Springs of Life is a book about water in all its complexities. It is an exhaustive account of water in India, and documents the natural beauty of the water bodies, the ways in which communities live and interact with water, particularly in hostile ecosystems, the resilience of people living in water stressed regions and their common sense solutions to local water problems. ""Springs of Life"" is a rare combination of an academic book with a coffee table presentation, for the first time integrating academic rigor with field reality and pictures from the ground (over 600 colored photographs!). Without binding itself to any one discipline of irrigation or water supply, the book looks at the entire spectrum of water in the country. The research is substantiated by evidence and stories from the field, with pictures taken by traveling more than 25,000 kilometers by road across the length and breadth of the country. ""Springs of Life"" is about India, but this is where about one-sixth of the world's population lives, making it a vast resource of experiences in dealing with issues related to water. India is blessed with nearly all types of agro-climatic zones - from the cold desert to the hot desert, from mountains that rise to eight thousand meters, to a coastline of more than seven thousand kilometers. India also has the place with the highest rainfall in the world and the largest riverine island. India in a way is a microcosm of the world in terms of the diversity of natural resources and ecosystems.

Making IWRM everybody's business is the underlying philosophy of this publication. IWRM literature is normally aimed at academics, leaving out most of the stakeholders without whose participation there can be no implementation of IWRM. These are a large section of development professionals, the civil society, local communities, government officials and even the private sector. IWRM also involves professionals from many different fields, such as engineers, economists, and social scientists who also need to understand IWRM if they are to make effective contribution to the reform and implementation process. Publications by different organisations focus on their own definitions and programmes. There needs to be better exchange of information, methodology and coordination between the different organisations that promote IWRM. Through this document the authors have tried to introduce the concept of IWRM and bring together various definitions prevalent today, without any particular focus on any one definition or organisation. They try to explain the normative, strategic and operative dimensions of IWRM in a way that is easy to understand even for the least knowledgeable. The language and terminology used is simple and the authors avoid the use of 'jargon' and 'rhetoric'.