H2O – T2S: H2O – T2S in Urban Fringe Areas

Rapid urbanization is transforming societies and physical spaces in the Global South fundamentally. The main loci of this transformation are urban fringe areas. They serve the resource-hungry urban core with natural resources and labour, at the cost of increased resource vulnerabilities like water provisions for the population in these urban fringes. Our research aims at understanding how these transformations lead to changes in access to water and water demands, how these are governed, and which consequences these changes have for the local populations.

The project will investigate changes during the urban transformations in three connected areas of study: (1) water governance and institutions, (2) access to water mediated by societal structures, (3) livelihoods and the resulting water demands. The insights from these studies will be used in the co-creation of transformation pathways for sustainable water management. A comparative analysis will be undertaken for the cities of Kolkata, Pune and Hyderabad in India. The project will establish a stakeholder dialogue based on evidence from the research. Participation of government agencies, local communities and key scientific experts will add to the knowledge generated by the project researchers and will be essential for the co-creation of transformation pathways.

Through these activities, the project H2O – T2S contributes to understanding the drivers of vulnerability and resilience of periurban communities and helps to identify more sustainable future pathways. The outcomes will be a step towards the development of future cities built on sustainable principles.

Project leader: Prof. S. Janakarajan, South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs), Shreya Chakraborty, South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs)

Principal investigators: Dr. C. Butsch, University of Cologne (Germany), Dr. L. Hermans, Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands)