The masterclass introduces an open-source, science-led framework for the Diagnosis, Design, and Impact Assessment of Watershed Management programs. It aims to help CSR managers optimize the impact of their watershed initiatives by focusing on problem-first approach, solutions matching and design, and outcome-based impact assessment. The session highlights common pitfalls in watershed projects and offers practical tools to overcome them, emphasizing community-led continuous monitoring and evidence-based program evaluation.

Relevance:
This masterclass aligns with the CSR Summit's theme of sustainable and impactful social and environmental initiatives. Watershed management is a key area of CSR investment with direct links to community development, water conservation, and climate resilience. By equipping CSR professionals with a validated scientific approach and opensource resources, the class offers actionable knowledge for improving program design and accountability, fitting the summit’s goal to foster responsible and innovative CSR practices.

Key Sub Themes:

• Diagnosis: We introduce a set of water dimensions and indicators which help in easy but comprehensive problem diagnosis of a region.
• Solutions matching: We provide a long list of solutions and a methodology to match them flexibly using a Theory of Change logframe.
• High-frequency hydrological monitoring: Provide inputs on a set of open-source playbooks for how to do community-led continuous monitoring of key hydrologic parameters to scientifically assess the impacts of the watershed projects.

About the Facilitator:

Vivek Grewal, Managing Partner, Technical Consulting
Vivek is the Managing Partner of the Technical Consulting programme at WELL Labs. He is a hydrogeologist with more than a decade of experience in the water sector. He is passionate about taking the science of hydrology to the grassroots organisations. Before joining WELL Labs, Vivek was part of groundwater consulting organisations in India and the US. He has worked on grassroots watershed development in rural Jharkhand for three years as Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellow. Vivek received his Master’s in Hydrology from The University of Arizona with a Fulbright Scholarship and his Bachelor’s in Technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University.

Ishita Jalan, Senior Manager, Technical Consulting
Ishita Jalan is a Senior Manager in the Technical Consulting team at WELL Labs, specializing in hydrology and water resource management with over five years of interdisciplinary experience. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the Technical University of Munich, where her thesis focused on hydrological assessments of remote sensing datasets to find application for an ungauged basin in Benin, West Africa. Before joining WELL Labs, she contributed as a geospatial analyst at Allianz Re’s Catastrophe Risk Management Team and worked as a public policy researcher with the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), New Delhi. She is passionate about dissecting data, finding stories in them, and employing systems thinking for sustainable water solutions.