers, BORDA South Asia recently conducted a study titled “Following the Flows.” In this conversation, Ansu Susan Cherian, Lead – Programs at BORDA South Asia, shares insights from the study with Anannya Saraswat, Correspondent at APAC Media.
What does the study ‘Following the Flows’ focus on?
‘Following the Flows’ is an initiative by BORDA South Asia and its partners that explores how water and sanitation systems actually function in small and emerging urban centres across South Asia. For this study, we worked with twenty partner towns across India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
The idea was to trace the journey of water through the entire urban cycle. We looked at where water is sourced from, how it is supplied and used, how wastewater is generated and contained, and what eventually happens to it through treatment, discharge, or reuse.
The towns in the study span very different geographies, including Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Karnataka, Kerala, Nepal, and Bangladesh. This diversity allowed us to understand how water systems operate across very different ecological and institutional contexts.
To conduct the research, we combined GIS mapping, municipal data, field observations, and in-depth discussions with local governments, practitioners, and water and sanitation experts. This helped us move beyond simply listing infrastructure and instead look at how water actually moves through towns in practice.
What emerged was a nuanced picture. In many places, water systems operate as a patchwork of formal infrastructure, informal practices, and everyday adaptations. When we trace these flows together, we begin to see where systems break down, whether it is gaps in networks, untreated wastewater entering water bodies, or increasing pressure on groundwater. The goal of the study was to document these realities and provide an evidence base for better planning in emerging urban centres.
What prompted BORDA South Asia to take up this study, especially with a focus on smaller towns?
The motivation came from recognising that the future of urbanisation in South Asia is increasingly unfolding in smaller towns and emerging urban centres. A large share of population growth is happening in settlements that are transitioning from rural to urban.
However, if we look at planning discussions, research, or infrastructure investments, most attention has historically been directed towards large metropolitan cities.
Small towns often remain invisible in these discussions. They are too large to be treated as rural settlements but too small to attract the level of attention and investment that big cities receive.
Yet these towns play an important role. They act as economic and social bridges between rural areas and larger cities. Their water and sanitation systems directly influence surrounding landscapes, agriculture, groundwater systems, and local ecosystems.
Another important reason is that many of these towns are still building their core infrastructure. Decisions being made today will shape their long-term development trajectories. If planning is done thoughtfully at this stage, there is an opportunity to develop resilient and context-appropriate water systems rather than repeating the fragmented models that many large cities are struggling to fix.
For Borda South Asia, this focus also reflects the direction our work has taken over the last several years. Along with our partner organisation, the Foundation for Inclusive and Sustainable Habitat (FISH), we have been working closely with local governments in small and medium towns. This research was an opportunity to step back from our field engagements and systematically document the patterns and challenges we were observing across these towns.
Why do you think small towns and cities have remained outside major planning discussions?
There are several structural reasons behind this.
One important factor is visibility. Large metropolitan projects attract more political and public attention because of their scale. Smaller towns, despite their growing importance, often remain less visible in national discussions.
There are also institutional and financial constraints. Many urban local bodies in small towns operate with limited technical capacity and a constrained revenue base. Their creditworthiness is often low, which makes it difficult for them to attract large investments for infrastructure.
Another challenge lies in how responsibilities for water and sanitation are structured. In many states, urban local bodies do not control the entire service chain. Different components are handled by different state-level agencies. For example, water supply might be managed by one department, sewer networks by another and treatment plants by a third agency.
Because these components are not always planned together, the system often remains fragmented even though infrastructure exists.
Finally, planning models themselves tend to be standardised. Solutions designed for large cities are often applied to small towns even though their settlement patterns, governance structures and geographical contexts are very different. All of these factors together create a kind of planning grey area for small towns.
How is the study different from a typical infrastructure audit?
Traditionally, assessments measure indicators such as how many households have piped water connections, how many toilets have been constructed, or how many treatment plants exist.
While these are important indicators, they do not always tell us how well the system actually functions.
