My current research interests are in
water management (agrarian and peri-urban); adaptation; Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2, 6 and 13; and, multidimensional poverty
MAJOR 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
I look at water management in an integrated manner taking a river basin perspective, focusing on adaptation, water access and use in the agricultural and domestic sectors, and effectiveness of policies. This invariably requires collaborating across disciplines, including social sciences, engineering and environmental studies, developing integrated frameworks (Srinivasan et al, 2013) and applying different research tools (Lele et al, 2018).
My research spans across different scales, national, regional, and local, with fieldwork in parts of Cauvery (Lele et al, 2013) and Krishna basins (Kanade et al, 2023), and peri-urban areas of Bengaluru (Thomas et al, 2017) in India. I have looked at the impact of technology, climate, land use change, and urbanization on water management and agrarian change. This includes increasing use of groundwater in agriculture, the shift to labour saving and water intensive crops (Patil et al, 2019; Nair et al, 2024; The Hindu; Times of India), and interventions to promote water efficiency (Nair and Thomas, 2023).
One of my core concerns has been how to reconcile the oftentimes conflicting objectives of development and sustainability, or in other words, how to improve human well-being and quality of life, while maintaining natural resources across generations.
Climate action and development goals involve trade-offs and may result in unintended negative effects (Swatuk et al, 2021; IPCC, 2022; The Wire Science; Outlook Magazine). Recently, COVID-19 lockdown saw narratives of environmental improvements, however, this happened in the wake of massive social and economic disruption (Thomas et al, 2021). At a more local scale, 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. I am interested in how can such incompatibilities, and interlinkages (Martin et al, 2024) be addressed in policies and targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals.
When it comes to adaptation and building resilience, there are different actors and overlapping interests. Not everyone is impacted the same by socio-environmental changes, leading to the questions where is the 'equilibrium', whose adaptation and how (Thomas et al, 2017).
Massive recycling of water for cities may help build urban resilience but creates adverse impacts downstream for agriculture and livelihoods dependent on wastewater (Thomas et al, 2017; Jamwal et al, 2014; The Hindu). Similarly, building flood resilience and adaptation requires attention not just to climate change, but the role of multiple stressors, in the case of cities in the Global South (Singh et al, 2021), and that of institutions and actors, as we saw during floods in Krishna basin in 2009 (Killada et al, 2012), and Kerala in 2018 (Lele et al, 2018). 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, and how knowledge gaps and diverse understandings influence policy and action (Joy et al, 2024).
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). Based on fieldwork 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)