Analysis of socio-ecohydrological factors affecting water security, liveability and sustainability : a case study of the Cirebon metropolitan region, West Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Water security, liveability, and sustainability are important concepts in development. These concepts can help planners and managers to construct and achieve an equilibrium of socio-ecohydrological systems over a long period. This study, in the context of balanced urban development, seeks to better understand socioe-cohydrological issues, challenges, options, and strategies for achieving water security, liveability, and sustainability concerning urbanisation and climate change. This includes assessments of the urban and peri-urban environment and communities, and multi-level government institutions. Water security in this study is defined in the context of a water insecure region as “insufficient accessibility and capability of water sources and services to satisfy the household needs for health, livelihood, ecosystem, and production, coupled with inadequate acceptability and adaptive capacity of households to deal with the ecohydrological changes that impact liveability and sustainability”. Liveability is defined in this study as “dynamic interactions between water, people, and the environment as a function of biophysical and socio-economic subsystems in one urban system”, while sustainability is defined as “long-term liveability that is ensured via planning approaches and environmental management interventions”. Water security was assessed in the context of socio-ecohydrological change based on (i) the experiences of communities in the access to water and sanitation infrastructures; (ii) the acceptability of water risks from ecohydrological change; (iii) the capability of ecosystem and institutional services to satisfy the needs for health, livelihood, ecosystem, and production; and (iv) adaptive capacity in dealing with the impacts resulting from socio- ecohydrological change. Liveability was assessed based on the communities’ perceptions of the most important aspects for liveability, liveability aspects that they are most satisfied with, and liveability aspects that they are least satisfied with, in the urban and peri-urban areas. The results were categorised within four themes: ecosystem, urban, peri-urban, and human services. Sustainability was assessed by combining observed landuse/ hydrological/ climate data and the perceptions of climate change vis-à-vis ecohydrological changes and coping strategies. The study combined place and human-based approaches to assess these three thematic areas combining qualitative and quantitative data for finding interconnection and trade-off for achieving balanced urban development (BUD). Based on the in-depth case study of Cirebon Metropolitan Region (CMR) in Indonesia, this study explored (i) socio-economic and physical environments of the region including watersheds within the Cimanuk-Cisanggarung River Basin; (ii) community perspectives at different urbanisation levels; and (iii) multi-level government perspectives. This study presents seven analytical frameworks related to different aspects of work reported in this thesis: (i) delineate peri-urban areas; (ii) quantify rural-urban interface ecohydrology; (iii) understand urbanisation impacts on urban and peri-urban ecohydrological based liveability; (iv) identify perceived liveability of urban and peri-urban communities in the context of socio-ecohydrology; (v) classify issues and factors impacting household water insecurity in the context of socio-ecohydrological change; (vi) understand sustainability challenges concerning climate change and urbanisation in the urban system, and identify appropriate adaptation supports for sustaining water security and liveability; (vii) identify the complexity and uncertainty involved in assessing water security, liveability, and sustainability, and to find the linkages between urban and perixvii urban communities, urban and peri-urban ecosystems, and cross-scale institutions for achieving BUD