Changing hydrosocial cycles in Periurban India
Carsten Butsch (University of Cologne)
Shreya Chakraborty (South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies)
S.L. Gomes (TU Delft - Policy Analysis)
Shamita Kumar (Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University)
Leon M. Hermans (TU Delft - Policy Analysis, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
India’s urbanisation results in the physical and societal transformation of the areas sur-rounding cities. These periurban interfaces are spaces of flows, shaped by an exchange of matter, people and ideas between urban and rural spaces—and currently they are zones in transition. Periur-banisation processes result inter alia in changing water demands and changing relations between water and society. In this paper the concept of the hydrosocial cycle is applied to interpret the transformation of the waterscapes of six periurban villages in the fringe areas of Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata. In doing so, three specific aspects will be investigated: (1) the institutions shaping the hydro-social cycle, (2) the interplay between water as a livelihood-base and the waterscape, (3) the interplay between the waterscape and water as a consumption good. This approach opens new views on periurban interfaces as emerging mosaic of unique waterscapes. The meaning of water, the rights to access water and the water related infrastructure are constantly renegotiated, as permanently new water demands emerge and new actors enter the scene. Especially this process-based understanding links the theoretical lens of the hydrosocial cycle with the object of investigation, the periurban space.
help_outline