Advertisement

  • Loading metrics

Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Beyond adaptive capacity: Assessing how power relations shape household responses to climate impacts on water and sanitation

Abstract

In the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector, there is growing recognition that climate change presents serious risks to water and sanitation services, with widespread implications for health. At the same time, existing indicator development efforts in the water sector emphasize technical actions taken by water and sanitation service providers. Greater attention is needed to how users of WASH services deal with climate impacts, including power relations that mediate how individuals and households negotiate this adaptation. Here we develop an “adaptive power” framework that integrates conventional adaptive capacity domains with previously underexamined power relations, and apply this framework to a case focusing on climate impacts on water and sanitation services. These adaptive power indicators span individual, household, and community levels and were tested in Satkhira, Bangladesh, a region experiencing a range of climate impacts that threaten water and sanitation services. Findings showed that some conventional indicators of adaptive capacity such as measures of wealth were not linked to knowledge of how to deal with climate change impacts on water and sanitation in this case. Instead, individual attitudes towards water-related gender norms, control over assets, and intra-household decision-making power (e.g., who decides to make investments in household water infrastructure) were significant contributors. Our findings demonstrate that inclusive and effective climate adaptation requires explicit attention to who holds power over resources, decisions, and adaptive processes themselves.

Citation: Dickin SK, Dupont G, Saddique S, Paul SK (2026) Beyond adaptive capacity: Assessing how power relations shape household responses to climate impacts on water and sanitation. PLOS Clim 5(7): e0000906. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000906

Editor: Zerina Lokmic-Tomkins, Monash University Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences, AUSTRALIA

Received: February 4, 2026; Accepted: May 31, 2026; Published: July 22, 2026

Copyright: © 2026 Dickin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Data are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20916904.

Funding: This work was supported by the Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas [2018-00805] (to SD). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1. Introduction

In the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector, there is growing recognition that climate change presents serious risks to these essential services. For instance, flood events have been shown to damage water supply and sanitation infrastructure, while increased variability of rainfall can also change availability and quality of water supplies [1]. Drought conditions and hot days require more water use, reduce water availability, and affect hygiene behaviours such as handwashing, impact the function of sanitation systems, and increase pollution concentrations [2,3]. In response to these risks, ensuring the climate resilience of WASH services in low- and middle-income (LMICs) countries is a priority for the sector. A number of frameworks have been developed to outline the key components of climate-resilient WASH systems [4–6]. For example, the ‘How Tough is WASH’ framework identifies domains relevant to climate resilience of rural and small-town water and sanitation services in LMICs and has been applied in several countries [7,8]. The focus of this growing body of work on climate-resilient WASH emphasizes the ability of infrastructure to withstand identified threats, such as through heavier duty construction materials and raising toilet substructures, as well as the role of management routines [9,10]. In one assessment, the resilience of sanitation to extreme rainfall and flooding events was measured in informal settlements in Kenya, indicating the importance of physical design of the infrastructure (e.g., choice of sewer and septic systems), functionality, operational and maintenance routines such as sanitation emptying before the rainy season [11].

A growing urgency around climate-resilient WASH has led to efforts to develop globally comparable indicators for the sector to measure progress. An ongoing effort led by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) and the UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) has led to a series of indicators for measuring climate-resilient WASH systems [12]. These developments are occurring alongside wider efforts to measure adaptation due to interest in tracking progress and effectiveness in connection to climate finance [13,14]. A set of 100 indicators was developed as part of the Global Goal on Adaptation (GCA), and were formally adopted at COP30. The GGA includes several WASH-related indicators, including ‘Proportion of critical water and sanitation infrastructure systems that are built or retrofitted to withstand climate-related hazards.’

These advances bring important attention to the challenge of measuring and quantifying adaptation in a WASH context across varied contexts. At the same time, within these efforts there is less attention on measuring social dynamics of adaptation, including everyday experiences and relational aspects of adaptation, despite its importance for how adaptation is designed, implemented and understood [15]. Calls for politicizing climate-resilient WASH development have highlighted the need to adequately consider who resilience building efforts are targeted towards, who benefits from them, and in what ways they may reinforce or create new inequalities [16–18]. As climate impacts occur in uneven ways across different groups, many existing inequalities in WASH access, particularly gender inequalities [19], may be exacerbated if not adequately considered. Some communities are more vulnerable to smaller levels of variability in water quantity and quality, obscured by an emphasis on adaptation efforts to respond to larger-scale but more infrequent climate events [17]. Poorer households that cannot access even basic services may be overlooked by finance for climate upgrading [20]. Furthermore, climate change is expected to increase daily water collection time in many regions, disproportionately impacting women and girls who conduct a heavier load of water-related work [21]. Greater attention to these inequalities, and people’s variable adaptive capacity (i.e., the ability to adjust or respond to change [22]) is an important consideration for developing climate-resilient WASH services. This paper argues that more attention to measuring the social dimensions of adaptive capacity such as agency, attitudes, and control over resources, when considered together with water infrastructure, can provide critical information to guide just allocation of resources to ensure WASH security.

