Ongoing and past research
My current research interests are in
water management (agrarian and peri-urban); adaptation; Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2, 6 and 13; and, multidimensional poverty
RESEARCH PROJECTS
2022-24: Participatory approaches and agent-based models to explore ideas of fairness at the food-water-biodiversity nexus (fairSTREAM). Funded by IIASA, Austria. Role: Collaborator
2016-21: The role of small farms in global food security and sustainability. Funded by SSHRC, Canada. Role: Collaborator
2012-16: Adapting to climate change in urbanizing watersheds (ACCUWa). Funded by IDRC, Canada. Role: Co-investigator
2012-14: Rural-urban conundrum: political economy of social and environmental transformation in agrarian landscapes. Tata Trusts grant for Land, Water and Livelihoods programme at ATREE (2011-16). Role: Principal investigator
Water and transformations
The upstream area of Arkavathy sub-basin, which used to supply water to Bangalore city, India, until 1970s, has been facing acute water scarcity. Our multi-disciplinary project 'Adapting to Climate Change in Urbanizing Watersheds (ACCUWa)' looked at this problem. We developed and applied an integrated framework (Srinivasan et al, 2013; Lele et al, 2018) looking in detail at the climatic, socio-economic, hydrological, water quality and institutional aspects. I investigated the role that technology and urbanization played in agrarian change in the region since the 1970s (Thomas et al, 2015). The key finding has been that the water crisis in Arkavathy sub-basin was the result of large scale adoption of borewell technology to tap groundwater and the shift to plantations, especially eucalyptus (Patil et al, 2019; The Hindu; Times of India).
I have looked at agricultural water management and agrarian political economy (Nair et al, forthcoming), as well as policies and practices of water use efficiency in agriculture (Nair and Thomas, 2023).
Development and sustainability
As we found in our study on domestic water access in peri-urban Bangalore, households on average might not be water-poor (measured as Litres Per Capita Per Day), but water supply might come from unsustainable means, such as over extracting groundwater or through massive infrastructure from distant areas as is the case with many cities. Such incompatibilities should be addressed while assessing progress towards Sustainable Development Goals.
Similarly, climate action and development goals involve trade-offs and unintended negative effects or the Boomerang Effect (Swatuk et al, 2021; IPCC, 2022; The Wire Science; Outlook Magazine). COVID-19 lockdown saw narratives of environmental improvements. However, this happened in the wake of massive social and economic disruption (Thomas et al, 2021). One of my core concerns has been how do we reconcile these oftentimes conflicting objectives of development (broadly defined as human well-being) and sustainability (maintaining natural resources across generations)?
Adaptation and resilience
I have used empirical insights from my research on peri-urban areas to look at theoretical and policy debates on adaptation and resilience (Thomas et al, 2017) in the context of environmental changes.
Our research on Bangalore city and its outlier showed that urban wastewater has in fact sustained agriculture in the downstream areas of the city, and the proposed strategy to recycle wastewater for city use will have adverse impacts on peri-urban livelihoods (Thomas et al, 2017; Jamwal et al, 2014; The Hindu). When it comes to practices on building resilience, there are diverse actors and overlapping interests, and not everyone is impacted equally, leading to the questions what and where is the 'equilibrium' (as originally put forth by resilience theorists), whose adaptation and how.
My interest is in understanding the normative implications, such as justice (both ecological and social), equity and fairness, in interventions aimed at adaptation and building resilience (Kanade et al, 2023), and how diverse understandings impact on action and policy (Joy et al, 2024).
Participation, development and multidimensional poverty
I have a long standing interest in theoretical and empirical work on development and poverty, specifically participatory development and metrics used for measuring poverty and development.
My doctoral research looked at conceptual, methodological and policy issues in addressing poverty from a multidimensional perspective (Thomas, 2008). Using empirical material from field research in Kerala, India, the research made three contributions: demonstrated how and why local indicators for identification of poor households diverge from those designed by official agencies/experts (Thomas et al, 2009); developed the argument that social capital is a conditional resource, implying the limits of self-help initiatives in tackling poverty (Thomas et al, 2010); illustrated the need to think beyond binaries while analyzing the role of NGOs in development (Thomas et al, 2010).
I have extended these ideas looking at potential synergies with areas as diverse as participatory technologies (Thomas, 2010) and ecosystem services (Purushothaman et al, 2013)