The Shifting Grounds project aims to build knowledge and capacity among local actors to support a transformation process in peri-urban delta communities in Bangladesh and India for a pro-poor, sustainable and equitable management of groundwater resources across caste/class and gender. This will be based on an improved understanding of the dynamic interplay between local livelihoods, the groundwater resource base, formal and informal institutions and links with nearby urban centres in Khulna and Kolkata. These two cities provide a good basis for an institutional comparison, being part of the same Ganges delta system, yet located in different countries.

Funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Shifting Grounds project is executed by group of academicians, researchers and civil societies from north and south. Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) leads the consortium based on their expertise in the area of actor modelling and systems analysis, serious games, and the experience in support of water policy in the Netherlands as well as developing countries. Two southern research partners are involved for the execution of the project. SaciWATERs, based in India, is the regional coordinator for the project and is responsible for the socio-economic system mapping the index-based integrative approach and the grounded theory research components. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) contribute its expertise in groundwater modelling to analyze the groundwater systems. Both ENDS, an independent non-governmental organisation (NGO), based in Netherlands coordinates and develops the capacity building activities under the Negotiated Approach that provide the link between academic research activities and capacity building, using its experience with the Negotiated Approach in several developing countries such as Costa Rica, India, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Two local civil society partners support these activities at the project sites in Khulna and Kolkata: Jagrata Juba Shangha(JJS), Bangladesh and The Researcher, India.