2. Viewing adaptation in the water sector as a social process

Scholars have argued for viewing adaptation as a socio-political process that mediates how individuals and groups deal with changes, not just a question of technical adjustment or economics [23,24]. A large proportion of adaptation actions take place on a small scale, often at the household level, and draw on everyday practices and knowledges to respond to context-specific shifts [25,26]. These capacities may not be captured with a focus on large scale programmes or policies for adaptation, such as city-wide initiatives carried out with water and sanitation service providers and donors. In addition, understanding water-related everyday practices requires attention to power dynamics that shape adaptation actions that are undertaken, who can access them, and the resulting outcomes for different groups [27,28]. The role of negotiations within households and communities is increasingly recognized as critical for understanding adaptation outcomes [29,30]. For instance, women’s agency has been linked to adaptation responses in a diverse range of climate hotspots with important implications for wellbeing [31]. This includes intra- and inter-household decision-making and negotiations over assets that can enable or constrain adaptive choices [26]. Gendered social norms have been found to play an important role in adaptation outcomes by reproducing power relations, such as in limiting women’s mobility more than men’s [32,33]. These micro-level relational dynamics can provide important insights in designing equitable and effective adaptation interventions [34], but have often been overlooked in measurements [35]. Furthermore, climate impacts can reinforce uneven power dynamics, act as a major depressor of women’s agency and drive intra-household conflicts [31]. Tools and indicators for measuring adaptive capacity would be strengthened through better integration of power dynamics at the micro-scale that affect adaptation outcomes.

Measuring the social dimensions of climate adaptation in relation to WASH systems has been under-researched relative to indicators measuring infrastructure characteristics [17,36]. Existing frameworks such as ‘How tough is WASH’ do aim to integrate social aspects of WASH climate resilience, although this assessment is at a community level. For instance, Nepal et al., (2025) found in their assessment in rural Nepal that community capital enhanced overall system resilience, highlighting the importance of assessing social dimensions. However, despite pervasive gender inequalities related to who benefits from WASH services [19,37], there are limited approaches that aim to integrate gendered power relations into adaptive capacity assessment in a water context, such as through assessing intra-household decision-making, control over resources, ability to have one’s voice heard in WASH governance, and the role of gender norms.

In this paper we apply widely established domains of adaptive capacity to a WASH context [38]. We further deepen considerations of agency and power within these domains of adaptive capacity, to develop an ‘adaptive power framework’. We define adaptive power as an individual’s capacity to respond to climate impacts on WASH, which is shaped by power relations, including control over resources, decision-making and other forms of agency, and gender norms, that enable or constrain that capacity. Power is understood here as relational and operating at multiple scales, from intra-household negotiations over resources and decisions, to community-level norms that determine whose voice is heard in WASH governance, to who bears the burden of responding to climate impacts [39,40]. Using this novel indicator framework, the study aim was to examine how different domains of adaptive power are connected to a respondent’s self-reported knowledge of how to deal with climate impacts on WASH and how they varied among respondents in Satkhira district, Bangladesh.

3. Methods

3.1. Ethics statement

Ethics approval for the study including consent procedures, data collection tools and study design, was obtained by the ethics review board at the Stockholm Environment Institute where the primary author was based at the time of data collection (24/28JUL2022). Potential respondents were provided with information on the study aims and the research team, and informed they could leave the study and survey at any time. Participants were asked to provide formal oral consent if they agreed to participate prior to beginning the survey, and consent was documented in Kobo Toolbox.

3.2. Development of an indicator framework

We applied well-established domains of adaptive capacity: assets, flexibility, organization, learning, agency, and socio-cognitive constructs, which were developed by Cinner et al. (2018) and subsequently operationalized by Barnes et al. (2020) as a set of indicators. These domains have been demonstrated to capture critical dimensions of how individuals and communities respond to environmental change but have not been applied in a water and sanitation context. We modified and extended them in two key ways to create our ‘adaptive power’ framework. First, we contextualized indicators to be relevant to a water sector context, and climate impacts on water and sanitation systems. For instance, a measure of ‘technological diversity’ within the flexibility domain applied to a WASH context includes having access to more than one improved water source for household use, as climate hazards may damage infrastructure or lead to interruption in services. Within the domain on assets we included WASH-related assets and loans, such as the ability to secure a loan to acquire, e.g., rainwater harvesting tanks. The resulting indicators include a mixture of WASH-specific indicators as well as more generic adaptive capacity indicators [22].

Secondly, we integrated power considerations into all relevant indicators, moving beyond conventional adaptive capacity assessment. Empowerment measures, which systematically measure individual agency and decision-making power, are widely applied frameworks in international development research, and increasingly used to understand adaptation outcomes [26,41]. Unlike many approaches at the household level, these indicators are designed to be assessed across two individual decision-makers at a household level. By including a male and female decision-making pair, we capture individual attitudes and intra-household bargaining and power relations that mediate adaptive capacity. For instance, within the domain flexibility we assess individual gender and water attitudes, as these are rarely measured dimensions that can enable or constrain someone’s adaptive capacity, e.g., if someone holds very restrictive gender attitudes, they may be less flexible to adapt to changing environments such as when this includes more male involvement in water collection work. We also integrate individual control over household assets, as assets are conventionally only measured in terms of household wealth indices. In the case of agency, we include individual decision-making power within households related to WASH-related management and expenditures, drawing on the Empowerment in WASH Index (EWI) [42,43]. The resulting set of indicators for adaptive power are described below and shown in Table 1, with further details provided in S1 Text.

thumbnail
Download:
Table 1. Indicators of adaptive power.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000906.t001

3.3. Adaptive power indicator framework

  1. 1). Assets: We assess wealth by adapting the Equity tool wealth index for Bangladesh (equitytool.org/Bangladesh) comprised of questions on housing conditions and ownership of assets (e.g., television, material of roof and floor). We assess control over assets, which moves beyond commonly used measures of wealth alone, to measure the proportion of household assets that an individual respondent has control over [43]. This indicator included assessment of several assets (i.e., transportation asset, house, land, cell phone, small consumer durable, large consumer durable, water and sanitation infrastructure) and whether the individual respondent could choose to sell the item (whether jointly or alone) as an indicator of ownership. Access to credit was a binary indicator used to assess whether a household can obtain loans or borrow resources (cash or in-kind) for water and sanitation costs from formal or informal sources (1) or not (0). Control over financial resources was a binary indicator to assess whether an individual respondent themselves reported controlling money that is used for household water and sanitation costs (1) or not (0), important if climate impacts require rapid expenditures to secure water and sanitation services.
  2. 2). Flexibility: Flexibility refers to the possibility to switch between adaptation strategies. We developed an indicator to capture respondents’ attitudes towards common but harmful gender norms in the water sector, e.g., men should not be involved with water collection. Not holding any restrictive attitudes on water-related gender norms scored higher as these attitudes may hinder adaptive capacity. We also assess technological diversity in terms of access to more than one water source, using a binary indicator with access to two or more improved water sources (excludes surface water) for household use (1) or only having one source available (0). Well-established adaptative indicators of flexibility were also included including age and occupational multiplicity, which refers to total number of livelihood activities that bring food or money into the household developed by Barnes et al. (2020). Flexibility has been widely discussed as a component of everyday adaptation, and is common in communities where resource-dependent work can be seasonal in nature and in flux [44,45].
  3. 3). Organization: Organization deals with trust in institutions and the ability to ability to collaborate and organize collective action, including informal and formal relationships. The first indicator measures the number of community groups in which respondents actively participate, as a measure of social capital. This has also been described as community capacity [44]. The second assesses the number of situations in which respondents can rely on family, friends, or relatives for help with 1) a water problem, 2) a sanitation problem, or 3) for help during an extreme climate event. We also use a well-established indicator of trust in local government to manage extreme climate events, a binary indicator assessing medium or high trust (1) or low trust (0).
  4. 4). Learning: Learning deals with producing and using new information about climate change and adaptation, as literacy, access to knowledge, and participation in knowledge-sharing forums are critical for adaptive capacity. In this domain we used a conventional indicator of education level, as well as an indicator that measures the sharing of information on WASH practices and rights, reflecting the importance of knowledge dissemination. The indicator on sharing of WASH information was a binary indicator based on having shared WASH-related information with household members and friends (1) or not having shared information (0).
  5. 5). Agency: Agency refers to the power and freedom to mobilize resources and other components of adaptive capacity. Agency includes two binary indicators that assess having a high level of input into household decision-making (1) or little to no influence (0). The first indicator whether someone has a high level of input household-level decision-making on who collects water collection, how water is allocated, whether it is treated, and who does sanitation upkeep. The second assesses whether someone has a high level of input into decisions on household water and sanitation expenditures and assets related to WASH. These indicators capture intra-household decisions-making and reflect the capacity of respondents to influence decisions that impact their WASH conditions. The third binary indicator assesses an individual’s perceptions of power and influence WASH-related issues at the community level, adapted to a WASH context (1), or little or no power/influence (0).
  6. 6). Socio-Cognitive Constructs: These indicators assess risk perceptions of climate impacts and previous experiences of climate impacts compared to others, as developed by Barnes et al. (2020). This was based on whether individual respondents perceived that they had been impacted by climate change worse than most others in the community (1), compared with whether they felt they had been impacted the same or less than others (0). Similarly, future risk perception was a binary indicator measuring whether individual respondents perceived that climate change impacts were getting worse (1), compared with staying the same or improving (0).

3.3.1. Data collection.

The case study was conducted in Satkhira, Bangladesh, a coastal region which is exposed to a range of climate impacts, including changing rainfall patterns, floods, cyclones, tidal surges, droughts [46]. The area is also affected by rising sea levels, unsustainable development activities, and salinity intrusion that impacts safe drinking water and sanitation. Common water sources include tube-wells, ponds, canals, and rain-water harvesting, and water shortages and quality issues are common [47]. Gender relations in the study area dictate that women are largely responsible for water collection and management tasks for their households, although this can be vary by social status [47,48]. Adaptation to these impacts through technological solutions (e.g., rainwater harvesting, water storage, water reuse, desalination) is expanding [49], while at the same time some scholars describe the limits of such interventions and the need to understand inequalities in who can control and access these technologies [50]. This study complements growing research on these water-based technological solutions by examining the social processes of adaptation, including power dynamics that affect uptake by individuals, households, and communities.

Data were collected in two adjacent unions within Satkhira district, Sreeula and Jhaudanga. In both unions, 5 wards were randomly selected for data collection using probability proportional to size based on the ward population size. Sample size decisions were based on available resources and discussions with local collaborators on feasibility for recruitment of household pairs, which can require more follow-up than recruiting single respondents. Survey data were collected by a professional survey company, following training and piloting of the survey with the research team in the case study site during November 15–28, 2022. Data were collected from pairs of male and female respondents who self-identified as the principal household decision-makers on water and economic matters. The survey was administered using mobile devices using the Kobo Collect application and platform. The survey contained several modules, including a socio-demographic module, a livelihoods module, the adaptive power module with indicators described in Table 1, a module on types of water sources and sanitation access, and a climate module about experiences of climate impacts in relation to water and sanitation, taking approximately 30 minutes to complete. To reduce survey time, we asked female respondents household-level questions about water supplies, and asked paired male respondents other household-level questions on sanitation and dwelling characteristics. Data were collected and cleaned, resulting in a total of 308 respondents in 154 households.

3.3.2. Data analysis.

Descriptive analyses of water and sanitation access, experiences of climate impacts, and socio-demographic information were conducted. We then assessed whether respondents’ belief that they knew how to manage climate change impacts on WASH services was associated with adaptive power using StataSE 18. The dependent variable was whether respondents reported knowing how to manage climate change impacts on WASH services, coded as a binary outcome (1 = knows how to deal with impacts; 0 = does not know). Given the binary outcome variable and hierarchical data structure (individuals nested within households), we applied multilevel logistic regression using maximum likelihood estimation.

We first estimated a null model with random intercepts for households to assess between-household variation. The model revealed significant household-level variance (variance = 1.10 [SE = 0.68], p < 0.05), with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.25. This indicates that 25% of variance in perceived knowledge was attributable to household-level differences, representing moderate clustering and justifying the multilevel approach. We then estimated a full model including all adaptive power indicators (Table 1) as fixed effects while retaining random intercepts for households. In the full model, household-level variance decreased (variance = 0.55 [SE = 0.73]), suggesting that adaptive power indicators explained much of the between-household variation. Model fit was substantially better than the null model (AIC = 340 vs. 411). We retained random effects to account for non-independence of observations within households.

Following Barnes et al. (2020), we set a significance threshold of p < 0.1 to reduce the likelihood of overlooking potentially important indicators. Results are reported as odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals. For continuous variables, the OR represents the multiplicative change in odds of knowing how to deal with climate impacts per unit increase (e.g., for each additional group joined). For categorical variables, the OR compares each category to the reference group.

4. Results

4.1. Water and sanitation access and climate impacts

We first report descriptive findings on socio-demographic information and water and sanitation access at the household level, then individual reports of climate impacts on water and sanitation, then model results on adaptive power.

The average age of women respondents was 38, while for men it was 43. The study population was socio-demographically relatively homogeneous, with the majority of respondents identifying as Muslim (71%) and Bengali (95%), reflecting the composition of the study area.

Respondents reported using a number of water sources for household purposes (Table 2), primarily relying on tube wells (85%) and then surface water (71%), for their household water supplies. Of tube wells, 45% were reported to be deep and 55% were shallow. Of all these household water sources, tube wells were the most used source for drinking water and other commonly used drinking water sources included bottled water, tap water, and harvested rainwater, showing a divergence from household water sources. Payment and travel for water varied by the source (Table 2). Women respondents reported being the main water collector for surface water (76% of the time), while for tube well water this 56% women respondents, 21% men respondents, 15% other male household members. In the case of bottled water this was largely collected by men respondents (59%), other male household members (19%) or women respondents (15%). Mean collection time was 29 minutes for tap water, 25 minutes for bottled water, 23 minutes for tube well water, 17 minutes for vended water and 13 minutes for surface water. Few recent interruptions were reported (8% of tap water users and 6% of tube well users). Most respondents (87%) reported having an improved sanitation facility, defined following the JMP standard as a facility that hygienically separates human excreta from human contact.

thumbnail
Download:
Table 2. Summary of water supply and sanitation facility characteristics.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000906.t002

In terms of climate impacts, respondents reported observing a range of climate-related changes over their lifetimes, including greater rainfall variability, more warm days, and decreased rainfall. In terms of impacts on water supply, most respondents (59%) did not perceive an associated impact on water supplies (Table 3). Climate impacts on water availability were reported by almost 30% of respondents, followed by decreases in accessibility of water sources. In terms of sanitation, most respondents (69%) did not notice any impacts, while some reported that the toilet superstructure was damaged (25%) and increased costs for sanitation (14%).

thumbnail
Download:
Table 3. Climate-related changes observed by respondents.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000906.t003

4.2. Adaptive power and its connection to dealing with climate impacts

We identified several significant associations between respondents’ adaptive power, including flexibility, agency and control over assets, and their perceived knowledge of how to deal with climate impacts. Overall 61% (188) of respondents reported knowing how to deal with climate change impacts on WASH, while 39% (120) reported they could not. This varied, as 71% of women respondents reported this positively compared to 51% of men respondents. Table 4 shows the results from the multilevel logistic analysis, with an association between sex and respondents’ reported knowledge on how to deal with climate impacts (OR = 3.25, p < 0.01), with women being 3.25 times more likely to report knowing how to deal with climate impacts on WASH than men respondents. Several commonly measured indicators of adaptive capacity, such as education, age and livelihood multiplicity, were significantly associated with knowing how to deal with climate impacts on WASH, while other conventional adaptive capacity indicators did not show a significant association, including socio-cognitive constructs and organizational dimensions.

thumbnail
Download:
Table 4. Respondent’s perceived knowledge of how to deal with climate change impacts on WASH on domains of adaptive power.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000906.t004

4.3. Flexibility and the role of gender attitudes

Respondents’ gender attitudes were positively related to their perceived knowledge of how to deal with climate impacts on WASH (OR = 1.71, p < 0.001). For every additional non-restrictive gender attitude (e.g., men can participate in water collection for their households) a respondent held, they were 1.71 times more likely to report knowing how to deal with climate impacts on WASH. The other flexibility indicators, including age, occupational multiplicity, and technological diversity, are also positively associated with respondents’ knowledge of how to deal with climate change impacts on WASH. We found an association with having more than one water source to rely on indicating specific WASH considerations for adaptive power, as well as age and occupational multiplicity which are conventional indicators of flexibility. Such domains require further exploration in a WASH context, where most attention has been on technical resilience.

4.4. Control over assets rather than ownership of assets

Within the domain of assets, we found that access to credit as well as control over household resources was associated with knowing how to deal with climate change impacts. Access to credit was a significant indicator of adaptive power, one of the strongest positive associations found in our analysis (OR = 8.74, p < 0.01). Respondents who reported that they, or someone in their household, could access to a loan were 8.74 times more likely to know how to with climate change impacts. In addition, control over assets was positively associated with knowing how to deal with climate impacts (OR = 0.13, p < 0.1), with every extra household asset over which respondents have control contributing to 0.13 times increase in likelihood to know how to adapt. In contrast, we find no significant effect of wealth. While access to credit may be a fairly common indicator of adaptive capacity, our results point to the importance of also considering individual control over household assets. While assets are commonly used a measure of adaptive capacity in the adaptation literature, we show the importance of an individual perceiving that they have control over those assets, e.g., typical household items as well as WASH-related assets such as storage tanks.

