Building the resilience of periurban communities to the impacts of climate change and urbanization
International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment
ISSN: 1759-5908
Article publication date: 23 August 2020
Issue publication date: 4 January 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to describe how social capital is mobilized in the mediation of periurban water insecurity induced by urbanization and climate change. Investing in social capital through the process of creating mechanisms for civic engagement is an important means of building resilience of periurban communities.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on ethnographic and action research. The main sources of data were direct observation of water appropriation and access and semi-structured interviews. Convenience, snowball and theoretical sampling were used.
Findings
The residents of periurban Gurgaon have lost access to water on account of urbanization and climate change. In this context, they mobilize social relationships to collectively improve their access to water. Norms of cooperation and kinship play an important role in the mediation of water insecurity. Creating social capital by building platforms for civic engagement helped to improve their water security.
Originality/value
While there has been much interest in issues of periurban water insecurity, the role of social capital in the mediation of water insecurity has received scant attention. At the same time, while scholars have been interested in the role of social capital in adapting to the impacts of climate change, it has scarcely been studied in a periurban context. This paper seeks to bridge this research gap.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 9th International Conference on Building Resilience (ICBR), organized in Bali, Indonesia, 13–15 January, 2020 by Institute Technology of Bandung, Indonesia, and the University of Huddersfield, UK. Thanks are expressed to the conference organisers and to the track chair of the session for useful comments.
The research presented in this paper draws on two funded projects. The first is the project “Water security in peri-urban South Asia: adapting to climate change and urbanization”, funded by IDRC, Canada. The second is the project “Climate Policy, conflicts and co-operation in periurban South Asia: towards resilient and water secure communities”, funded by NWO, The Dutch Organization for Scientific Cooperation, The Netherlands, and the Department for International Development, UK. The author thanks the funders for financial support provided.
Thanks are expressed to SaciWATERs, South Asian Consortium for Inter-disciplinary Water Resources Studies, Secunderabad, India, for organizational support for the conduct of both these studies. Thanks are expressed to Pranay Ranjan, Sumit Vij, Aman Dewan, Pratik Mishra and Aditya Kumar Singh for their association with and support to both these projects.
Citation
Narain, V. (2021), "Building the resilience of periurban communities to the impacts of climate change and urbanization", International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 115-125. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJDRBE-05-2020-0049
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited