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Natural Springs are essential but neglected lifelines for urban water security in mountain cities. Reimagining them as urban water commons offers a path toward city resilience in a climate-challenged future.
Image Source: Getty Images
This article is a part of the essay series: World Water Week 2025
Rapid urbanisation across mountain regions is deepening socio-ecological vulnerabilities, as witnessed in the recent floods in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand. Depleting natural resources combined with climate change and mounting pressure on basic services are reshaping urban waterscapes and amplifying the risk of natural hazards. In response to the growing urban water insecurities, many mountain cities from the Himalayas to the Andes are resorting to large-scale, supply-driven, mega-engineering interventions that are lifting water from distant sources. This involves a delicate balance of infrastructure, energy and costs, making these cities more vulnerable in the wake of climate change. Given this reality, mountain springs emerge as vital yet systematically overlooked components of urban water systems. Springs are natural discharges of groundwater that have historically sustained local populations. In many mountain cities, including those in the Himalayas, Andes, and East African highlands, springs continue to meet everyday water needs, particularly in informal and peri-urban settlements. However, despite their critical importance, springs are often overlooked in formal water urban planning and governance frameworks, putting them at risk from land-use change and aquifer degradation.
Mountain springs are critical socio-ecological systems that provide vital ecosystem services, including water for consumption and agriculture. They promote livelihoods and biodiversity in addition to having cultural and religious significance. Even a single spring with a modest but perennial discharge of 10 litres of water per minute has the annual capacity to yield ~5,000 cubic meters. Extrapolating this to the current count of at least 2 million such springs in the Himalayan region implies a water flow potential of 25 billion cubic meters every year.
Mountain springs are critical socio-ecological systems that provide vital ecosystem services, including water for consumption and agriculture.
Springs also sustain the base flow of rivers and riverine ecosystems. Studies have found that in the Nepal Himalayas, groundwater contribution is six times higher than that of glaciers and snow melt. Similar studies on the Ganga have also stressed the importance of groundwater aquifers. A gross estimate of nearly 200 million Indians (~15 percent of the population) depend upon spring water across the Himalayas, Western and Eastern Ghats, Aravallis and other mountain ranges. Depletion of springs not only diminishes regional groundwater stocks but also impacts the river hydrology, risking lives and livelihoods. In the Indian Himalayan region, cities situated on the hill tops or ridges do not have direct access to the rivers flowing in the valleys, and they depend on an energy and cost-intensive process of lifting water from distant sources. However, nearly 60 percent of the population, especially the low-income groups, still depend on springs as their primary water source. Additionally, the average annual tourist footfall in the Indian Himalayan region amounts to 100 million, further straining the scarce water resources.
Anthropogenic activities, such as deforestation, unchecked urbanisation, land-use changes, and unsustainable development projects, coupled with climate change, are key drivers behind spring depletion in the Himalayas. Extreme weather events, including earthquakes, flash floods, and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), further add to the challenge. A survey of 500 springs by Uttarakhand Peyjal Nigam revealed that 93 springs had lost 90 percent of their water volume, 268 of them had lost 75-90 percent, and the remaining 139 springs had lost 50-75 percent of their water volume in the last three years. Though spring water is considered clean due to the natural filtering that occurs during infiltration and its movement through shallow and deep aquifers, the ingress of sewage and wastewater has contaminated many Himalayan springs. A study of 258 springs in the Kashmir valley in India, published in Scientific Reports in 2022, found that in 6.2 percent of the springs, water was unfit for drinking due to contamination.
The structural neglect of urban springs is reflective of a broader paradigm within water governance, which prioritises hydro-engineering solutions over ecological knowledge.
Many central schemes, including the Jal Jeevan Mission and Har Ghar Jal, depend on natural springs in hill regions. Depleting springs thus means walking longer distances in search of water. The structural neglect of urban springs is reflective of a broader paradigm within water governance, which prioritises hydro-engineering solutions over ecological knowledge. It displays the urban/rural vis-à-vis traditional/modernity duality, where springs are bracketed as rural solutions while the city becomes the lab for technological fixes and centralised logic. This approach further marginalises springs as decentralised spaces of urban water commons.
