TY - JOUR
T1 - Promises and perils of water sensitivity as a new hydro-social imaginary for Kozhikode, India
AU - Silva, Raquel H.
AU - van der Meulen, Geert J.M.
AU - Zwarteveen, Margreet Z.
AU - Stead, Dominic
AU - van Dorst, Machiel J.
AU - Bacchin, Taneha K.
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Ecological decay
KW - Epistemic justice
KW - Hydro-social imaginaries
KW - Urban political ecology
KW - Water-Sensitive Urban Design
KW - Waterscapes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85214571486&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.envsci.2025.103985
DO - 10.1016/j.envsci.2025.103985
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85214571486
SN - 1462-9011
VL - 164
JO - Environmental Science and Policy
JF - Environmental Science and Policy
M1 - 103985
ER -