Evaluating village-level WASH investments for climate resilience and disaster preparedness

India faces frequent flooding, particularly during the monsoon season and during cyclones. The country has developed strategies to manage large-scale flood events both before they occur (ex ante) and after they occur (ex post). These strategies include improvements in forecasting, emergency response, and recovery processes (Ministry of Home Affairs 2022; National Disaster Management Authority 2023). However, smaller hyperlocal flooding events, often caused by riverine floods, continue to present challenges. Forecasting technologies for these localized events are improving, which supports better preparedness. There is growing attention to strengthening hyperlocal investments in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) infrastructure to support effective ex post adaptation and recovery.

Researchers aim to explore opportunities to collaborate with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR), and the Ministry of Jal Shakti to: (a) evaluate how investments in different types of disaster-preparedness infrastructure protect villages and households in flood-prone areas, (b) generate evidence on the effectiveness of early action, early warnings, and preventive infrastructure and assess whether these approaches are more cost-effective than post-disaster infrastructure alone, and (c) examine how the composition of local decision-making bodies influences the prioritization and allocation of funds for disaster-preparedness infrastructure projects.