Water scarcity is emerging as one of the defining challenges of contemporary urbanisation in Global South, exposing the limitations of post-colonial water governance systems in responding to increasing climatic uncertainty and growing socio-spatial inequalities. While water crises are often understood as consequences of drought, population growth, or inadequate infrastructure, they are also shaped by governance arrangements that determine how water is valued, distributed, and managed.

This graduation project investigates water scarcity in Bengaluru as a socio-ecological and governance challenge rather than a purely technical problem. Drawing on perspectives from urban political ecology and how differential citizenship works in cities, the research examines how dominant water governance systems contribute to vulnerability and unequal exposure to water risk.

The research explores informality as an adaptive response that emerges in contexts where formal systems are unable to adequately address water insecurity. Rather than viewing informality solely as a symptom of governance failure, the project understands informal practices and networks as important sources of resilience, innovation, and local capacity. By analysing how these practices reshape access to water, negotiate risk, and respond to scarcity, the study seeks to identify opportunities for integrating informal adaptive capacities into spatial planning and governance frameworks.

Ultimately, the project aims to develop a spatially grounded governance approach that leverages informality as a socio-spatial response to water risk, contributing to more equitable, resilient, and adaptive urban water futures under conditions of increasing environmental uncertainty. ... Read more

In order to achieve the national target of climate neutrality by 2050, the Netherlands needs to undergo an energy transition that will result in sweeping change to the energy system. Within the current energy system, energy poverty plagues nearly 400.000 Dutch households, and 75 percent of those households reside in social housing. What if the systemic change inherent to the impending energy transition could be used as an opportunity to eradicate energy poverty in the Netherlands? To answer this question, we design a vision and strategy to develop an affordable, renewable heating system in the region of Arnhem-Nijmegen, with the social housing community acting as both the social and organisational heart. We call this Social Heating. The vision and strategy have been designed using a mixed-methods approach involving conceptual and technical literature reviews, along with news media, policy, case study, energy, organisational, and spatial analyses. The result is a vision of an expanded, renewables-based district heating network extending to most of the Arnhem-Nijmegen region, delivered by a new, non-profit organisation, the Social Heating Association (“SHA”). An associated strategy details how the vision will be implemented through a combination of spatial and policy interventions, ordered over time in five phases extending to 2100. By harnessing the existing organisational capacity of social housing communities, and with careful planning and bold action, it is possible to provide affordable, renewable heating to all in the Arnhem-Nijmegen region. Further, we believe this model for heating can be used as a template for implementation in similar regions across the Netherlands. ... Read more