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Engaging landholders in natural resource management (NRM) is a challenge in any landscape; however, it can be inherently more difficult in peri-urban landscapes. This chapter investigates why this is so and proposes practical options for addressing some of these challenges. It is proposed that current approaches to engage peri-urban landholders in NRM are in many cases based on conventional methods used to engage rural landholders. It was found that whilst the principles underpinning this approach are sound, the design and delivery of engagement must be modified in order to be effective in peri-urban landscapes. Importantly, such modifications have implications for the planning, management, cost, and delivery of peri-urban NRM projects.

Maintaining rural character of peri-urban landscape is a significant challenge in Australia and it is particularly important in Australia to allow sustainable agriculture, horticulture and forestry. The Western Sydney Parklands is an urban park system located in Western Sydney with a commitment to provide urban farming in the Parklands. The Parklands is a 27 km long public open space corridor of approximately 5200 ha. The land is administered and managed by the Western Sydney Parklands Trust (Trust) under the Western Sydney Parkland Act 2006. The Trust is committed to providing 10 % (or about 500 ha) of the Western Sydney Parklands (area 5280 ha) for urban farming as per the Western Sydney Parklands Plan of Management 2020. The strategic objective for the Trust is to develop an approach for converting fallow public land to productive space by providing commercial growers a secure tenure in the Sydney basin. This chapter outlines the process of developing and implementing a master plan for a Horsley Park, Western Sydney. The case study has highlighted that implementation of the master plan has a number of challenges including: legislative and regulatory processes; environmental and social matters; and provides some insights from planning to reality of farming in the Sydney region.

Urban wet lands and water bodies can reduce overheating of the urban environment as well their general function of natural water purification. Nonetheless, urban wetlands are either diminishing or contracted from their original shape and size due to pressures from the housing sector and unplanned urbanisation. This chapter presents the findings of a study investigating into the possible relationships existing between water quality of urban and peri-urban water bodies and three selected parameters; shape complexity, micro-climatic temperature and land use around water bodies. For this reason three urban and one peri-urban water bodies in Dhaka have been studied with regard to those four parameters. The study was conducted by both parametric techniques and field campaigns.

This chapter analyses the groundwater table data derived from various wells across Delhi for the 2007–2011 period in order to examine the fluctuation in the groundwater table. Due to the inconsistency in data coverage, data for only one pre-monsoon month (May) was analysed. It was found that the depth to the groundwater table increased during 2007–2010 for all of the districts except the northeast district. Nevertheless, this trend changed in 2011 due to the groundwater recharge and heavy rains in 2010. Parameters influencing the groundwater availability (e.g., population growth and density, urbanisation etc.) indicate that Delhi may soon face a groundwater crisis if efforts to retard population influx into Delhi is not checked. This could be done by improving economy and infrastructure in the adjoining states thus making Delhi less attractive for the migrating population. In addition, the practice of apartmentisation (converting single or double story homes into multiple apartments) should be slowed down or permitted wisely by bearing in mind future groundwater sustainability.

In most peri-urban communities of south east Nigeria, shortages of domestic water supply relative to demand is a common feature. This is because most of these peri-urban communities usually fall outside the urban water supply projects physical boundary, thus forcing the people who live there to consume water from doubtful sources which most often contain pathogens found in human faeces. Apart from consuming water from doubtful sources, most inhabitants of this area also travel long distances to collect it or pay dearly to purchase it from water vendors. The study was therefore undertaken to determine the factors necessary for a safe water supply in such areas. Towards achieving this objective, a questionnaire was designed and 2000 were administered to households in the area between January and June, 2013. A total of 15 factors were isolated and analysed in 10 peri-urban communities of the region. The major analytical tool employed was multiple regression analysis with which we were able to determine the relative importance of each variable using SPSS version 20. Based on the result obtained, important determining factors for safe and sustainable water services were discussed in terms of their implications to the formulation of a needed policy that will ensure improvement in supply of the service to meet demand.

In the developed world there are growing concerns about water security due to the increase in exploration and production of coal seam and shale gas in peri-urban areas using both the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technique of gas production and the method of extraction of naturally occurring groundwater by pumping it from coal formations to release coal seam gas (CSG). In Australia there is a competing prerequisite to maintain and increase the natural resource base as well as the need to protect and sustain the supply of potable and agricultural groundwater in peri-urban areas. One identified issue for this chapter is whether the increasing popularity of fracking in peri-urban and semi-rural areas in New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland poses a risk to the quality of groundwater supply as well as its contamination. The other main issue is whether the extraction of groundwater from coal seams where fracking is not needed has a major impact on groundwater depletion; and, if so, investigating the appropriate risk assessment and risk management approaches.

