The Water Conflict Forum (Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India) is an effort to bring together all those interested in working on issues related to water conflicts in India into a loose network for action and interaction. The Forum began its work towards the end of 2004 as a collaborative effort of eight organisations and a few independent researchers and was supported by World Wide Fund (WWF). Since then Forum had completed three phases of its work, with support from Arghyam in its last two phases. Presently the Forum comprises of more than 400 organizations and independent researchers and activists as its members.

Forum completed its third phase of activities (2013-2017) and the outcomes are summarized below:

a) Core Activities:

	Training Programme: Training young researchers and professionals on water related issues and in particular understanding and creating conditions to resolve conflicts have been one of the main activities of the Forum. In this phase, total 6 training programmes varying from 3-5 days were conducted that targeted lawyers and law students, young researchers, CSOs working on women and gender issues.
	Internship: Young students work with the Forum for a period of 2-3 months. The interns are often encouraged to study the water conflict issues that interest them. At the end of their internship, students give a short presentation and submit reports, which are available on the Forum's website. In this phase, about 15 interns were associated with the Forum.
	Dissemination and Advocacy: Water Conflict Forum disseminates its work through website, newsletters, social networking platforms, webinar, by producing small policy briefs and publishing papers in popular journals, in order to reach a wider set of audience. Efforts are also being made to translate this work into local language, so that the work reaches at the grassroots level. Similarly, Forum has made important interventions and provided suggestions in different policy statements and decisions taken by the Government concerning the development in the water sector.
	Documenting Conflicts: Forum continues to document various types of water conflicts. In fact in this phase efforts were made to document the way conflicts are framed and perceived. Some of the interesting case studies are being published soon.
	Kerala Resource Centre:Forum continues to work on action research in the state of Kerala through its resource centre, which was established in the second phase

b) Thematic Activities:

Four themes were identified in this phase. Of this the first phase was supported by WaterAid India (2012-20150 and the remaining themes were supported by Arghyam and the activities were mainly limited to the Mahanadi basin. From time to time large stakeholder meetings were conducted in the Mahanadi basin, in order to share the research work and receive feedback.

	Right to Water and Sanitation: The main focus of this theme was to create knowledge around Right to Water and Right to Sanitation, through a participatory stakeholder process. National and regional consultative workshops were conducted all over India, to develop a consensus on the knowledge around these rights. Efforts were also made to document case studies on conflicts around domestic water and sanitation and the reforms introduced for improving the access and availability of domestic water.
	Water Allocation and Use for Agriculture and Industries: Agriculture and industries like thermal power plants and steel, are large water allocated and water consuming sectors. sectors, which create an impact on the basic rights to water. Moreover conflicts are mooted as agriculture Vs industry in the larger development framework. The main aim of this theme is to understand the present agriculture and industrial water sourcing in order to develop water use protocols, both in terms of the amount and quality of water that these sectors use and return as well as conditions, which they should fulfil when they are allocated water.
	Environmental Flows in the River Basin: Many infrastructures are being built across the rivers in order to allocate and meet various needs of the population, such that the riverine ecosystem has been degraded and exploited to such an extent that the river has stopped flowing. The theme aimed to develop an institutional framework for river basin planning and management in order to meet the basic needs, livelihood and ecological needs, by keeping dams and environmental flows as centre stage.
	Competition and Conflicts around Groundwater: Most of the drinking water needs in India are met through groundwater resources. With proliferation of towns and cities, the dependencies on groundwater increases, either as a supplement the surface water resources or as a stand-alone resource. Therefore one of the objectives of this theme is to understand the typology of groundwater and the competitions and conflicts arising at different scales in the Mahanadi basin.

c) Opportunistic Interventions:

Water Conflict Forum has also intervened or studied different ad hoc conflicts which were not foreseen in the beginning. Some of these were,

	Bringing CSOs, researchers and local partners on a single platform to understand the water sharing between the newly formed states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. A study on the Krishna Basin Report was also prepared in this regard.
	Collaborating with the Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata to understand and analyse the multi-stakeholder process in protecting the East Kolkata Wetlands.
	Study the drought condition in Latur, Maharashtra which emerged in 2016.

Important Publications

	Reports on Right to Water and Sanitation Theme
	Conflicts around Domestic Water and Sanitation in India: Cases. Issues and Prospects
	Reform Initiatives in Domestic Water and Sanitation in India
	Right to Water in India: Privileging Water for Basic Needs
	Right to Sanitation in India: Nature, Scope and Voices from the Margins

	Reports on Other Thematic Activities in the Mahanadi Basin
	Mahanadi River Basin: A Situation Analysis
	Water Allocations and Use in the Mahanadi River Basin: A Study of the Agricultural and Industrial Sectors (Abridged version in Hindi is available)
	Hasdeo Basin Report: A Situation Analysis
	E-flows in Indian Rivers- Methodologies, Issues, Indicators and Conditions: Learnings from Hasdeo Basin
	Competition and Conflict Around Groundwater Resources in India
	Groundwater in the Mahanadi River Basin
	Integrated Water Management of the Mahanadi Basin: Water Resources, Water Allocation and Inter-Sectoral Use

	Report by Kerala State Resource Centre
	Groundwater Resource and Governance in Kerala: Status, Issues and Prospects

	Books
	Water Conflicts in Northeast India - South Asia Edition (Routledge Publication)

	Policy Briefs
	E-Flows in Indian River Basins- Methodologies, Issues, Indicators and Conditions: Learnings from the Hasdeo Basin
	Dalit and Right to Sanitation
	Right to Sanitation: A Gender Perspective
	Right to Sanitation: Position Paper of Right to Sanitation Campaign in India
	City Makers and WASH: Towards a Caring City
	Sanitation Rights and Needs of Persons with Disabilities
	Adivasis and Right to Sanitation

More information about Forum's work and other Publications can be viewed on Forum's website, www.waterconflictforum.org

Click here for Forum's vision and mission

For further details visit conflicts.indiawaterportal.org and waterconflictforum.org