Watershed Organisation Trust - Centre for Resilience Studies (W-CReS)

The Watershed Organisation Trust - Centre for Resilience Studies (W-CReS) aims to bridge some of the gaps between science, policy and practice and promote multi-stakeholder collaboration at all levels. 

W-CReS’s overall goal is to conduct rigorous trans-disciplinary, applied research with a view to contributing grounded insights and learnings to policy formulation, program design and implementation, capacity building and behavioural change processes. The objective is to promote adaptive responses and mitigate the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, water resources, agriculture, food and nutrition, health, livelihoods, gender, governance and local institutions. These themes are the core focus of its enquiry and study.

Current Projects       

W-CReS is engaged in:

  • Three large-scale, collaborative applied research projects:
    • “Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions“ (ASSAR) in Africa and India which is funded by IDRC and DfID.
    • Studies to assess and address the impacts of climatic and non-climatic drivers in rain-fed landscapes in Maharashtra and Telangana, funded by the Hindustan Unilever Foundation (HUF).
    • “Soil Conservation and Rehabilitation of Degraded Lands for Food security in India”, funded by GIZ.
  • Capacity building, Training and Knowledge Sharing Events for policy makers, government officials, knowledge workers, development practitioners, donors, local leaders and communities;
  • Piloting innovative, scalable, and knowledge-intensive projects such as:
    • The Water Stewardship and Multi-Stakeholder Engagement Initiative which seeks to develop actionable Water Stewardship Plans at the village and cluster levels, involving the governance, developmental and administrative entities up to the state level;
    • Farmer-Centric Agro-meteorology, in partnership with government entities, to automate the process of generating weather- based crop advisories that are farmer and locale specific.

Acknowledgement:

W-CReS gratefully acknowledges the generous support received from the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and the Hindustan Unilever Foundation (HUF) that has made possible its establishment.