34 Roy Chaudhuri, 2022. The Journal of Gender and Water. 9:1 Exploring Sustainable Degrowth-Based Adaptation to Climate Change-Aggravated Water Scarcity in Parts of Rural India: A Gender Relations Approach Nairita Roy Chaudhuri Department of Public Law & Governance, Tilburg Law School, Tilburg University, Netherlands. 1 INTRODUCTION Approximately four billion people comprising around 71% of the world population, live under severe water-scarce con- ditions at least one month in a year, of which one billion live in India (Mekonnen and Hoekstra 2016).Unchecked over-ex- traction has increased the demand for groundwater in India beyond its availability, leading to water stress. Current stress on surface and groundwater resources is being compound- ed by climate change, causing increased frequency, intensi- ty, and geographical coverage of droughts in India (World Bank 2008, Panda 2010, IPCC 2014, Brown et al. 2007). The IPCC (2014), report says that an “increase in the number of monsoon break days and the decline in the number of monsoon depressions are consistent with the overall de- crease in seasonal mean rainfall;” thus, increasing the risk of droughts. wH 2 O: The Journal of Gender and Water REVIEW ABSTRACT This article reviews the theoretical concept of ‘sustainable adaptation’ to climate change and water scarcity using a gender-relations approach by answering the following questions: i) What is a sustainable adaptation to climate change? ii) Based on a literature review, how does gender interact with climate change ad- aptation to water scarcity and droughts in rural India? (iii) How do the concepts of sustainable adaptation, degrowth, and gender relations interact on the ground, pertaining to water justice? The paper argues that climate change adaptation and development goals can harmonize only if they rectify root causes of vulnerabilities. For adaptation ac- tions to yield sustainable outcomes, they need to be embedded in a just degrowth politics that transforms unequal power relations, including gender relations with water. In India, degrowth is about ecological, economic, and social justice that calls for transformation of the economy. This transformation looks into the life- cycle of goods - how goods are produced, composed, assembled, distributed, consumed, and regenerated today; further degrowth strategy explores alternate, just, non-extractive, decolonial, and democratically led trajectories that sustain the web of life. This paper discusses fve interrelated principles of sustainable degrowth-based adaptation that center on community-based notions of water and gender justice. KEY WORDS sustainable adaptation, degrowth, climate change adaptation, gender, water, water scarcity drought, water, India, gender equity CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Nairita Roy Chaudhuri: N.RoyChaudhuri@tilburguniversity.edu