Key Highlights Thoughts on Fresh Water Management, Water Quality Management, Water Resource Management and Sustainability. Issues of Fresh Water Management. Present situation covering persistence of difficulties in Fresh Water Management in India, GW Depletion, Plastic pollutions etc. and their resolution schemes. Brief about UDA framework based on technology, policy, and capacity building.  Digital transformations, how it connects and may impact the governance mechanism. Tropical challenges in using Nordic countries equipment and related challenges. Connection to UDA as to how it can solve the recent problems. Way forward Heading The 6th standard science book by NCERT reads “Jal hai to kal hai” i.e., without water, there is no future. It then interestingly puts a fact that only 3% of the water on Earth is fresh water, out of which most of it is frozen in the polar regions as ice caps, and glaciers. There exist a series of early-stage messages in textbooks that have taught us about the importance as well as shortages pf water. “These early-stage messages seldom repeat themselves in more practical sense to the authorities, when literate population of the country practice wastage and overuse of water.” Manufacturing and maintenance of luxurious vehicles, brand new clothes, and various other goods and services leave a huge water footprint i.e., they consume large quantities of valuable fresh water. A lot of research on fresh water use and overuse is available which we need to explore and utilise that would lead to better management. Fresh Water Management deals with sustainably using our fresh water sources with respect to its quality as well as quantity. Source: https://civilsolution.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/the-hydrological-cycle The figure above explains a lot about the movement of water in the atmosphere. A couple of additional facts apart from the regular water circulation in each component has also been highlighted, for e.g., surface runoff and infiltration from the hills and lakes give a multidimensional view of water’s pathway. Ground water has always been important fresh water source, which nowadays has become extremely vulnerable due to rise in demand and climate change. The meeting of surface and ground water outflow with the precipitation in the oceans are also highlighted in the figure. Water Resource and Water quality management are two distinct branches of water sciences when it comes to governance and policy making. Although they both need interlinking, they are also governed by different authorities. This creates a lot of discrepancies as the Ministry of Water Resource and Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change deal with the same issues of River management separately. The impact of anthropogenic activities on the quality and quantity of fresh water have been a critical concern for our society. Water being the most basic requirement for all our needs has faced the maximum deterioration. Water pollution is a subject of concern as it has a varied list of effects on the ecosystem as well as livelihood. Water pollution is defined in the Water (Prevention and control of pollution) Act, 1974 as “Any contamination or undesired substance like sewage trade effluents or any other chemical liquid, solid or gaseous substance into the water body, to such an extent that its carrying-capacity is exceeded and it starts affecting the livelihood and ecosystem.” The list of effects from water pollution can go on as there are numerous factors involved with the increase of undesired substances in water bodies. The whole ecosystem, air, land, marine environments are affected severely and with an interlinking effect.  Several compliances are in process based on pollution cases in NGT as well as High Court and Supreme Court which itself defines the history and criticality of the issue. One example is the O.A 1038, which has started the compliances of SPCBs upon the pollution problem that exist in their respected Severely/Critically polluted area. Some of the effects are shown in the table below: Water Scarcity is a complex concept that must be defined based on local parameters. It is often linked with water conflict, legal rights, and availability of water. It has a varied list of definitions across the country. Water scarcity as linked with the concept of Fresh Water Management can be defined as “A situation where the availability of water decreases to an extent where there is not enough water to meet the needs of the increasing population as well as the ecosystem to function properly.” “Tragedy of the commons” as the concept given by Ostrom is also connected to the concept of water scarcity. It rejects the notion that people can manage their own collective resources that are open to everyone. Ostrom argues that water as an open source is being exploited at a faster rate in the history. Ostrom suggests two solutions to it, that is regulating these resources by governing them and the other is privatisation. Here we are trying to understand the concepts rather supporting any one of it.  Because, the more we dive into the details of governance and legal rights of water, the more we need to define each concept, including the merits and demerits of the same. Persistence of difficulties in Fresh Water Management in India   According to a UNICEF report (2019), 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed water services. 80 Percent of the waste water flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused. Almost 2 billion people, live in countries experiencing water stress. Around two-third of transboundary rivers lack cooperative management framework, according to Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). India’s agricultural inputs and production techniques have changed considerably in the last decade. Growth of water intensive crops in water scarce areas have led to overuse of ground water, depleting the same drastically. 70% of the global water withdrawal is being done for agriculture according to FAO. A 2019 NITI Aayog report said that India is suffering from the worst water crisis in its history, and almost 600 million of its population is water-deprived. The report goes on to add that 21 cities including Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Chennai shall probably exhaust