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| A woman washes clothes in a man-made channel in peri-urban
Hyderabad, India. |
| Copyright : SACRIWATERS |
Research focus
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To explore how growing cities and a changing climate affect water
security in peri-urban South Asia and find fair and sustainable
solutions.
The challenge
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South Asia is rapidly urbanizing. The cities of India alone are
expected to swell by more than 200 million people in the next 15
years. Dhaka, the capital of neighbouring Bangladesh, is the
world’s fastest growing megacity. As cities spread out,
consuming more land and water, the communities around them
experience many of the associated growing pains. Water scarcity
particularly concerns residents of these peri-urban areas. Climate
change compounds the problem as it affects hydrology across the
subcontinent, from rising sea levels in the Bay of Bengal, to
melting Himalayan glaciers, and erratic monsoons.
Sustainable and equitable water distribution is especially
challenging on the edges of cities. Neither urban nor rural, these
communities often fall between the cracks of neighbouring
jurisdictions and are caught between competing demands for
resources from thirsty cities and traditional ways of life.
How urban growth takes place in a region that is home to 20% of the
world’s population will tremendously affect millions of lives
and the planet as a whole.
To better understand the growing threats to water security and help
communities adapt, Canada’s International Development
Research Centre supported the South Asia Water Consortium, made up
of local research organizations.
The research
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Beginning in July 2010, teams spent six months studying water
security in four diverse sites in three countries, chosen to
reflect South Asia’s wide range of social and environmental
conditions: Khulna, Bangladesh; Kathmandu, Nepal; and Hyderabad and
Gurgaon, India.
Climate change was found to affect water security the most in
Khulna. Located near the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh’s third
largest city relies exclusively on groundwater, which is showing
higher levels of salinification as sea levels rise. Unplanned
growth and rapid industrial development around the city are
polluting water sources and have led to an increase in water-borne
diseases.
Demand for water is growing in peri-urban Kathmandu, leading some
farmers to abandon agriculture and sell the groundwater under their
farms to private companies. Runoff from unregulated sand mining is
also harming agriculture. Together these unsustainable practices
are lowering the water table and threaten food security. As demand
for water outpaces supply, violent conflicts have erupted over
competing water uses.
Farmers in Gurgaon, a booming satellite of India’s capital
Delhi, are also selling the water under their land. Water tables
are being further depleted as high-rise housing units sprout up on
farmers’ fields, preventing the groundwater from being
replenished. As agriculture becomes more marginal, landlords rent
their lands to poorer farmers. Changing rainfall patterns, which
caused severe flooding in Pakistan in 2010, are reducing harvests.
Under sharecropping arrangements, however, tenant farmers must pay
the same rent whether or not their crops fail.
Hyderabad in Southern India is famous for its series of artificial
lakes, created as water reservoirs. “These were very
effective systems for managing water flows,” says IDRC
project leader Sara Ahmed. These lakes are now threatened by real
estate developments, which have paved over some lakes and consume a
disproportionate share of local water resources.
Expected impact
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The preliminary research across four urban areas is providing a
better understanding of peri-urban environments and how they
function. Rather than a location, these places are defined by
processes and changes, including land use patterns, the mixing of
social groups, and competing uses for resources.
Researchers are also learning more about the unequal impact
development and climate change have on different social groups.
From uninsured tenant farmers in Gurgaon, to villagers cut off from
lakes in Hyderabad, to women in Khulna who must travel further to
collect clean water — gender, caste, and class inequality all
contribute to water insecurity.
The research teams are communicating with each other – and
the world – through a website, blog, Facebook, and Flickr, as
well as on a twitter feed.
Armed with their growing understanding of the social, economic, and
environmental factors that contribute to water insecurity in each
peri-urban area, the teams are now developing solutions that will
engage marginalized groups, governments, and the private sector to
work toward ensuring clean water for all.
Jonah Engle is a Montréal-based writer.
This article profiles a project supported by IDRC’s Climate
Change and Water program, Water Security in Periurban South Asia:
Adapting to Climate Change and Urbanization. |