4.5. Decision-making agency

Our results show the importance of an individual’s decision-making agency as part of adaptive power. Respondents’ input into household decisions on WASH management and expenditure was positively associated with their perceived knowledge of how to deal with climate change impacts on WASH (OR = 0.36, p < 0.05; OR = 4.10, p < 0.01 respectively). While the effect of WASH management decisions is small, expenditure decisions have a strong influence, with those having input 4.10 times more likely to feel they have knowledge on how to deal with climate impacts. In addition, respondents’ perception of power and influence to change WASH management at a community setting also had a significant positive effect on their perceived knowledge of to deal with climate impacts (OR = 2.12, p < 0.1). These findings provide novel insight on the role of agency in the context of developing climate-resilient WASH, and further emphasize the importance of decision-making and intra-household dynamics within adaptation contexts more widely, which have been previously identified in other sectors [26,51,52].

5. Discussion and implications

Climate change poses a range of threats to drinking water and sanitation systems globally [53–55], with serious implications for human health. Inclusion of “a climate-resilient water supply, climate-resilient sanitation and access to safe and affordable potable water for all” as one of seven themes in the Global Goal on Adaptation highlights the importance of addressing these impacts. However, with growing focus on development of climate-resilient indicators for WASH systems that emphasize technical and infrastructure-based measures, relatively little attention has been placed on measuring social adaptation processes in this context. In this study, we advance research on indicators for adaptive capacity in a water and sanitation context and also more broadly by incorporating aspects of power, including gender norms, agency, and control over resources into existing and well-validated domains of adaptive capacity including assets, flexibility, organization, learning, agency, and socio-cognitive constructs. By integrating these power considerations, we propose a framework for measuring ‘adaptive power,’ which we applied to a WASH case but which could be adapted to other climate-mediated risks.

Our findings indicated that women respondents were much more likely to report that they had the knowledge to deal with climate impacts on WASH, which highlights the gendered nature of adaptation within the water sector. These differences align with a large body of existing research that documents women’s primary role as household water managers in many low- and middle-income contexts including responsibility for collection, management, and quality assurance of water resources [19,56]. Thus this presents a tension as while women reported greater knowledge of how to deal with impacts, they also experience structural barriers to enacting this knowledge in Bangladesh, including frequent exclusion from climate and water governance processes [57,58]. Furthermore adapting to climate change likely presents an additional burden of water-related work on top of daily water collection and management work, work that has been frequently undervalued and invisible [33,57]. Scholars have increasingly argued that everyday adaptation actions disproportionately taken by certain groups constitute ‘adaptation labor’ and require greater attention within climate justice [25,59]. The gender disparity in who has knowledge to adapt to climate impacts on WASH indicates that climate-resilient WASH interventions may become sites of tensions between stability of water and sanitation functioning, and contestation of gender relations, as other researchers have identified in relation to agriculture and health [60].

Through assessing adaptive power, our findings show a number of ways that power relations within households mediate being able to deal with climate impacts. For instance, we show that control over assets rather than wealth indices alone should be considered more broadly. This does not imply that adaptation should be left solely to individuals and households, but that the role of micro-level power considerations should be more seriously considered in adaptation planning in the water sector and more broadly. In this particular study context access to credit for water or sanitation needs was strongly linked to respondents reporting knowledge of how to adapt, however use of credit poses potential risks for maladaptation, such as over-indebtedness and locking households into certain high-cost coping strategies, potentially undermining long-term adaptive capacity [61]. Our findings emphasize the importance of sector-specific indicators of agency and intra-household decision-making in relation to climate-resilient WASH, and within adaptive capacity indicators more broadly [34,35]. This builds on previous scholarship describing ‘negotiated resilience’, the power-laden negotiations and relationships that determine resilience [62].

In terms of methodological contributions, we assessed individual levels of adaptive power, and these results further highlight the importance of using sex-disaggregated data to identify gender-based differences in terms of adaptive capacity. One household respondent is frequently the main respondent in household surveys but may not be the most informed about certain topics [63]. This is particularly the case when it comes to water and sanitation-related programmes, or adaptation in other sectors with strong gendered norms and work that requires careful attention to gender mainstreaming. While we interviewed spouses, assessment of adaptive power could be further extended to include other household members beyond the main decision-makers commonly used to assess agency as different household members also have asymmetrical access to knowledge or may withhold information [64]. In many regions household structures are changing, and while this study assessed adaptive power among spousal pairs as the primary household decision-makers, this approach may overlook adaptation decisions made within other household constellations, such as multi-generational households, female-headed households, or households with absent male partners due to migration, where decision-making authority and resource control may be distributed differently [34]. However, it is important to note that a limitation of this study is that the results reported here are associations and thus these findings do not imply causation. In addition, they do not indicate that households we surveyed are currently implementing specific adaptive actions, and this is an area for future research within a WASH context.

Finally, these findings support the need for greater attention and measurement of the social adaptation processes in the water sector [65]. Provision of water and sanitation for the poorest and most marginalized communities has often been left out of climate debates [20,66], with only 8% of finance in the water sector going to basic water and sanitation projects [67]. A further limitation of this study is that we looked at perceptions of being able to adapt to climate impacts on WASH, however further research should investigate different types of adaptive actions in the water and sanitation sector, whether they constitute adaptive or transformative actions, and also their effectiveness. Transformational adaptation focuses on solutions that address root causes and systemic change, and thus is closely related to our adaptive power framework [68]. This could be connected to adaptive power to assess whether it supports more transformative interventions as we would expect. The contested nature of indicator development and adaptation measurement is also important to acknowledge, especially in relation to complex social dynamics [15]. For instance, access to credit can be shaped by a complex range of factors such as land ownership and societal norms.

