Designing water policy in India as adaptive governance for sustainability

India's governance regimes for water have always been important, given its vast size, development challenges, and administrative and ecological complexity. Their effective and legitimate implementation has a new urgency in the context of climate change, leading to widespread interest in ‘adaptive governance’. The term ‘adaptive water governance’ clearly takes on different meanings across contexts, ranging from transboundary institutions and riverine institutions, through national-level wetlands coastal, groundwater and wastewater policy to state-level, metropolitan and village-level institutions. These diverse governance constellations are crucial for managing natural hazards such as floods and storm surges, irrigation, industrial uses, drinking water supply, wastewater and local water bodies and their hydrology. Furthermore, in addition to formal (governmental) forms of regulation and management, there are many other non-formal or semi-formal collective forms of water management involving non-governmental organizations, farmer groups, water user associations, corporations, and self-help groups.