In our study, we looked at water systems as interconnected flows rather than isolated infrastructure. We traced the movement of water from source to supply, use, wastewater generation, containment, treatment, and disposal.
When we visualised these flows, we used loops to show how the system should ideally function. Breakpoints in the loop were highlighted to show where the system fails. We also mapped informal flows that represent the ways in which households and communities adapt when formal systems fall short.
For example, a town might technically have a sewage treatment plant. But if the approach road is flooded for much of the year, the plant may not be properly operated or maintained. On paper, the infrastructure exists, but in reality, the system does not function effectively.
By tracing flows across the entire cycle, we can see not only where systems break down but also how communities adapt and create workarounds. This approach moves the conversation from an infrastructure inventory to a system-level understanding of urban water management.
The study covers towns across India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. What common patterns or challenges did this regional diversity reveal?
Even though the towns we studied span very different landscapes, such as hills, coastal regions, and agricultural belts, many similar patterns emerged.
One recurring issue was fragmented systems and weak coordination between institutions. Different parts of the water and sanitation cycle are often managed by different agencies, and urban local bodies may have limited authority to bring these pieces together.
As a result, infrastructure exists, but the service chain remains incomplete. Sewer networks may exist alongside septic tanks, but desludging services are irregular. Treatment plants may exist, but the networks needed to bring wastewater to them are missing.
On the water supply side, many towns rely on a mix of municipal supply, groundwater extraction, private water vendors, and tanker deliveries. During dry periods, households often have to purchase water, which gradually turns water into a daily household expense rather than a public service.
Heavy dependence on groundwater is also creating stress on aquifers, leading to salinity and contamination issues in several places.
Another observation was that in the process of expanding modern infrastructure, some traditional water systems that were historically adapted to local geography are slowly disappearing. This shows that the challenge is not simply about building more infrastructure but about planning the entire water cycle as a connected system.
Could you share a few stories from the study that reveal deeper systemic weaknesses?
Many of the most revealing insights from the study came not from infrastructure maps or official statistics but from very ordinary scenes in people’s daily lives.
In one town in Bangladesh, for example, mornings begin with people walking past a row of hand pumps. Some are painted green, others red. The colours are not decorative; they signal survival. Green means the water is considered safe, while red indicates arsenic contamination. But the red pumps are often the closest ones, and the green pump sometimes runs dry because the entire neighbourhood depends on it. So every day, families make a quiet decision between convenience and safety. What appears to be a simple walk for water is really a reflection of a deeper system gap; there simply are not enough safe and reliable water sources available.
In another context, in towns like Kirtipur and Godawari, piped water infrastructure has technically reached most homes. On paper, the system appears functional. But if you step into people’s kitchens, you will often see a 20-litre water jar sitting on the shelf. That jar exists because piped water may arrive only once every few days. So households rely on jars, wells, or tanker deliveries to bridge the gap. It quietly tells us that service reliability is just as important as infrastructure coverage and that households often carry the burden of compensating when systems fall short.
Interestingly, these towns also show resilience. Traditional stone water spouts, ‘dhunge dharas,’ that had fallen into disrepair are slowly being restored. Communities and municipalities have mapped springs, repaired channels, and revived these structures. During festivals like Sithi Naka, residents still gather to clean ponds and spouts before the monsoon. For households facing unreliable piped supply, these restored sources provide small but meaningful relief. It shows that resilience sometimes lies in reconnecting with traditional systems that were already adapted to local conditions.
In other places, we saw how modern infrastructure can overlook local realities. In Kargil, traditional dry toilets that were well-suited to cold, water-scarce winters are gradually being replaced by septic tanks. But during freezing months, those tanks often fail or cannot be desludged. In trying to standardise sanitation systems, we sometimes move away from solutions that were actually more climate-responsive.
And in Chikkaballapura, a sewage treatment plant was constructed on what appeared to be a dry lakebed. But when upstream water flows changed and the lake filled again, access to the plant became difficult. It’s a reminder that water landscapes remember their natural pathways, and planning needs to anticipate those dynamics.
