New technology adoption in rural areas of emerging economies: the case of rainwater harvesting systems in India

Technological advancements can accelerate the attainment of Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). However, technology adoption is associated with
complex, interrelated factors, even more so in the context of rural areas in emerging economies. We examine the adoption of one technology that can be crucial for resolving water scarcity issues facing countries around the world--the Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) technology and the critical success factors (CSFs) that promote its adoption in rural India. Building on an extensive literature review, focus group discussions, and field visits, this paper identifies a list of factors that promote its adoption. To derive the CSFs, the relevance of each factor is analysed using Fuzzy Delphi, and the significance is determined using D-DEMATEL technique. The novel results presented here suggest that awareness about RWH technologies, their perceived usefulness, ease of use, and tax
incentives for companies are some crucial factors that can increase RWH technology adoption. Furthermore, community-based workshops explaining the architecture and operational aspects of the RWH System as well as simplifying the RWH system architecture can accelerate its usage in rural areas. Based on these results, the paper presents a new roadmap for leveraging technology to attain SDGs in rural areas of developing countries.

Critical Success Factors, Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) technologies, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Water conservation

10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122832

0040-1625

Puppala, Harish

e3ee8cb4-617d-4fbf-bf9c-98768afb9f16

Ahuja, Jaya

d7051898-22dc-47d3-9a60-ca7bc942cce2

Tamvada, Jagannadha Pawan

767d0374-3cc1-4822-adb6-f22b7a1f6531

Peddinti, Pranav R.T.

da272a8d-f5ad-4e79-8e88-db3e36b7a2d6

November 2023

Puppala, Harish

e3ee8cb4-617d-4fbf-bf9c-98768afb9f16

Ahuja, Jaya

d7051898-22dc-47d3-9a60-ca7bc942cce2

Tamvada, Jagannadha Pawan

767d0374-3cc1-4822-adb6-f22b7a1f6531

Peddinti, Pranav R.T.

da272a8d-f5ad-4e79-8e88-db3e36b7a2d6

Puppala, Harish, Ahuja, Jaya, Tamvada, Jagannadha Pawan and Peddinti, Pranav R.T. (2023) New technology adoption in rural areas of emerging economies: the case of rainwater harvesting systems in India. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 196, [122832]. (doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122832).

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Accepted/In Press date: 3 September 2023

e-pub ahead of print date: 12 September 2023

Published date: November 2023

Additional Information: Funding Information: We thank Prof Scott Cunningham and two anonymous referees for their constructive comments and feedback. We thank Centre for Gespatial Technology (CGT), SRM University AP, for providing the necessary infrastucture to this research project. Funding Information: A visit was made to an NGOs in India working on issues of water scarcity, groundwater depletion, flooding and stagnation by collaborating with corporates, civil society and research organizations. Apart from the NGOs, visits were made to the research teams in universities, working on a rainwater harvesting. One of the research teams interacted has been working on a project funded by the World Bank. The research team has installed rainwater harvesting systems in numerous villages of Rajasthan, India. These visits, complemented with the in-house contacts helped to identify 43 potential candidates who have prior experience in design, installation and implementation of rainwater harvesting systems. Preliminary e-mails and telephonic calls were made to the identified potential candidates in September 2022. After taking the consent, the possible time slots in October and November were identified using Calendly, an open access online appointment scheduling software. From the responses (n = 31), a common time slot was identified, and five different focus groups were formed based on the availability and experience. This led to 25 participants who were available at that time slot. The focus groups contained participants ranging in the age group of 35–50, with females (36 %) and males (64 %), with an average work experience of nearly 10 years in design and setup of rainwater harvesting system. Table. 3 presents the demographic profile of the participants corresponding to each focus group. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors

Keywords: Critical Success Factors, Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) technologies, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Water conservation