Study title

These data contain observations, measurements, and participatory appraisals of ecosystem service use obtained from two transects across the city of Hyderabad, India. The ecosystem services studied include: spirituality, recreation, sanitation, water quality, food production (rice), and carbon storage. The direct measurement/observation were predominantly made using the established TESSA protocol, and the participatory methods follow Schreckenberg et al (2016), with full details of the method included in the data package. The data predominantly show statistically similar levels of ecosystem service use across rural, peri-urban and urban areas.Delivering basic services, for example, water, sanitation and energy, to urban populations remains a significant public policy and planning challenge in India. This is especially the case for the 65 million people living in informal settlements or slums, as well as over 300 million people living in areas which have urban-like features but are administratively classified as rural. A significant proportion of these people were recently living in rural dwellings whilst some may still seasonally migrate back to rural areas for livelihood. In such cases, they retain strong socio-economic and cultural ties to rural areas.This project believes that this rurality can be a driving force for sustainable urban transformation, especially in the area of improved and productive sanitation, which is an area of particularly acute need in India. Rural communities have been shown to be more closely connected to their natural environment, partly because their livelihoods are often more dependent on it, as compared to urban communities. This relative closeness to the natural environment has been connected to more sensitivity around appropriate resource use as well as preferences related to open defecation. Building on that thinking, this research will try to understand whether there are major differences in urban, newly-urbanised and rural...