THE MOUNTAIN WATER SCHOOL
Building community-led water resilience
across the high mountain
regions of the world
The Mountain Water School (MWS) is a community-driven water resilience programme being developed by the Water Schools Foundation and The Voice of Glaciers Foundation for high-mountain communities to adapt to the changes their water systems are undergoing due to glacial melt and its allied impacts. The programme brings together two complementary bodies of knowledge: the traditional water management practices that mountain communities have refined over generations and contemporary science that can help communities to understand, monitor, and take local action.
Starting in the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) and then spreading to other high mountain ecosystems on the planet, it seeks to enable mountain communities to address many of the challenges they are facing.
Glaciers have shaped every river system flowing from the mountains to the plains and sustained the lives and livelihoods of billions. But they are only the most visible part of a much larger mountain water system now under stress.
Challenges
Melting glaciers, drying springs
Erratic river flows – too much water in some seasons, too little in others
Depleting aquifers and groundwater
Forests under pressure from land-use change, encroachment, and shifting climate
Rainwater that falls on mountain landscapes that have lost their capacity to hold it
Actions
The MWS will enable mountain communities to rediscover, adapt, and teach each other how to hold water in their landscapes and in doing so, rebuild livelihoods, agency, and resilience from the ground up.
Identify
deep community mapping of water knowledge and needs
Compete
friendly community competitions drive rapid adoption
Scale Up
government adopts the proven model as policy
Enable
one anchor community implements low-cost, locally-led interventions
Steward
through a Glacier Guardian program
Exchange
communities teach communities through peer visits
Where will it begin?
Five pilot regions across the Indian Himalaya are being considered: Uttarakhand (Kumaon and Garhwal), Himachal Pradesh (Spiti), Kashmir, Ladakh, and Sikkim, each representing a distinct mountain water system. Pilot site selections will be guided by expert consultation with glaciologists, ecologists, community representatives, and governance stakeholders for each region.
What makes it different?
The MWS is not being designed in a distant institution to be imposed on the mountain communities. It will also address the full mountain water system, creating livelihoods, not volunteers, connecting science and community reciprocally. Government will be a key stakeholder from the outset. It is being designed and tested for global relevance.
Who is behind it?
The Voice of Glaciers Foundation
(a section 8 Not for Profit in India) which brings mountain-community
networks, glacier science partnerships, and government engagement
pathways to build preparedness infrastructure in glacier-dependent
regions of the HKH.
thevoiceofglaciers.org
The Water Schools Foundation
(a
UK based NGO) which has a proven peer-learning approach with
communities who manage their own water systems learning from each
other, not just from external experts. They work across Africa, India
and South America.
www.waterschools.org
the ask
MWS in its research and consultation phase is seeking:
Expert engagement: Glaciologists, ecologists, community leaders, and policy stakeholders willing to contribute knowledge to the concept development
Pilot funding: $250,000 – $350,000 for an 18-month pilot in the identified five diverse mountain communities
Strategic partners: Organisations with on-the-ground experience, bottom-up approach, and alignment with the programme’s philosophy.