Taken together, these stories point to something quite important. Many of the weaknesses we observed are not simply technical failures; they are system design failures. Infrastructure may exist, but the connections that make the system safe, reliable, and sustainable are often missing.
If you had to recommend three immediate policy shifts based on the study, what would they be?
Based on the study, we see the following policy shifts that could make a significant difference.
First, planning needs to connect infrastructure with governance, land use, and finance. Too often, water and sanitation projects are implemented as isolated engineering works. But without strong institutions to manage them, without land-use planning that protects water sources, and without financial systems that support long-term operation and maintenance, infrastructure alone cannot deliver lasting outcomes. Strengthening local government capacity and improving coordination across departments becomes essential if these assets are to function sustainably.
Second, we need to close the loop in how we approach water and sanitation systems. Sanitation cannot end with the construction of a toilet, and water supply cannot end with the installation of a tap. A complete cycle, from containment and conveyance to treatment, safe disposal, and reuse, must replace today’s often broken chain. When that loop is incomplete, contamination spreads, groundwater degrades, and infrastructure fails to deliver its intended benefits.
Third, the study reinforces the importance of context-sensitive and climate-adapted solutions. Every geography tells a different story. Frozen pipes in Ladakh, saline intrusion in Kerala, drought pressures in Karnataka, or landslide-prone terrains in the Himalayan towns all remind us that one-size-fits-all engineering approaches rarely work. Building resilience requires solutions that respond to local landscapes, climate conditions, and traditional knowledge systems, sometimes by modernising practices that communities have relied on for generations.
Another important shift is to recognise treated water as a resource rather than waste. Safe reuse can support agriculture, industry, aquifer recharge, and urban greening. For water-stressed towns, this not only reduces pollution but also eases pressure on fragile groundwater reserves and helps close the loop in urban water management. Our ongoing reuse readiness assessments in several small towns in Karnataka are beginning to highlight both the immediate opportunities and the longer-term structural changes needed to mainstream reuse in these contexts.
And finally, inclusion must anchor every reform. Access to water and sanitation is meaningful only when it is reliable, safe, and equitable. Empowering women, informal workers, and vulnerable communities to participate in planning and monitoring systems can transform fragmented projects into living systems of accountability and care.
Taken together, these shifts point toward a broader transformation, one where water and sanitation are not treated as isolated infrastructure sectors, but as interconnected systems that shape the environmental, social, and economic resilience of emerging urban centres.
Is BORDA South Asia also involved in building the capacity of municipal organisations? How does that work in practice?
Yes, capacity building is an important part of our work.
For example, under certain government schemes, there is funding for intercept and divert projects that help prevent untreated wastewater from entering water bodies. Many municipalities know they need such interventions, but do not know how to prepare detailed project reports. In such cases, we help develop DPRs and also create standard operating procedures that municipalities can use directly.
We are also introducing technologies such as borewell automation sensors. In many towns, borewells are manually switched on and off, which can lead to unnecessary water loss. With these sensors, operators can monitor water levels and control the system through mobile devices, reducing wastage and improving efficiency.
However, installing technology is only one part of the process. We also work closely with municipal staff to develop operation and maintenance plans and provide training so they can manage these systems independently over time.
Finally, the title of the study, “Following the Flows”, is quite interesting. How did you arrive at it?
We spent quite a bit of time thinking about the title. We did not want something like “Assessment of Water and Sanitation Systems in Twenty Towns” because the study is not structured like a conventional report.
The document is highly visual and story-driven. It traces the journey of water and presents insights through narratives from different towns.
The idea of “flow” was central to our thinking. Water supply and wastewater are not separate processes. They are part of one continuous cycle that should ideally function as a circular loop.
So the title Following the Flows reflects both the methodology and the philosophy of the study. It captures the idea of tracing water through its entire journey and understanding where the system connects, adapts, or breaks along the way.
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