Beyond water scarcity: Water (in)security and social justice in Karachi

Abstract

Study region: The low-income and multiethnic settlement of Lyari situated at the tail-end of the water supply network for the coastal megacity of Karachi, Pakistan. Study focus: We demonstrate the effect of socioeconomic and political inequalities in determining a community’s level of water security, using a mixed-methods approach. We conduct a total of 465 household surveys supplemented with participant observation and stakeholder interviews. New hydrological insights: Weak urban water governance in Lyari contributes in pushing vulnerable sections of the population further to the margins. The intermittent piped water supply in Lyari is inadequate, unsafe, unreliable and inconvenient. This forces many households to resort to additional costlier and inconvenient sources of water and leads to severe inequities in water access. Lower-Income populations are especially affected and pay disproportionately higher amounts for a much lower water consumption. Lyari’s water problems, and those of similar settlements across Karachi and other megacities across the Global South, cannot be resolved by simply augmenting water supply. While increased water supply can help, results suggest that even with supply augmentations, Lyari and other similar settlements need institutional structures and policies to ensure equitable and more just access to existing and any increased water supplies.

Keywords

• Urban water management
• Water justice
• Water institutions
• Intermittent water supply