Behavioural responses and the impact of environmental knowledge of ponds: Evidence from field experiment in India

The following information will be discussed with the women users of ponds in the treatment villages.
First, the importance of water for not just cooking and drinking, but for cleaning and bathing especially during the hot and dry season will be discussed with the participants. The intervention will discuss how poor quality of pond water affects the women in terms of inconvenience of not having access to clean water, time use and exposure to diseases. Next, how waste disposal behaviour of the women affects pond water quality will be highlighted. Next, the women will be explained that since the ponds were used by different households and were owned jointly by households, the responsibility of keeping it clean fell on all the users. Lastly, the women will be explained about the various waste disposal strategies and how they can keep the ponds clean.

The following training module will be discussed with the women users of ponds in the treatment villages:
First, the importance of water for not just cooking and drinking, but for cleaning and bathing especially during the hot and dry season will be discussed with the participants. The intervention will discuss how poor quality of pond water affects the women in terms of inconvenience of not having access to clean water, time use and exposure to diseases.

Next, how waste disposal behaviour of the women affects pond water quality will be highlighted. The focus during the discussion will be on how detergents and chemicals in soaps change the composition of water, increase the chances of eutrophication and consequently lead to increase unwanted plants like water hyacinth.

Next, the women will be explained that since the ponds were used by different households and were owned jointly by households, the responsibility of keeping it clean fell on all the users. Because of the nature of ownership, and the externalities associated with clean pond water, there is a tendency of under-provisioning of money for cleaning ponds. This problem is aggravated by the lack of trust and coordination among the user households, as far as investment in cleaning the ponds is concerned. Hence, during the training, women will be explained about the collective action problem and that solving it requires coordination with others, discussion with the other households. The objective of this discussion will be to invoke a sense of ownership among the women regarding their role in maintaining the quality of pond water and pollution level in the ponds.

Lastly, the women will be explained about the various waste disposal strategies and how they can keep the ponds clean. The first method would be to prevent disposal of waste, particularly plastic waste into the ponds or water bodies. To prevent this the women would be encouraged to install waste bins by the ponds and monitor others to prevent disposal of plastic waste into the ponds. Other methods like putting lime solution in pond water that increases the pH level and decreases the amount of free carbon dioxide in the water and using potassium permanganate that acts as algaecide will also be discussed. These activities are relatively cheap, but require labour. The women will be encouraged to think of ways how they can raise some money to hire workers to clean the ponds, every few months.

2025-05-12

2025-05-31

Willingness to pay in cash or kind for cleaning of ponds

Since the women are important users of pond water, data will be collected from them and data on their willingness to pay will be collected.

Actual cleaning of ponds, Waste disposal around the ponds,Increasing coordination among women users of ponds

Since actual cleaning of ponds involve resource mobilization including labour , women may not be able to fulfil them especially in places where they are less empowered or have limited decision making power. However, whether the users are making an effort to reduce waste disposal around the ponds and are coordinating actions with other households to clean the ponds are the secondary outcomes of interest.

This project focuses on the environmental quality of ponds located within the residential hamlets of rural West Bengal in India. The training would include information on how actions of households pollute pond water, the importance of conserving water and coordinating actions as well as different strategies to clean the ponds. The first outcome of interest would be whether women exposed to the training are willing to pay more. Since, there is a lack of trust and coordination among the women, and women may be reluctant to contribute money for cleaning of ponds because they are unsure about how much others are willing to pay for the same, I plan to design a repeated public goods game, where the women are divided into groups such that the users of the same pond are put in the same group. In each round of the game, the women will be asked to divide a sum of money into their contribution towards cleaning the ponds and money for self-use. Since the women do not know the contribution of other users, in subsequent rounds it will be revealed to them how much others are contributing. The objective of this game would be to ascertain whether initial contributions are enough to clean the pond, and whether information about actions of others, leads them to coordinate their actions more and revise their contribution, such that the ponds could be cleaned. The outcome of interest is to ascertain whether the women are taking actions such as installing waste bins around the ponds, monitor the cleanliness around the ponds, hold regular meetings to keep ponds clean and also take actions to clean the ponds.

This project focuses on the environmental quality of ponds located within the residential hamlets of rural West Bengal in India. Even though ponds remain an important source of water for household use in West Bengal, quality of pond water has always been questionable. The awareness about the consequence of poor water quality is not uniform as some women continue to use pond water for cleaning and washing purposes, even when it is visually very dirty, while others don’t.
In absence of a waste collection system run by local governments or a sewer system, people also lack knowledge about how to safely dispose household waste or waste water. Often, the households dispose food and non-food waste and detergent water in nearby ponds. The women, in most cases, are unaware about how to clean the ponds. Decisions on the cleaning of ponds are usually taken and carried out by male members, even though women use pond water more. In many cases coordination among user households for carrying out cleaning activities is a problem. This is because there is joint ownership of the ponds by members of extended families. However, due to the breakdown of traditional joint family system and creation of neutral families, there is a lack of trust among different branches of the same family. This lack of trust translates to lack of coordination of actions including actions related to cleaning of ponds. In this context, this project aims to gather experimental evidence on the effect of providing training to women living around ponds on willingness to pay for cleaning pond water, cooperation among women users of pond water and adoption of strategies adopted by rural women to prevent pollution of pond water. The training would include information on how actions of households pollute pond water, the importance of conserving water and coordinating actions as well as different strategies to clean the ponds. The first outcome of interest would be whether women exposed to the training are willing to pay more. Since, there is a lack of trust and coordination among the women, and women may be reluctant to contribute money for cleaning of ponds because they are unsure about how much others are willing to pay for the same, I plan to design a repeated public goods game, where the women are divided into groups such that the users of the same pond are put in the same group. In each round of the game, the women will be asked to divide a sum of money into their contribution towards cleaning the ponds and money for self-use. Since the women do not know the contribution of other users, in subsequent rounds it will be revealed to them how much others are contributing. The objective of this game would be to ascertain whether initial contributions are enough to clean the pond, and whether information about actions of others, leads them to coordinate their actions more and revise their contribution, such that the ponds could be cleaned. The outcome of interest is to ascertain whether the women are taking actions such as installing waste bins around the ponds, monitor the cleanliness around the ponds, hold regular meetings to keep ponds clean and also take actions to clean the ponds.

Using random number generator on STATA

Gram Panchayats

Yes

58 Gram Panchayats- 29 treatment Gram Panchayats and 29 control Gram Panchayats.

580 women

29 Gram Panchayats in treatment arm and 29 Gram Panchayats in Control arm
Approximately 290 women in treatment arm and 290 women in control arm