This section includes articles written by WOTR and by external agencies on WOTR’s work. Some of the renowned national and international publications that have featured our work are National Geographic, EPW, Terra Green, Forbes, LEISA, Agrowon and Vanrai to name a few.
From water to agriculture, well-being and beyond
In this special feature published in the India Water Portal, WOTR’s Arjuna Srinidhi (Senior Researcher, Climate policy), Marcella D’Souza (Director, WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies) and Crispino Lobo (Managing Trustee)…
Water stewardship in rainfed agrarian Maharashtra
The article ‘Water stewardship in rainfed agrarian Maharashtra’ written by Eshwer Kale and Marcella D’Souza was published in the compendium ‘Water Conservation and Saving in Agriculture: Initiatives, Achievements and Challenges…
Self-sufficiency assured: for survival in the village
This article ‘Schwerpunkt: Selbstständigkeit sichern – und das Überleben in der Heimat’ published in the German Magazine by Elvira Greiner of Andheri Hilfe, describes the change she has witnessed in…
Enabling Gendered Environment for Watershed Management
Women’s participation is widely recognised in watershed programmes: however, it is not addressed beyond activities like SHG formation and conventional credit and savings. WOTR evolved a new approach for watershed…
IGDSS – Applied Technology at the Grassroots Using Satellite imagery and Mobile GPS at village level for on-site plot level Crop-Mapping
The objective of the study is to develop a methodology aimed at obtaining season wise plot level crop data using High-resolution satellite image and mobile GPS. And also to arrive…
Crop Planning For Food and Nutrition Security Using GIS and Mobile GPS Technology – A Case Study of Ghoti Village in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra
Ghoti village of Ahmednagar district, agro-climatically falls in transition zone and agriculture is rainfed. This region has experienced erratic climatic events like rainfall, coldwave and dryspells frequently which damaged crops.…
Agro-Met Services and Farmer Responsiveness to Advisories: Implications for Climate Smart Agriculture
This chapter in ‘Handbook of Climate Change Resilience’ aims to understand the nature and importance of different components of WOTR advisory system and the response of farmers to the agro-met…
From Vulnerability Assessments to Low/No Regret Resilience Planning in Rural Contexts
This chapter draws on lessons learnt from natural resources management projects in three Indian states – which includes designing projects, making mid-course modifications, and conducting project evaluations. It provides guidelines…
Managing the Increasing Heat Stress in Rural Areas
The present study examines the vulnerability of rural communities to heat stress in the semiarid villages in the Maharashtra state of India. The study was conducted in five villages of…
Water Budgeting: A tool for improving water governance at local level
While working in rural India for more than 25 years, WOTR found the Water Budgeting tool to be very powerful, if implemented by taking into account the water stewardship approach.…
Dushkal Nivaranasathi Shashwat Upayanchi Akhni (Planning sustainable measures to tackle drought)
This article written by Crispino Lobo, Managing Trustee, WOTR published in Vanrai Magazine talks about community driven intergrated watershed development and efficient water use management Download Article
Community Based Disaster Management of WOTR
This article describes ‘Disaster Risk Reduction ‘ Component of the Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) programme implemented by Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR). It also illustrates WOTR’s multi-pronged approach in Community Based…
Up Scaling Local Adaptations in India: What Works!
The article ‘Up Scaling Local Adaptations in India: What Works!’ by Neha Gupta describes how WOTR integrates the approach build on inherent knowledge in communities with new innovative adaptations to…
Self-sufficiency assured: for survival in the village
This article published in the German Magazine by Elvira Greiner of Andheri Hilfe, describes the change she has witnessed in the lives of people.
Islands of survival-or more?
The article is a transcript of a discussion between our Senior Researcher Arjuna Srinidhi and President Andheri Hilfe Bonn Elvira Greiner.
An article “Letzter Ausweg: Suizid” featured in punkt.um
There is an urgent need to create mechanisms to empower widows in Yavatmal and Vidarbha, and give them the support they need to pick up the pieces of their lives…
Practitioner’s Perspective on the JSA
Please read our response to ‘an article on Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan (JSA)’ is published in the ‘Economic and Political Weekly/ issue (Vol. 54, Issue No. 29, 20 Jul, 2019) at…
Plasticulture: Should we continue with it?
Plasticulture is the application of plastics in agricultural cultivation and is fast becoming the most sought-after technique to augment farm yields and farm income. But, there is also a flip…
From water to agriculture, well-being and beyond
In this special feature published in the India Water Portal, WOTR’s Arjuna Srinidhi (Senior Researcher, Climate policy), Marcella D’Souza (Director, WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies) and Crispino Lobo (Managing Trustee)…
Enabling cross-regional exchanges to advance knowledge on impacts of global warming
The article is published in June 2019 issue of ProSus Magazine. The magazine showcases the voices of researchers, thinkers and storytellers, and perspectives that build bridges between science and society,…
Plastic Bandiche Shivdhanushya: Banning Plastic a Herculean Task
The Environment Department of the Government of Maharashtra and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) recently released a special issue compendium titled issue ‘Plastic Bandiche Shivdhanushya’ (Banning plastic: A herculean…
Adapting to climate variation through crop diversification
While farmers everywhere are struggling to cope with the changing agro-climatic conditions, a few farmers in Kumbharwadi village in Maharashtra are adapting to the situation by diversifying their cropping systems.…
Adding value to farm pond implementation with geospatial information
This Stakeholder engagement report explains the process used for developing a flexible, community-oriented approach to operationalizing climate change adaptation planning and natural resource management. This process was used in a…
Water stewardship in rainfed agrarian Maharashtra
The article ‘Water stewardship in rainfed agrarian Maharashtra’ written by Eshwer Kale and Marcella D’Souza was published in the compendium ‘Water Conservation and Saving in Agriculture: Initiatives, Achievements and Challenges in Maharashtra’ by Water Resources Department (WRD) Government of Maharashtra.
Managing the Increasing Heat Stress in Rural Areas
The present study examines the vulnerability of rural communities to heat stress in the semiarid villages in the Maharashtra state of India. The study was conducted in five villages of…
From Vulnerability Assessments to Low/No Regret Resilience Planning in Rural Contexts
This chapter draws on lessons learnt from natural resources management projects in three Indian states – which includes designing projects, making mid-course modifications, and conducting project evaluations. It provides guidelines…
Agro-Met Services and Farmer Responsiveness to Advisories: Implications for Climate Smart Agriculture
This chapter in ‘Handbook of Climate Change Resilience’ aims to understand the nature and importance of different components of WOTR advisory system and the response of farmers to the agro-met…
IGDSS – Applied Technology at the Grassroots Using Satellite imagery and Mobile GPS at village level for on-site plot level Crop-Mapping
The objective of the study is to develop a methodology aimed at obtaining season wise plot level crop data using High-resolution satellite image and mobile GPS. And also to arrive…
Enabling Gendered Environment for Watershed Management
Women’s participation is widely recognised in watershed programmes: however, it is not addressed beyond activities like SHG formation and conventional credit and savings. WOTR evolved a new approach for watershed…
Crop Planning For Food and Nutrition Security Using GIS and Mobile GPS Technology – A Case Study of Ghoti Village in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra.
Ghoti village of Ahmednagar district, agro-climatically falls in transition zone and agriculture is rainfed. This region has experienced erratic climatic events like rainfall, coldwave and dryspells frequently which damaged crops.…
Birds of Darewadi Learning Centre and Watershed
The Watershed Organization Trust is taking concrete steps towards conservation of avifauna around the Centre. In order to create a refuge, We have planned to phase out exotic species and…
Identifying hotspots in land use land cover change and the drivers in a semi-arid region of India
The study examines long-term land use/land cover change (LUCC) at a finer scale in a semi-arid region of India. The objectives were to study and quantify the spatiotemporal LUCC and…
Transformation, adaptation and development: relating concepts to practice
In recent years there has been a growing number of academic reviews discussing the theme of transformation and its association with adaptation to climate change. On the one hand this…
Identifying Climate Risks and Assessing Differential Vulnerability of Communities in Ahmednagar and Aurangabad Districts of Maharashtra
India has large drought-prone drylands that support climate sensitive livelihoods for local communities. Climate variability manifested as unseasonal and low rainfall have caused heavy crop loss for farmers. Aggravating this…
Biodiversity: A Key for Adaptation to Climate Change
Climate change is already underway and its effects, especially on rural communities in India, are particularly adverse. The need is to highlight the key issues and understand the practical challenges…
Watershed voices Kachner: A STORY OF RESILIENCE
The resilience of people is revealed, not in how much adversity they can endure, but in how they never cease to strive for a better life. Our land is a…
Leadership, Enterprise and Empowerment
“I was young and ambitious. I wanted to become a teacher but I didn’t have what was needed to become one. I needed luck”, says Mojilal. Mojilal was born into…
Agriculture market price fluctuations, changing livestock systems and Vulnerability Connect – a case of Mhuswandi watershed, Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra
Majority of the rural poor in India depend on livestock rearing as a means of livelihood. In resource fragile regions, semi-arid and arid regions, in particular, livestock plays a critical…
Gender Dimension of Climate Change Adaptation: an exploration into the perceptions of women and the community
Substantial past work and documentation exists on gender and environment issues, but there is little explicit research on the gendered impact of climate change. Women being the poorest in the…
What are we in for? Rural dynamics in the context of Climate Change
Climate change is upon us and we are faced with the challenge of understanding what is really happening, predicting what is likely to happen and more importantly, finding appropriate ways…
The Hot Water Chullah : Findings from an assessment
Background and Motivation Progress and development on one hand and the need to conserve the environment and reduce carbon emissions on the other are two concerns that need to be…
System of Crop Intensification
Often, when people think of drylands, they think of deserts and living conditions, economic hardship and water scarcity. But that is not what drylands are all about. If managed well,…
Combatting desertification through participatory natural resource management
Approximately 1.2 billion people are at risk from desertification as deserts expand and degraded drylands cover close to a third of the world’s land surface area, according to estimates by…
A Report on deployment of Parabolic Community Solar Cookers – for Mid-Day-Meal Scheme in Rural Schools The Project
WOTR is a not-for-profit NGO founded in 1993 operating currently in five Indian states – Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jharkhand. WOTR is recognised widely as a premier…