The Department of Water under the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources conducted a two-day sensitisation and training workshop at Gasa Dzongkhag from November 06-07, 2024, focused on “Participatory Assessment of Water Resource Management, Water Tariff, WUA sensitisation and Training, and Input to Local Water Resources Master Plan.”
This training workshop, including field assessment, is part of the ACREWAS project (Advancing Climate Resilience of the Water Sector in Bhutan), which aims to build climate resilience in the water sector across Gasa, Punakha, and Tsirang Dzongkhags. The participatory meeting workshop involved elected local government leaders, end beneficiaries and their representatives, and dzongkhag and forest officials, who will benefit from the Gasa water supply sourced from the Shingtaulum catchment.
Aligning with the project objective, the two-day meeting workshop and, field assessment which is being carried out from November 09-21, 2024, was mainly conducted to deliver the following objectives:
i. Develop awareness and understanding towards the ACREWAS project and the importance of Watershed conservation and its management, and data collection and generation.
ii. Sensitise the newly developed guidelines for the formation and registration of the WUA, Water tariff and its Survey report.
iii. Collate the issues and challenges for input in the development of the Local Water Resources Master Plan.
iv. Assess and determine the status of the Shingtaulum watershed for any intervention based on the Assessment and Classification of the Watershed.
The above training workshop is part of project component 1 – “Improving water governance and institutional framework” and component 2 – “Nature Based Solutions for Sustainable and Climate Resilient Watershed and Livelihood Enhancement”– of the ACREWAS project, funded by GEF-UNDP.
