Paper Title
Political Ecology of Water Equity in Water Based Tourism: A Case Study of Bali (Indonesia) and Goa (India)

Abstract
It is an extremely ironical fact that although 70% of Earth is covered with water, yet many countries across the globe are witnessing a water crisis. There are finite sources of safe drinking water that is fundamental to human well being. Consequently, water conservation and management forms the root of all sustainable development initiatives and is critical for the survival of human life on the planet, healthful ecosystem and the socio-economic development. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs has identified a trend that will see two-thirds of the world’s population living in water-stressed countries by 2025. However, in India, sustainable practices still remain under covers besides alarming ground water table levels, inadequate climatic conditions, farmers’ plight, natural disasters, loss of bio-diversity and disturbed hydrological cycles. Community initiatives are negligible as far as the Grey Water Management is concerned. The untreated grey water from various land-uses; residential, commercial and institutional complexes is largely permitted to flow into drains which gets discharged into major rivers adding to the water pollution. Across the globe, there are several cities and countries whose economy largely depends on water based tourism. This project intends to study the impact of water contamination and pollution on the tourism of a place by taking the case studies of Goa and Bali. This will also consider the government interventions and initiatives for curbing this menace and restoring the water based tourism and hence the economy. Apart from studying the qualitative aspects of water management plans, the quantitative data pertaining to the water contamination will be presented in the project in order to justify the additional capital and human resources that are being employed for effective operation and maintenance of such infrastructure. Many field experts in earlier years after having studied the best sustainability practices of the developed nations have tried to implement the same in Indian setting. But the probability of the success of such implementations is not very high. Due to the cultural diversity in India, it is very challenging to replicate the international best practices pertaining to any social or environmental issue. Hence, the endeavor of the project will be to compare the strategies implemented by the administration of Goa and Bali for judicial management of water resource. Slight modifications if necessary will be projected in order to prevent water conservation from becoming an uphill task in our country. Finally, the inferences will try to define basic societal challenges and issues in the acceptance of sustainability measures in India and a brief overview of how these issues can be resolved with and without government intervention. Keywords - Tourism, Political Ecology, Sustainability, Water Crisis, Resource Depletion