New technology adoption in rural areas of emerging economies: The case of rainwater harvesting systems in India

Technological advancements can accelerate the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, technology adoption is associated with complex, interrelated factors, even more so in the context of rural areas in emerging economies. We examine the adoption of one technology that can be crucial for resolving water scarcity issues facing countries around the world–the Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) technology and the critical success factors (CSFs) that promote its adoption in rural India. Building on an extensive literature review, focus group discussions, and field visits, this paper identifies a list of factors that promote its adoption. To derive the CSFs, the relevance of each factor is analysed using Fuzzy-Delphi, and the significance is determined using D-DEMATEL technique. The novel results presented here suggest that awareness about RWH technologies, their perceived usefulness, ease of use, and tax incentives for companies are some crucial factors that can increase RWH technology adoption. Furthermore, community-based workshops explaining the architecture and operational aspects of the RWH System as well as simplifying the RWH system architecture can accelerate its usage in rural areas. Based on these results, the paper presents a new roadmap for leveraging technology to attain SDGs in rural areas of developing countries.