Cherokee Nation confronting water woes

The city of Bangalore is combining traditional well-building practices with modern wastewater treatment technology to address the local water crisis. By getting the community involved, they’ve bolstered forgotten wells, integrated advanced filtration systems and made significant progress towards a more sustainable future. One community alone has revitalized 200,000 manholes over the course of eight years.

Honor the Earth is an anti-data center coalition monitoring the construction of hyperscale data centers in or near indigenous land. Through their efforts, town halls, doorknocking, attending tribal council meetings and more, they’ve formed a community with people in agriculture and beyond, working to push back against data center construction and enact protections for communities. As a result of their efforts, the Tulsa City Council signed a 9-month moratorium on data centers, and the Seminole Nation also unanimously passed its own moratorium.

Community members, in collaboration with the non-profit Save the Children and the United States Agency for International Development, installed a solar-powered borehole earlier this year, making clean water more accessible to the village. Community members regularly clean the water taps and perform system maintenance to ensure the water supply isn’t disrupted, as the solar-powered solution has become their primary source of clean water.

Amidst water scarcity and increased waterborne diseases, community members are using sand dams, an innovative water management system, to conserve rainwater for daily use. Sand dams offer extended water storage capabilities, lasting up to a year, ensuring community members have consistent access to clean water for farming, cooking and general hygiene. There are currently six sand dams in the community serving 600 households.

In a village facing water scarcity, generous locals with funds to spare are installing boreholes in their homes with pumps outside for other residents in the village to access clean, safe water.

To combat health and sanitary issues arising from high rates of open defecation and a lack of government support, community members worked together to fund and build 14 easily accessible toilets that are cleaned daily and open for anyone to use.

Indigenous peoples in Thailand's Nan province, in collaboration with researchers from five institutions, launched a citizen-science program using soil, hair, and fish sampling alongside computer modelling to document transboundary pollution from Laos's Hongsa coal plant. This work produced evidence of acidic soils and mercury contamination that has empowered environmental advocacy actions.

The “La Asociación de Usuarios del Acueducto Comunitario ‘Aguas Calientes’” is a comunity water plant built with government grant money to address the potable water scarcity in the area. Over the course of two decades of operation, the Association is the primary water supplier of the area’s 6,000 residents.

Mysuru has become a gleaming example for solutions to India's vaster struggles with solid-waste management, toilet construction, sanitation strategy, public outreach, and other measures. The city uses a decentralized model that leverages a mix of municipal resources, NGO leadership, civil society, and cooperation from proud residents and businesses.

The community-run Water Consumer Association in Adamawa manages and maintains a solar-powered borehole system installed in 2022 by Mercy Corps and WaterAid. Trained volunteers handle operations, repairs, and hygiene promotion while charging households each month for maintenance costs. Four years after installation, the system continues serving approximately 200 households with clean water. Community members also report less fear of disease from contaminated river sources.