Asia is the most populated region with the lowest per capita availability of freshwater resources among the world’s continents. With water needs growing at a tremendous pace to meet the demands of agricultural modernisation, industrialisation, urbanisation and the growing population, both river and groundwater is getting overexploited and, at the same time, increasingly polluted. For instance, there has been increasing emphasis on the exploitation of groundwater from deep aquifers which has led to depleting groundwater levels.
All major metropoles in Asia today face acute water shortages and the situation is worse in rural areas. Thousands of villages in Asia still do not have any local source of drinking water. Women have to walk many miles to collect a pot of drinking water. While the demand for clean water is growing, its availability is getting reduced. Such a situation requires large investments by the state, which it cannot meet at the scale required.
To improve the situation innovative concepts for water management are required, which also take into account traditional, indigenous ways of water management. Mai- Tai is a coordination action aiming at developing a coherent set of innovative, relevant and cooperative policy options and management strategies to contribute to improving the existing situation.
