Metabolic Urbanism and Environmental Justice: The Water Conundrum in Bangalore, India

This research paper examines domestic household water consumption in Bangalore, India, to argue that the city's hydrology is primarily driven by social, political, and economic variables rather than biophysical factors.

• The authors argue that understandings of urbanism in the global South are incomplete if they do not account for inequities in the metabolic flows of energy and matter that sustain the city.
• In Bangalore, anthropogenic drivers of groundwater hydrology are more dominant than background biophysical drivers, with the unequal spatial distribution of piped water infrastructure serving as the primary driver.
• The analysis suggests that questions of biophysical sustainability are inseparable from environmental justice, leading to the hypothesis that all urban hydrology is social hydrology.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2014). Metabolic Urbanism and Environmental Justice: The Water Conundrum in Bangalore, India. https://www.sei.org/publications/metabolic-urbanism-and-environmental-justice-the-water-conundrum-in-bangalore-india/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Metabolic Urbanism and Environmental Justice: The Water Conundrum in Bangalore, India. 2014. https://www.sei.org/publications/metabolic-urbanism-and-environmental-justice-the-water-conundrum-in-bangalore-india/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Metabolic Urbanism and Environmental Justice: The Water Conundrum in Bangalore, India |date=22 October 2014 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/metabolic-urbanism-and-environmental-justice-the-water-conundrum-in-bangalore-india/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2014metabolic, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Metabolic Urbanism and Environmental Justice: The Water Conundrum in Bangalore, India}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2014}, month = oct, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/metabolic-urbanism-and-environmental-justice-the-water-conundrum-in-bangalore-india/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }