Rwitwik Sinha
When discussing climate change, we often picture smoky skylines of megacities or vast industrial complexes. But beneath the radar, small towns in South Asia are quietly making their mark on the planet’s greenhouse gas (GHG) ledger, and not in a good way.
Across several urban centers in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector is responsible for a significant share of emissions – ranging between a sixth and a third of the towns’ total GHG output.
Looking Closer at the Footprint
These are not bustling metros with traffic jams and towering buildings. Chintamani sits on a plateau, Leh in a cold desert, Kirtipur is tucked in a mountain valley in the Indian Himalayas, and Savar sprawls over a floodplain near Dhaka. Despite the differences in terrain, one thing is clear: the way these towns manage water and waste has significant climate implications.
Solid waste stands out as the top contributor to WASH-related emissions. In Chintamani and Savar, legacy waste accounts for 65% and 48% of total solid waste emissions respectively. Leh would have joined them, had it not remediated a massive 100,000 metric tons of old waste. That effort alone prevented about 12,256 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e) emissions in just one year – an amount that would have made Leh the highest emitter in the study.
Water-related emissions tell another story. In Savar, the complete lack of municipal water supply forces residents to rely on private borewells and pumps. Unsurprisingly, more than 90% of the town’s water-related emissions come from domestic pumping, which is highly energy-intensive. Contrast that with Kirtipur, where a mix of municipal supply and natural springs results in much lower emissions.
Challenges Unique to Small Towns
The emissions challenge is compounded by climate vulnerability. Many small towns in South Asia are situated in environmentally sensitive zones-coastal floodplains, high-altitude valleys, or regions prone to droughts and extreme heat. As the climate crisis intensifies, these areas are becoming more exposed to disruptions like floods, water scarcity, or glacial outburst floods.
When WASH services fail, the impacts cascade through communities. Drinking water becomes unsafe, sanitation systems choke, education suffers, and illnesses spread faster – especially in underserved neighborhoods. Vulnerable populations, already at a disadvantage, are the first to be impacted and the last to recover.
Small towns also get the short end of the policy stick. In India, out of 16 national urban missions rolled out over two decades, no policy has explicitly targeted the small and medium-sized towns, leaving them to figure things out on their own. They often operate with limited budgets, outdated infrastructure, and little technical support. While larger cities dominate funding allocations, these towns are left fending for themselves.
At the same time, these towns are expanding. Driven by migration from rural areas, many are growing faster than they can manage. New developments often lack planning, leading to more vehicles, more energy use, and more solid waste – none of which are supported by adequate infrastructure. Around cities like Dhaka and Kathmandu, this peri-urban sprawl is visibly straining the WASH systems of nearby towns.
Interestingly, towns with limited infrastructure and fragmented service delivery sometimes report higher per capita WASH emissions than larger cities. In areas where every household runs its own electric pump or manages its waste independently, the lack of efficiency results in a higher carbon footprint. This suggests that improving infrastructure and centralizing basic services can, in the long run, help reduce emissions.
The link between emissions and infrastructure maturity is worth further attention. As these towns modernize and shift toward more efficient WASH systems, their emissions intensity may decline. But this trajectory isn’t guaranteed. Without timely investments and proper planning, such towns may instead lock into high-emission practices that will be difficult and costly to reverse.
To tackle emissions from WASH systems effectively, towns need a clear understanding of where those emissions come from. Reliable, localized data is the starting point for identifying high impact sources, planning targeted interventions, and unlocking access to climate finance.
Turning Insight Into Action
There is clear evidence to suggest that source segregation of household waste is an effective tool in combatting emission issues. Mixed waste is often not segregated post-collection, and it contributes to the landfill, which is ever-growing, ever-emitting. If the waste is segregated into dry and wet components, and then processed, there is a marked drop in emissions. If properly recycled, the need to manufacture virgin material would drop. Biological treatment of solid waste reduces emissions by 80% against that of mixed waste openly dumped. In India, on average there is a 50-50 split between greywater and blackwater. Depending on the technologies involved, greywater treatment is 10-30x more energy efficient than blackwater treatment systems. In most cases, both are mixed, and a singular pipe carries them. This increases the burden on the blackwater treatment system by increasing the volume of wastewater to be treated using a more carbon-intensive technology. By establishing independent flows for blackwater and greywater, about 40% of emissions can be reduced. By enhancing the informal usage of greywater in gardening, car washing, etc., the freshwater demand can be reduced – further reducing the emissions related to water treatment.
Reducing emissions from their WASH sectors is a global imperative, and small towns must be a part of the solutioning process. The time to bridge the gap between knowledge and implementation is now. What’s often missing is funding, technical support, and political will.
Small towns may not have the scale of megacities, but they are home to millions and their emissions are growing. Ignoring them in national climate strategies is no longer an option. These towns are not footnotes in the urban story. They are central players in the climate fight, and it’s time to treat them that way.
Acknowledgements: The author would like to acknowledge that the article is based on the ongoing efforts of drafting a Climate Sensitive WASH Action Plan for Chintamani supported by Bremen Overseas Research and Development Association (BORDA) South Asia, where the author is a part of their climate vertical. The author further acknowledges the inputs from CoreCarbonX, the consultant who made the initial report on town emissions, as part of the same project.
About the contributor: Rwitwik Sinha is the Technical Coordinator at BORDA South Asia and is based in Bengaluru, India. He is a fellow of EPAYF 2.0 – Environment Policy and Action Youth Fellowship, Cohort 2.0.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
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Acknowledgement: This article was posted by Riya Rawat, researcher at IMPRI.
