Water Resources Institutions and Human Health in a Peri-Urban Region in Surat City, India

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Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) has remained polarized between two approaches. The first looks at how to integrate , while the second documents through, critique how there is no integration in practice . The proposed research offers a way of bringing these two theoretical paradigms together to examine how different institutions (global to local) integrate to influence water-related diseases in the peri-urban region. Water-related diseases are associated with rapid urbanization, industrialization, technology of agricultural practices, climate change, conflicts associated with competing water users and socio-cultural factors, comprising a complex system. The research will conduct an intensive study in two comparative sites (one affected village and another unaffected village) to understand how global and local institutions integrate to influence water-related diseases in the peri-urban region of Surat City, India. The research applies multiple research methods to collect both qualitative and quantitative information at different levels. The information collected will be spatially mapped with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the integration of institutions analysed through Bayesian network. This will help in identifying the significant drivers of water-related health diseases and predict the probability of their occurrence given the existing information. The combination of GIS and Bayesian network will mathematically describe the environment-institutions-health relationship. The three year research project wilt consist of a Senior Researcher and a Junior Researcher (leading to PhD), supported in the field by two Research Assistants. The research project will result in organizing workshops, sessions at international conferences, publications in international peer reviewed journals and disseminate the findings in media. The study will contribute to a subsequent project for understanding the impact of the water-related diseases on socio-economic, ecological and Institutional settings in the region..