Finally, we see this framework as complementary with the ongoing development of a wider range of WASH-related indicators, such as led by WHO/UNICEF and UN Water, as well as the Global Goal on Adaptation. Efforts to measure adaptation are only growing and require a holistic approach that takes into account multiple knowledges [69].

6. Conclusion

Adaptation is known to involve complex social processes at different scales, yet less attention has been paid to measuring power and relational aspects of adaptive capacity at individual and intra-household levels in the water sector. In response, this paper aimed to advance measurement of adaptive capacity by integrating power relations into an ‘adaptive power’ framework. This was applied to a case focused on drinking water and sanitation services, a sector where discussions on climate-resilient approaches have so far focused more on service delivery or infrastructure-based indicators than individual adaptation actions.

We found that some conventional measures of adaptive capacity like wealth were not significantly linked to knowledge of how to adapt to climate impacts in the water sector in this case, but in contrast certain power-related measures such as control over assets were significant. Women were much more likely to report knowledge of how to adapt to climate impacts on WASH compared to men in the same households, indicating the importance of integrating power relations within assessments of adaptation processes, not only in a WASH context but also in other sectors. With gender inequalities likely to be exacerbated by climate change impacts on water, our findings point to the need for further research on the power relations that govern outcomes of water-related adaptation, such as household bargaining over adaptation resources, negotiations and social norms that determine who takes on additional water-related work, and who has a say in how the climate resilience of WASH services are developed.

Supporting information

S1 Text. Indicator calculation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000906.s001

(DOCX)

S1 Checklist. Inclusivity in global research.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000906.s002

(DOCX)

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Carla Liera and Lenka Kruckova for their assistance in preparing the survey for use in Kobo toolbox and study participants who contributed to this research.

