Water Security in Peri-Urban South Asia: Adapting to Climate Change and Urbanization

This volume documents and analyses the experiences of the urban periphery in three developing nations-India, Nepal, and Bangladesh-in terms of water security and access, adaptation to climate change, and urban expansion. Cutting across disciplinary boundaries, and using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods from natural and social sciences, the essays explore the drivers of vulnerability in four peri-urban sites-Hyderabad and Gurgaon in India, Khulna in Bangladesh, and Kathmandu in Nepal-and examine the cost-effectiveness of technological and institutional alternatives to build adaptive capacity. The essays explore how different groups of people, men and women, face differential vulnerabilities to water insecurity induced by urbanization and climate change and how they adapt through technological or institutional innovation.

Contents: Introduction: Urbanization, climate change and Peri-urban water security in South Asia-a framework for analysis/Vishal Narain. 1. Urban burden on Peri-urban areas: shared use of a river in a coastal city vulnerable to climate change/M. Shah Alam Khan, M. Shahjahan Mondal, Rezaur Rahman, Hamidul Huq, Dilip Kumar Datta, Uthpal Kumar and Mohammad Rashed Jalal. 2. Urbanization, climate change and water security in Peri-urban Gurgaon, India/Vishal Narain, Pranay Ranjan, Sreoshi Singh and Aman Dewan. 3. Expanding city, shrinking water resources, and the vulnerability of communities living on the edge in Hyderabad, India/Sreoshi Singh and Anjal Prakash. 4. Growing Urbanization, changing climate and adaptation in Peri-urban Kathmandu: emerging shapes of water and livelihood security/Rajesh Sada, Ashutosh Shukla, Anushiya Shrestha and Lieke Anna Melsen. 5. Gendered and caste spaces in household water use: a case of Aliabad Village in Peri-urban Hyderabad, India/Anjal Prakash and Sreoshi Singh. 6. Changing environment, changing waters: an analysis of drinking water access of vulnerable groups in Peri-urban Sultanpur/Afke van der Woude. 7. Local perception of climate change: Impacts and responses of peri-urban residents in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal/Rajesh Sada, Anushiya Shrestha and Ashutosh Shukla. 8. Mapping gains and losses from the mayur ecosystem/Purnamita Dasgupta, Prosun K. Ghosh, Rezaur Rahman and M. Shah Alam Khan. Conclusion: Towards peri-urban water security-implications for adaptive capacity, public policy, and future research and action/Anjal Prakash. Glossary. Index.