“Our case studies confirm that water used at and around the homestead for multiple purposes brings substantial benefits to people’s livelihoods. Provided services are well targeted, homestead-scale MUS is a way of achieving a more integrated set of poverty impacts than conventional water services. Homestead-scale MUS empowers women and is accessible to the poor and is likely to be the best way to use water to contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”

You can read an executive summary or download the full report here.

The focus of this year’s WWD observance is transboundary waters and water sharing opportunities.

IDE’s book, researched and written by Monique Mikhail and Bob Yoder, provides a comprehensive study on the practical implementation of multiple-use water services (or MUS) in Nepal and India.

What is MUS? Basically it’s a concept for low-cost water sharing systems that allow poor rural communities to access clean water for domestic needs and agricultural needs from the same source. MUS used in conjunction with IDE’s micro-irrigation systems allows for production of income-generating, high value crops using half the water that traditional farming methods use.

The book outlines clear ground rules for cooperation on implementing a gravity-fed community system design in the middle hills of Nepal, and discusses the legal, political, financial and institutional barriers and opportunities to scaling up larger MUS systems in India.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can download a PDF copy of the book, “Multiple-Use Water Service Implementation in Nepal and India” here (8MB PDF).

For more on World Water Day, check out the site here.

And, if you’re interested in participating locally, some events are listed by country here.