Research studies will create a background and help to pave the path for a roadmap for policy to be developed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The practitioner’s guide will help municipal functionaries implement demonstration projects for mainstreaming sustainable water management paradigms.

• Handbook for Planning and Designing Water-Sensitive Cities for Improved River Flow and Health: A guidebook containing a legislative framework, standards and norms, and tools and techniques to implement sustainable and affordable Best Management Practices (BMPs) for mainstreaming sustainable decentralized water management including both conceptual theory and approach, practical steps for planning, designing and operation and maintenance, and national and international case studies.
• Water Sensitive Cities Index Handbook for ranking cities in the Ganga basin, Framework for Environment Assessment of WSUD and Framework for Mapping Impact of WSUD Interventions to improve river flow health.

The capacity building initiative aims to mainstream best practices and related reforms in cities within the Ganga basin through creation of an enabling environment for implementation of pilot and model projects.

• Training and webinars on designing, implementing, monitoring, and operating and maintaining rainwater harvesting systems in parks and open spaces, including on water-sensitive design and planning techniques and policy. Residential training for 30 municipal officials from different cities and around 80 officials for online training to build capacity to implement National Mission on Sustainable Habitat (NMSH), Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), and National Urban Sanitation Policy Program (NUSP) guidelines for water and to sensitize them to the principles of sustainable water management.
• Knowledge conclave-cum-sensitization workshop for 70–100 persons and an exposure visit of five days (within India or internationally) for select 15 municipal functionaries, and elected representative participants from the technical or policy workshops.

To develop awareness on successful implementation of BMPs and dissemination of success stories and performance results required for mainstreaming reforms for making cities water-sensitive, a central repository of information on all aspects to do with sustainable urban water management offering easy-to-use and convenient informational services for making cities water-sensitive will be developed.