Water resources that are shared, co-managed, and socio-ecologically embedded within the city form the urban water commons. When viewed from the commons perspective, mountain springs are key urban water infrastructure, especially for the urban poor, where formal water supply systems often fail to reach. Consequently, springs are frequently contested spaces of overlapping claims, ownership, and access due to the plurality of user groups and institutions. While the public openly accesses most springs, several springs are tapped only by a few households, without open access for others. Springs are also used by commercial users, including hotels, for informal tanker water supply without any regulation. Given this complexity, springshed management must be integrated with community-led management of groundwater resources, ensuring community stewardship in the monitoring and maintenance of springs for long-term sustainability and resilience.
When viewed from the commons perspective, mountain springs are key urban water infrastructure, especially for the urban poor, where formal water supply systems often fail to reach.
Experiences from the Peruvian Andes demonstrate pre-Incan nature-based water harvesting canals, known as ‘Amunas,’ which were built sinuously along the slope contours to distribute the high flows from alpine streams during the rainy season across porous basins. This system allowed infiltration of water in the ground, which later emerged from springs at lower elevations, supporting irrigation, livelihoods, and domestic water needs while managing drought risks. The Amunas are intertwined with a pre-Incan form of community governance called ‘el camachico’, where each member of the community is responsible for the maintenance of the Amuna system. In Peru’s San Pedro de Casta, people gather for a week-long community canal-cleaning each October to pay homage to their departed ancestors. Peru is now successfully rejuvenating the Amunas by Aquafondo, and researchers believe that combined with grassland conservation and sustainable agriculture practices, they may become a key part of the country’s future urban water security.
In India, the Government of Sikkim’s Rural Management and Development Department (RMDD) launched the Dhara Vikas programme to revive the state’s dying lakes, springs and streams through hydrogeological mapping, catchment treatment, trenching, and afforestation to enhance spring recharge. The programme prioritises the role of the local community in the process. Micro-level planning begins with community awareness and dialogue, ensuring that all work-related decisions are collectively discussed and resolved through the panchayat and village-level forums. Similarly, Nepal’s community-led Kathmandu valley spring rejuvenation programmes utilise traditional springs and stone spouts to serve domestic and ritualistic purposes.
Peru is now successfully rejuvenating the Amunas by Aquafondo, and researchers believe that combined with grassland conservation and sustainable agriculture practices, they may become a key part of the country’s future urban water security.
These case examples indicate that a commons-based water management model demonstrates the value of combining citizen science, ecological restoration, and institutional recognition. The 2018 report by Working Group I on the Inventory and Revival of Springs in the Himalayas for Water Security recommended a National Programme for the Regeneration of Springs in the Himalayan Region through a spring rejuvenation framework. While these are important strides, such efforts must extend beyond rural contexts and become embedded within urban water governance as well.
Springs have the potential to offer viable solutions to the rising drinking water demand. They merit attention for their protection and management as vital commons in mountain water governance. Climate change adds urgency to the task of spring protection. Restoring springs offers a low-energy, locally adaptive response to these challenges and a climate-resilient solution for livelihoods and ecosystems in the mountain cities. An aquifer-based, springshed management approach that combines science, partnerships, and community participation holds promise in spring revival, calling for a comprehensive and context-specific water resource policy for the mountain areas. Successful programmes like Sikkim’s Dhara Vikas demonstrate the transformative impact of community-led efforts and inform broader urban water governance strategies. To ensure long-term resilience, urban water planning in mountain cities must prioritise springs as critical urban water infrastructure and embed them within formal planning frameworks.
Soma Sarkar is an Associate Fellow with the Urban Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Soma Sarkar is an Associate Fellow with ORF’s Urban Studies Programme. Her research interests span the intersections of environment and development, urban studies, water governance, Water, ...
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