References

  1. 1. Howard G, Calow R, Macdonald A, Bartram J. Climate Change and Water and Sanitation: Likely Impacts and Emerging Trends for Action. Annu Rev Environ Resour. 2016;41(1):253–76.
  2. 2. Salvador C, Nieto R, Vicente-Serrano SM, García-Herrera R, Gimeno L, Vicedo-Cabrera AM. Public Health Implications of Drought in a Climate Change Context: A Critical Review. Annu Rev Public Health. 2023;44:213–32. pmid:36623928
  3. 3. Wang P, Asare E, Pitzer VE, Dubrow R, Chen K. Associations between long-term drought and diarrhea among children under five in low- and middle-income countries. Nat Commun. 2022;13(1):3661. pmid:35773263
  4. 4. Howard G, Bartram J. The resilience of water supply and sanitation in the face of climate change. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2010.
    • 5. UNICEF, GWP. WASH Climate Resilient Development Risk assessments for WASH - Guidance Note: Risk Assessment for WASH [Internet]. New York and Stockholm: UNICEF and Global Water Partnerhsip (GWP); 2017 [cited 2023 May 18]. Report No. Available from: https://www.gwp.org/globalassets/global/toolbox/publications/technical-briefs/gwp_unicef_guidance-note-risk-assessments-for-wash.pdf
      • 6. WaterAid. Programme guidance for climate resilient WASH [Internet]. WaterAid; 2021. Report No. Available from: https://washmatters.wateraid.org/sites/g/files/jkxoof256/files/programme-guidance-for-climate-resilient-water-sanitation-and-hygiene.pdf
        • 7. Howard G, Nijhawan A, Flint A, Baidya M, Pregnolato M, Ghimire A, et al. The how tough is WASH framework for assessing the climate resilience of water and sanitation. NPJ Clean Water. 2021;4(1).
        • 8. Nepal S, Aksha SK, Pradhananga S, Aryal A, Shrestha RN, Shrestha S, et al. What Does a Climate‐Resilient Rural Water Supply System Look Like? An Interdisciplinary Approach to Climate Resilience Mapping in Nepal. Clim Resil Sustain. 2025;4(2):e70014.
        • 9. Luh J, Royster S, Sebastian D, Ojomo E, Bartram J. Expert assessment of the resilience of drinking water and sanitation systems to climate-related hazards. Sci Total Environ. 2017;592:334–44. pmid:28319720
        • 10. Oates N, Ross I, Calow R, Carter R, Doczi J. Adaptation to Climate Change in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Assessing Risks and Appraising Options in Africa. London: ODI; 2014.
          • 11. Lebu S, Gyimah R, Nandoya E, Brown J, Salzberg A, Manga M. Assessment of sanitation infrastructure resilience to extreme rainfall and flooding: Evidence from an informal settlement in Kenya. J Environ Manage. 2024;354:120264. pmid:38354609
          • 12. WHO/UNICEF and GLAAS. Shorlisted candidate indicators for global monitoring of climate resilient WASH (version 5.2) [Internet]. WHO/UNICEF and GLAAS; 2025 [cited 2025 Dec 27]. Report No. Available from: https://washdata.org/reports/jmp-glaas-2025-monitoring-climate-resilient-wash-version-52
            • 13. Chapagain PS, Banskota TR, Shrestha S, Khanal NR, Yili Z, Yan J. Studies on adaptive capacity to climate change: a synthesis of changing concepts, dimensions, and indicators. Humanit Soc Sci Commun. 2025;12(1):331.
            • 14. Vincent K, Cundill G. The evolution of empirical adaptation research in the global South from 2010 to 2020. Clim Dev. 2022;14(1):25–38.
            • 15. Fisher S. Much ado about nothing? Why adaptation measurement matters. Clim Dev. 2024;16(2):161–7.
            • 16. Charles KJ, Howard G, Villalobos Prats E, Gruber J, Alam S, Alamgir ASM, et al. Infrastructure alone cannot ensure resilience to weather events in drinking water supplies. Sci Total Environ. 2022;813:151876. pmid:34826465
            • 17. Grasham CF, Calow R, Casey V, Charles KJ, de Wit S, Dyer E, et al. Engaging with the politics of climate resilience towards clean water and sanitation for all. NPJ Clean Water. 2021;4(1).
            • 18. Hyde-Smith LK, Ddiba D, Dickin S, Kiogora D, Mdee AL, Reinfelder V, et al. Business-as-usual and fantasy planning - an analysis of equity within climate adaptation planning for sanitation in Nairobi. PLoS One. 2025;20(12):e0339272. pmid:41468382
            • 19. Dickin S, Caretta MA. Examining water and gender narratives and realities. WIREs Water. 2022;9(5):e1602.
            • 20. Dickin S, Bayoumi M, Giné R, Andersson K, Jiménez A. Sustainable sanitation and gaps in global climate policy and financing. NPJ Clean Water. 2020;3(1).
            • 21. Carr R, Kotz M, Pichler P-P, Weisz H, Belmin C, Wenz L. Climate change to exacerbate the burden of water collection on women’s welfare globally. Nat Clim Chang. 2024;14(7):700–6.
            • 22. Kohlitz J, Chong J, Willetts J. Analysing the capacity to respond to climate change: a framework for community-managed water services. Clim Dev. 2019;0(0):1–11.
            • 23. Eriksen SH, Nightingale AJ, Eakin H. Reframing adaptation: The political nature of climate change adaptation. Glob Environ Change. 2015;35:523–33.
            • 24. Nightingale AJ. Power and politics in climate change adaptation efforts: Struggles over authority and recognition in the context of political instability. Geoforum. 2017;84:11–20.
            • 25. Castro B, Sen R. Everyday Adaptation: Theorizing climate change adaptation in daily life. Glob Environ Change. 2022;75:102555.
            • 26. Nixon R, Ma Z, Birkenholtz T, Khan B, Zanotti L, Lee L, et al. The relationship between household structures and everyday adaptation and livelihood strategies in northwestern Pakistan. E&S. 2023;28(2).
            • 27. Woroniecki S, Krüger R, Rau A, Preuss MS, Baumgartner N, Raggers S, et al. The framing of power in climate change adaptation research. WIREs Clim Change. 2019;10(6).
            • 28. Sultana F. Living in hazardous waterscapes: Gendered vulnerabilities and experiences of floods and disasters. Environ Hazard. 2010;9(1):43–53.
            • 29. Lau JD, Kleiber D, Lawless S, Cohen PJ. Gender equality in climate policy and practice hindered by assumptions. Nat Clim Chang. 2021;11(3):186–92.
            • 30. Pearse R. Gender and climate change. WIREs Clim Change. 2017;8(2):e451.
            • 31. Rao N, Mishra A, Prakash A, Singh C, Qaisrani A, Poonacha P, et al. A qualitative comparative analysis of women’s agency and adaptive capacity in climate change hotspots in Asia and Africa. Nat Clim Chang. 2019;9(12):964–71.
            • 32. Ayeb-Karlsson S. When the disaster strikes: Gendered (im)mobility in Bangladesh. Clim Risk Manage. 2020;29:100237.
            • 33. Garcia A, Tschakert P, Karikari NA. ‘Less able’: how gendered subjectivities warp climate change adaptation in Ghana’s Central Region. Gend Place Cult. 2020;27(11):1602–27.
            • 34. Rao N, Singh C, Solomon D, Camfield L, Sidiki R, Angula M, et al. Managing risk, changing aspirations and household dynamics: Implications for wellbeing and adaptation in semi-arid Africa and India. World Dev. 2020;125:104667.
            • 35. Nixon R, McWherter B, Erwin A, Bauchet J, Ma Z. A call for better understanding household complexity in environmental social science. Popul Environ. 2024;46(4):22.
            • 36. Marcus H, Muga R, Hodgins S. Climate adaptation and WASH behavior change in the Lake Victoria Basin. J Water Sanitat Hygiene Dev. 2023;13(3):174–86.
            • 37. Macura B, Foggitt E, Liera C, Soto A, Orlando A, Del Duca L, et al. Systematic mapping of gender equality and social inclusion in WASH interventions: knowledge clusters and gaps. BMJ Glob Health. 2023;8(1):e010850. pmid:36693669
            • 38. Cinner JE, Adger WN, Allison EH, Barnes ML, Brown K, Cohen PJ, et al. Building adaptive capacity to climate change in tropical coastal communities. Nat Clim Change. 2018;8(2):117–23.
            • 39. Harris LM. Everyday Experiences of Water Insecurity: Insights from Underserved Areas of Accra, Ghana. Daedalus. 2021;150(4):64–84.
            • 40. Jepson W, Budds J, Eichelberger L, Harris L, Norman E, O’Reilly K, et al. Advancing human capabilities for water security: A relational approach. Water Security. 2017;1:46–52.
            • 41. Malapit H, Quisumbing A, Meinzen-Dick R, Seymour G, Martinez EM, Heckert J, et al. Development of the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI). World Dev. 2019;122:675–92. pmid:31582871
            • 42. Dickin S, Bisung E, Nansi J, Charles K. Empowerment in water, sanitation and hygiene index. World Dev. 2021;137:105158.
            • 43. Dickin S, Siddique S, Liera C, Dupont G, Bisung E. Assessing the importance of gender transformative WASH: evidence from a gender-mainstreamed WASH programme in Bangladesh. Int J Water Resourc Dev. 2025;41(4):789–811.
            • 44. Castro B, Sen R. Everyday Adaptation: Theorizing climate change adaptation in daily life. Glob Environ Change. 2022;75:102555.
            • 45. Rahman MF, Falzon D, Robinson S, Kuhl L, Westoby R, Omukuti J. Locally led adaptation: Promise, pitfalls, and possibilities. Ambio. 2023;52(10):1543–57.
            • 46. Hoque MA, Scheelbeek PFD, Vineis P, Khan AE, Ahmed KM, Butler AP. Drinking water vulnerability to climate change and alternatives for adaptation in coastal South and South East Asia. Clim Change. 2016;136:247–63. pmid:27471332
            • 47. Hossain MR, Choudhury M, Islam R, Biswas MS, Reja MS, Hossain F. Assessing coastal vulnerabilities impacting drinking water sources and sanitation: spatial, multivariate and ML approach in Satkhira, Bangladesh. Environ Monit Assess. 2025;197(5):570. pmid:40259012
            • 48. Zahur M, Islam I. Gender role in water management for sanitation and hygiene in the salinity-prone coastal region of Bangladesh. Clim Dev. 2026;:1–13.
            • 49. Hossain ML, Shapna KJ. Drinking water management: Challenges and adaptive strategies in salinization-affected coastal communities of Bangladesh. Clean Water. 2025;4:100171.
            • 50. Haque CE, Shehab MK, Faisal IM. Meeting climate change challenges in coastal Bangladesh: A study of technology-based adaptations in water use in Satkhira District. PLOS Clim. 2025;4(4):e0000460.
            • 51. Pandey R, Alatalo JM, Thapliyal K, Chauhan S, Archie KM, Gupta AK, et al. Climate change vulnerability in urban slum communities: Investigating household adaptation and decision-making capacity in the Indian Himalaya. Ecol Indicat. 2018;90:379–91.
            • 52. Van Aelst K, Holvoet N. Climate change adaptation in the Morogoro Region of Tanzania: women’s decision-making participation in small-scale farm households. Clim Dev. 2018;10(6):495–508.
            • 53. Geremew A, Nijhawan A, Mengistie B, Mekbib D, Flint A, Howard G. Climate resilience of small-town water utilities in Eastern Ethiopia. PLOS Water. 2024;3(5):e0000158.
            • 54. Hyde-Smith L, Zhan Z, Roelich K, Mdee A, Evans B. Climate Change Impacts on Urban Sanitation: A Systematic Review and Failure Mode Analysis. Environ Sci Technol. 2022;56(9):5306–21.
            • 55. Nijhawan A, Howard G. Associations between climate variables and water quality in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review. Water Res. 2022;210:117996. pmid:34959067
            • 56. Ray I. Women, Water, and Development. Ann Rev Environ Resourc. 2007;32(1):421–49. pmid:15226217
            • 57. Humayra J, Uddin MdK, Pushpo NY. Deficiencies of women’s participation in climate governance and sustainable development challenges in Bangladesh. Sustain Dev. 2024;32(6):7096–113.
            • 58. Md A, Gomes C, Dias JM, Cerdà A, Md A, Gomes C, et al. Exploring Gender and Climate Change Nexus, and Empowering Women in the South Western Coastal Region of Bangladesh for Adaptation and Mitigation. Climate. 2022;10(11).
            • 59. Johnson L, Mikulewicz M, Bigger P, Chakraborty R, Cunniff A, Joshua Griffin P, et al. Intervention: The invisible labor of climate change adaptation. Global Environmental Change. 2023;83:102769.
            • 60. Brisebois A, Eriksen SH, Crane TA. The politics of governing resilience: gendered dimensions of climate-smart agriculture in Kenya. Front Clim. 2022;4.
            • 61. Schipper ELF. Maladaptation: When Adaptation to Climate Change Goes Very Wrong. One Earth. 2020;3(4):409–14.
            • 62. Harris LM, Chu EK, Ziervogel G. Negotiated resilience. Resilience. 2018;6(3):196–214.
            • 63. Peters SAE, Downey L, Millett C, Hirst JE, Vaartjes I, Downward GS. Effects of environmental change on health and the critical need for sex- and gender-disaggregated data. NPJ Womens Health. 2024;2(1):1–5.
            • 64. Hillesland M, Doss CR. Addressing intrahousehold dynamics, power and decision-making in household water portfolios. Water Alternatives. 2024;17(3):669–87.
            • 65. Marcus H. Engaging the health sector in climate-resilient WASH development. J Water Health. 2023;21(7):851–5. pmid:37515557
            • 66. WSUP. The missing link in climate adaptation. How improved access to water and sanitation is helping cities adapt to climate change [Internet]. 2021 [cited 2025 Jul 7]. Report No. Available from: https://wsup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/WSUP21-The-missing-link-in-climate-adaptation-Oct-2021.pdf
            • 67. WaterAid. Climate finance flows for water [Internet]. WaterAid; 2022 [cited 2025 Jul 8]. Report No. Available from: https://washmatters.wateraid.org/sites/g/files/jkxoof256/files/2022-11/Climate%20finance%20for%20WASH%20-%20November%202022.pdf
              • 68. Defining transformational adaptation and why it matters. Nat Clim Chang. 2026;16(3):253–4.
              • 69. Puig D, Adger NW, Barnett J, Vanhala L, Boyd E. Improving the effectiveness of climate change adaptation measures. Clim Chang. 2025;178(1):7.