Sustainable strategies for water management challenges in hill-towns

Water is the most precious resource on Earth for survival, which is limited. Cities have grown rapidly in recent decades. Besides population, this growth includes additional basic infrastructures like buildings, roads, waste, and emissions. Increased urbanisation and built-up infrastructure result in increased runoff due to impermeable surfaces and limited recharging of groundwater, thus causing water scarcity and intensifying water problems in cities, including hill-towns. In hill-towns, topography plays a major role in the distribution network of water supply and wastewater management. This study focuses on challenges of water management in the hill towns in general. The research is divided into two stages. Stage I focuses on the challenges regarding water management in hill-towns, and stage II deals with the scope of improvising the water management supported by the literature at the city-level. The paper concludes by suggesting a few possible solutions for sustainable water management to resolve the problems associated with hill-towns. © 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.. All rights reserved.