Urban Eris: Water body transformation in peri-urban Chennai, South India

Abstract

Peri-urbanisation has been conceptualised during the recent years. In this research work, peri-urbanisation is viewed through the lens of water body conversion from rural to eventually urban use. Underlying power relations and networks are examined, using an assemblage thinking approach combined with the framework of Situated (Urban) Political Ecology on a case study in peri-urban Chennai, Tamil Nadu, South India. Chennai experiences rapid expansion and its peri-urban zone tells numerous stories of transformation. The underlying rural landscape was defined by the eri (or tank) system and has evolved as a cultural landscape within the past centuries. An eri (Tamil: lake, reservoir) is a semi-natural water body, which catches water during monsoon to retain and release it during the dry season. With the help of eris, agriculture was enabled throughout the year by creating a balance between wet and dry seasons. Eris are connected to each other and form a system of water bodies, which increases the efficiency of water retention as the capacities of the entire system can be utilised through spillover from one eri to another. Within the current context of urbanisation however, eris have to change their meaning to fit into the new setting. This research is focussed on how eris in peri-urban Chennai are being transformed from rural irrigation reservoirs to urban water bodies - a transformation with very diverse outcomes, ranging from modern drinking water reservoirs to decaying water bodies used as landfills. Moreover, the eri defines its surroundings in the traditional cultural landscape, by creating two types of land: irrigated farmland under individual ownership and common land. Peri-urbanisation of eris usually includes their disconnection from their immediate surroundings on the physical, social and administrative level. The characteristics of the two traditional land types and their connection to the eri shape the peri-urbanisation process in regard to legal security, pace of change, land value, environmental and social impact. This results in urban areas of different characteristics, which are based on their former rural land type. The eri as defining landscape feature can therefore be seen as peri-urban development nucleus. Hence, the term "urban eri" is established to define a water body, which has undergone disconnection from its earlier rural surroundings to be reintegrated into its later urban context, thus (re)shaping access mechanisms and the future urban form.