One problem at hand is that fracking is a technique designed to produce gas from coal seams and shale strata. The process involves pumping water, sand and chemicals under high pressure into layers of coal or shale to create fissures or cracks that force gas to the surface where it is collected and processed. The technique impacts on water supplies in two main ways: It requires large quantities of water at the pumping stage and it is alleged to produce vast amounts of contaminated groundwater containing chemicals known collectively as BTEX, methane gas and excessive amounts of salt. Attractors to this method of gas exploration and production are twofold. The drilling technique invented and developed by George Mitchell in 1980s and 1990s made drilling previously inaccessible strata reachable and cheap. The other attraction is that in the United States of America (USA), since 2008 the domestic price of ‘Henry Hub’ gas has fallen from $12 per million BTUs in 2008 to $4 per million BTUs in 2012. The impact of this 66 % fall in price has relieved the USA’s reliance on imported carbon based fuels momentously, but has had a deleterious impact on groundwater supplies.

The evidence based on the development of drilling sites using fracking in NSW and Queensland peri-urban areas so far, suggests that environmental concerns may not be given as much consideration as they ought, in particular because compliance with environmental risk assessments is not specific enough. In this chapter, we explore the above issues and report on a methodology to assess the potential risk to groundwater supplies in NSW and Queensland using an environmental risk model for CSG extraction in combination with the ‘triple-bottom line’ (TBL) process for community consultation informed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRIG4) guidelines.

The supply and sustainable use of recycled water may play an important role in enhancing urban water supplies in many water-scarce parts of industrialised countries like Australia because of the reduced treatment cost relative to seawater desalination and imported surface water. One such reuse option includes application of recycled water in the irrigation of urban open spaces. In 2009–2010, in Australia, the state-wide average of recycled water use in urban irrigation was 27.2 % and the nation-wide average was 14 % of the total recycled water produced. In Sydney, New South Wales (NSW) approximately 3.8 GL of recycled water is used for irrigating sports fields, golf courses, parks, landscapes and racecourses and, by 2015, it is expected that the recycled water will meet 12 % of the total water demand in greater Sydney. Despite significant benefits of recycled water, there are several concerns related to environmental and health risks. If not properly managed, recycled water could deteriorate soil health in terms of increased salinity and sodicity, heavy metal accumulation and decreased hydraulic conductivity of soil. However, there are tools to reduce risks due to urban irrigation using recycled water; such as, national and state-wide standards of recycled water quality for urban irrigation, sustainable urban water management strategy and the pollutant control framework. In this chapter, recycled water usage for urban open space irrigation was discussed in the international and national contexts. Also, benefits and risks associated with recycled water usage in open space irrigation were examined and possible control measures were discussed.

The need for irrigated agriculture is growing day by day and the largest water withdrawals from renewable water resources are for irrigation. In addition, the available water resources are decreasing and we need to use non-conventional water resources for irrigation due to looming water crisis (Raschid-Sally and Jayakody, Drivers and characteristics of wastewater agriculture in developing countries: results from a global assessment. International Water Management Institute, Colombo, 35p, (IWMI Research Report 127), 2008). However, the volume of treating and using wastewater is limited due to the lack of adequate data and knowledge and/or negative effects of improper wastewater management (i.e. use of untreated wastewater). A comprehensive evaluation of what has been done is necessary in order to explore wastewater irrigation and to avoid trial-and-error policies. Although a study of wastewater irrigation from crops, soil, groundwater, health, irrigation equipments, modern technologies, and other environmental aspects is useful, management studies in comparison with other aspects can help lead to more reliable and more extensive findings and finally a better decision on using wastewater for irrigation. The chapter presents challenges and prospects that may help decision making for the use of wastewater in irrigation.

The present study was undertaken to determine the effect of reuse of wastewater in the peri-urban area of Udaipur city on the quality of soil, vegetable crops and groundwater in reference to heavy metal contamination. For this study four sites were selected for soil, water and vegetable sampling. Three samples each of soil, irrigation water and selected vegetable crops were collected. These samples were analysed for iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd) and nickel (Ni) with the help of an Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) model EC 4141-8. The heavy metal accumulation in groundwater irrigated vegetables was found to increase with the increasing contamination of these metals in the groundwater at different locations. However, the metallic accumulation in all the selected vegetable crops (cauliflower, cabbage, brinjal, spinach, tomato and radish) irrigated by groundwater at all the selected locations were found to be within the maximum permissible limits as prescribed by World Health Organization (WHO). In the case of wastewater irrigation, accumulation of Fe, Zn and Cd in spinach, tomato and radish crossed the maximum permissible limits at site 3 (Kanpur – Madri Villave). Urban wastewater irrigated spinach was found to have accumulated Fe, Zn and Cd to a great extent (more than the maximum permissible limits) at all three selected locations and is most unsafe for human consumption.

The dominant mode of feeding Australian cities is the industrial food system, including industrial agriculture. This food system has produced crises in public health in the form of rising incidence of non-communicable disease linked to diet; and crises in environmental health flowing from industrial agriculture and the food processing and distribution network. This chapter discusses the urban agriculture program implemented in Cuba in the mid-1990s ‘Special Period’ in response to a food security crisis, as an example of legal change in response to food system failure. The Cuban experience is analysed by drawing on Blomley’s work on legal geography methodological tools of performativity, and pragmatism (specifically Dewey’s writings on ‘habit’). It is concluded that changes to the law and policy underpinning Australia’s dysfunctional urban food system might be catalysed by framing and communicating the health and ecological problems in the language of crisis, and by responding to this food system crisis by experimenting with alternatives such as urban agriculture.