Introduction: Peri-Urban Water Security in South Asia

Abstract

This chapter sets the context for the analysis of water security in peri-urban South Asia. Urbanization has been a key demographic trend globally as well as in South Asia, in the recent past and increasingly also in the future. While cities are often seen as engines of economic growth and development, and are associated with economies of scale, efficiency and sustainability, much urban growth occurs through the appropriation and reallocation of land and water from their peripheries. This creates patterns of deprivation for resource-dependent peri-urban and rural communities, as well as increasingly severe environmental problems, such as the over-extraction of groundwater and water pollution. This chapter first introduces the various perspectives, themes and cases presented in the book chapters. It then discusses urbanization and the peri-urban more specifically, introducing two contrasting views — ecological modernization and political ecology — and introduces the concept of water security. Referring to the examples from the book, the chapter then gives an overview of some of its key themes: the role of material infrastructure; property transformations and the declining commons; socially differentiated access to water; intervening in the peri-urban; and the role of conflict and cooperation.

Increasing livelihood vulnerabilities to coastal erosion and wastewater intrusion: The political ecology of Thai aquaculture in peri‐urban Bangkok

“…This argument aligns with that provided by Bartels et al (2020, p. 1242), who argued for an “explicitly plural understanding of peri‐urbanisation” despite a lack of consensus on what constitutes the peri‐urban. Moreover, as Narain (2022, n.p.) has argued, the peri‐urban is a “messy space” that captures “rural‐urban transformations led by land use and other changes.”…”

Belling the cat: Designing collective action institutions for natural resource management in the peri-urban interface

“…Processes of rural-urban migration, occupational diversification and the acquisition or encroachment of the commons could break the norms that structure human interaction with natural resources. Social capital that provides a social glue around natural resources could be eroded (Narain, 2016). At the same time, increasing scarcity of natural resources as a result of increasing pressure may lead to institutional innovation in sharing resources, for instance, through emerging norms of cooperation (Narain and Nischal, 2007).…”