Socio-ecological resilience as a sustainable development strategy for remote rural settlements in India: Integrating community perspective
The project is an outcome of the growing concerns for rural communities against various natural calamities such as floods, draughts, cyclones and landslides, in the context of developing countries and specifically in India. With an objective to search for a holistic approach to confront the emerging risks, this project tries to address collectively two key issues viz., survivability and growth, that confront the sustainability of rural regions. The project is grounded in the belief that closely interacting social and ecological systems in rural regions are responsible to regulate the vulnerabilities of local communities and seeks to explore the role of socio-ecological resilience (SER) in the sustainable development of rural settlements.
The study develops an indicator set to assess the socio-ecological systems in settlements from different geo-climatic zones viz., Melghat and Eco-sensitive zone of Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in hot dry Deccan plateau region of Maharashtra state, Godavari delta region in Hot-Humid Coastal zone of Andhra Pradesh state and Zunheboto in the Satoi mountain ranges of Nagaland State.