Promises and perils of water sensitivity as a new hydro-social imaginary for Kozhikode, India

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A2 Katsausartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date

2025-02

Department

Department of Built Environment

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Language

en

Pages

12

Series

Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 164

Abstract

Water-Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) proposes integrating the management of urban water cycles into urban planning and design as a strategy to better respond to water challenges in the urban environment. Proposed frameworks try capturing urban water sensitivity in terms of generic, transferable principles. In this article, we trace the water history of Kozhikode in India to make a plea for epistemic justice and context-specificity in the definition of water sensitivity, recognizing how the quality and direction of contemporary urban water flows are the outcome of particular – (post-)colonial, neo-liberal – histories. We mobilize insights from political ecology to do this. Concepts like waterscapes and hydro-social imaginaries help acknowledge that waters and cities co-evolve to create often highly uneven waterscapes. This usefully denaturalizes and thereby politicizes urban water sensitivity, giving much-needed prominence to the ‘who’ questions: who will benefit (most), and who will stand to lose? For Kozhikode, with its fishing enclaves, sacred groves, ponds, and a colonial canal crossing its coastal plain, treating water sensitivity as a mere techno-managerial question risks reinforcing middle-class dominance and aspirations, while also provoking ecological decay.

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Publisher Copyright: © 2025 The Authors

Keywords

Ecological decay, Epistemic justice, Hydro-social imaginaries, Urban political ecology, Water-Sensitive Urban Design, Waterscapes

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DOI

10.1016/j.envsci.2025.103985

Citation

Silva, R H, van der Meulen, G J M, Zwarteveen, M Z, Stead, D, van Dorst, M J & Bacchin, T K 2025, 'Promises and perils of water sensitivity as a new hydro-social imaginary for Kozhikode, India', Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 164, 103985. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2025.103985

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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202501221561

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[article-cris] Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu / ENG