Access to water remains central to rural wellbeing, livelihoods and women’s everyday responsibilities.
Photo: SuWaVi/GIZ India

Water
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Towards gender-responsive action in water with GIS planning

Through its “Water Vision 2047”, India has set itself the goal of ensuring water security for all. Our author explains why this issue is particularly important for women, how Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to support integrated planning processes, and how women can be placed at the heart of these efforts.

 

By Harsha Doriya

Globally, water is no longer viewed only as a natural resource or infrastructure asset. It is increasingly recognised as a social, economic and gender issue. According to UN Women, world-wide, an estimated 200 million hours a day is spent by women and girls collecting water. In India alone, National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data indicates that women are disproportionately responsible for domestic water collection, particularly in rural households without piped supply.

These burdens translate into lost education, reduced workforce participation and heightened health risks. The World Health Organization links adequate water and sanitation to maternal health challenges and preventable disease exposure. These impacts extend beyond access alone; they shape safety, income dignity and decision-making power.

As countries work towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 (Gender Equality) and 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), the focus is shifting from building isolated assets to designing systems that respond to lived realities. Yet planning frameworks often remain sectoral and asset-driven, overlooking how water intersects with safety, health, mobility and livelihoods. It is within this gap that Geographic Information System (GIS)-based planning becomes relevant. GIS-based planning has emerged as a powerful way to make this shift real, translating data into gender-responsive action from global commitments to local implementation.

Initial steps forward – linking employment with water conservation

Women’s economic participation in rural India has long been anchored in MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), a Government of India programme that provides guaranteed wage employment to rural households through public works and is one of the world’s largest gender-inclusive employment programmes in which women have consistently constituted over half of the workforce. MGNREGA established the foundation for linking employment with water conservation, roads, plantations, schools, Anganwadis (rural child care centres) and other community assets, demonstrating how public works can simultaneously support livelihoods and local development.

Building on this legacy, the recently introduced Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G), a rural development initiative focused on durable infrastructure, livelihoods and climate-resilient village planning, strengthens the role of GIS enabled planning by emphasising durable, climate resilient rural infrastructure and integrated village development. Under this evolving framework, water-related works, core infrastructure and livelihood assets are planned using spatial data to ensure better alignment with habitations, work sites and service centres. This transition reinforces women’s roles not only as wage workers, but as central stakeholders in asset planning, implementation and monitoring, linking employment security with broader outcomes in water, health, mobility and income generation.

Understanding GIS – from maps to meaningful decisions

For many, GIS sounds technical. In practice, it is simply a way of bringing different kinds of information onto a single map, be it water sources, habitations, roads, schools, health centres, livelihoods or population groups. What makes GIS transformative is its ability to show how these elements overlap and interact. Traditional planning often treats water, housing, health and livelihoods as separate sectors. GIS changes this by enabling holistic planning, where water becomes one component of a wider development ecosystem. This matters particularly for women, whose daily lives cut across multiple systems from fetching water, caring for children and elders, earning incomes and accessing health services to participating in community institutions.

While MGNREGA successfully linked employment with water conservation and public asset creation, planning was often demand-driven and administratively segmented. GIS-enabled planning strengthens this approach by introducing spatial logic, analysing asset location optimisation, proximity to habitations and alignment with service centres to maximise impact.


Women participation in a local planning process under MGNREGS implementation.
Photo: SuWaVi/GIZ India

Under VB-G RAM G, assets are not created but strategically located using layered spatial data, ensuring that water structures, roads and livelihood assets are positioned where they reduce access gaps, travel time and service inequities. This marks a shift from asset quantity to spatial quality in rural development planning.

When viewed through a gender lens, GIS reveals not just infrastructure gaps, but systemic inequalities. The following sections illustrate how this plays out across health, safety, accountability and local governance.

Health pregnancy and care infrastructure

Water plays a critical role in maternal and child health, yet this connection is often under-planned. For many rural women, the burden of water collection contributes directly to what development economists term “time poverty” – the chronic stage of discretionary time due to unpaid care and domestic responsibilities. When safe water access improves, women reclaim time for education, income generation and participation in community institutions. GIS-based planning makes this visible by identifying villages where long travel distances compound maternal health and caregiving burdens.

GIS enables planners to layer pregnancy beneficiary data, health facilities, Anganwadis, nutrition centres, water supply and road connectivity on a single platform, revealing gaps that would otherwise remain invisible, For example, a health centre may exist but lack reliable water, or pregnant women may live in a village they must travel long distances to get to.

Such integrated planning directly supports national priorities under the National Health Mission, India’s flagship public health programme aimed at improving rural and maternal healthcare, and POSHAN Abhiyaan, the Government of India’s national nutrition mission focused on maternal and child health, improving hygiene, reducing infection risks and strengthening service delivery. As economist Amartya Sen observed: “Development is not about resources alone; it is about expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.” GIS planning helps convert infrastructure into real freedoms, especially for women navigating pregnancy and case responsibilities.

Safety, housing, sanitation and dignity

Water infrastructure is closely tied to women’s safety and dignity. Poorly located water points or toilets can expose women to harassment or violence, particularly in the early morning or the evening. GIS planning allows these facilities to be located closer to homes, schools and public institutions, improving visibility, accessibility and security. Housing, toilets, drainage and water supply are increasingly planned together using GIS under programmes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMKSY), India’s rural housing scheme for providing safe and permanent homes, and Swachh Bharat Mission, a national programme focused on sanitation, toilets and clean living environments. This integration is critical. Toilets without water or houses without drainage fail to deliver dignity, especially for women managing menstruation, pregnancy, caregiving and household hygiene. GIS ensures that these components are not only built but built in the right place and sequence, turning infrastructure into lived well-being.

Digital monitoring and accountability

One key advancement enabled by GIS is digital and online monitoring of water and infrastructure assets. Through asset geotagging, each water source, pipeline and facility is digitally mapped and linked to service records. Dashboards that track functionality, service delivery and coverage allow faster identification of breakdowns and gaps. For women, this lowers dependence on informal intermediaries and improves grievance redressal.

Digital repair tracking systems reduce dependence on informal escalation channels. Instead of repeatedly negotiating with local intermediaries, women can raise concerns through structured grievance systems linked to geotagged assets. This shortens response time and reduces the social burden of follow-up.

Under programmes like the Jal Jeevan Mission (India’s flagship initiative to provide safe tap water to every rural household and where GIS is used to map water infrastructure and identify underserved habitations), digital monitoring supports transparency and strengthens women’s roles in Village Water and Sanitation Committees (VWSCs). For example, dashboard reviews of VWSC meetings or public display of service data in Gram Sabha sessions (village-level public meetings where all adult residents can participate in local decision-making) allow communities to verify functionality and raise concerns in real time. When data is visible and regularly updated, gender-relevant concerns such as service reliability near schools, Anganwadis and health centres are harder to ignore and easier to act upon. Through Village  Water Sanitation Committees (VWSC), women are actively involved in interpreting local needs, monitoring service and decision-making. This combination of spatial data and women’s participation directly translates GIS planning into more gender-responsive water access on the ground.

GIS planning can also reshape who participates in planning. Women who are government officials and are trained as community resource persons, data collectors or barefoot planners gain technical skills and confidence, and maps make information accessible for meaningful engagement in Gram Sabha discussion and local forums. Rather than separating technical planning from local realities, GIS bridges engineers and communities within a shared evidence-based framework. Decision-making becomes evidence-based, inclusive and aligned with constitutional mandates under the 73rd Amendment, reinforcing women’s leadership in local governance.


Women beneficiaries engaged in land development activities, strengthening soil productivity and rural livelihoods. 
Photo Credits: SuWaVi/GIZ India

When planning systems centre on women not just as workers, but as knowledge-holders and decision-makers, water infrastructure becomes a pathway to agency. Gender-responsive GIS planning must now move beyond the basic structures created so far and pilot initiatives, and must be institutionalised as a standard approach to inclusive development.

A multi-sectoral shift toward gender-responsive planning

What makes GIS planning truly effective is its ability to support convergence across sectors such as water, health, education, housing, rural development and livelihoods. Shared spatial data ensures that gender considerations are embedded in implementation, not added later. Different sectors increasingly recognise that gender-response outcomes depend on coordinated planning, not standalone interventions.

For example,  GIS contributes to gender responsive water management by making women's lived realities visible in planning such as distance to water sources, proximity to health and care services, as well as safety risks. It helps prioritise infrastructure placement based on these needs, ensuring better access, reduced drudgery and improved service delivery. Actively involvinged women in interpreting this data and in planning decisions directly strengthens their role in shaping more equitable and inclusive water systems. 

While GIS Planning has already demonstrated strong gender outcomes, its potential can be deepened through better gender-disaggregated data, greater participation of women in interpreting data and simpler, more accessible tools. The focus must remain on lived realities, not just mapped assets. Ultimately, GIS reminds us that water is a connector. When planned holistically, it supports safety, health, livelihoods, dignity and agency. And when women are placed at the centre of that planning, development moves closer to equity, not just on maps but in everyday life.

Harsha Doriya is Junior Water Resources Advisor at Support to India’s Water Vision (SuWaVi), GIZ India. She is a Development and Policy Professional with over a decade of experience in working at the intersection of natural resource management, water security and sustainable food systems. Harsha has contributed to cross-sector policy dialogues, collaborating with government, multilateral, corporates and civil society institutions, and writes on sustainability and ecosystems.
Contact: harsha.harsha(at)giz.de

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