Maryam Nastar

• PhD
• Researcher at Lund University

In sustainability science, the research is expected to go beyond disciplinary thinking and incorporate different concepts, methods, and data to explore nature–society interactions at different levels and scales. In realizing these expectations, reflexivity is often noted as an influential factor in inter- and transdisciplinary research processes in...

Loss and damage from climate change, recognized as a unique research and policy domain through the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) in 2013, has drawn increasing attention among climate scientists and policy makers. Labelled by some as the “third pillar” of the international climate regime—along with mitigation and adaptation—it has been sugges...

Debates around “Loss and Damage” (L&D) from anthropogenic climate change have expanded rapidly since the adoption of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) in 2013. Despite the urgent need for scientific best practice to inform policies to avoid, minimize and address L&D, the nascent research field faces internal disagreements and lacks a coheren...

To protect public health, heat-related policies are increasingly being adopted by city authorities to address the unequal impact of heatwaves. Ahmedabad’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) is an acclaimed and successful policy response in India and beyond. While the pilot evaluation of the initiative suggests that almost a thousand deaths were avoided annuall...

Improving urban liveability and prosperity is commonly set as a priority in urban development plans and policy around the world. Several annual reports produced by international consulting firms, media, and global agencies rank the liveability of cities based on a set of indicators, to represent the quality of life in these cities. The higher is th...

In recent years, a strong natural science hegemony has predominantly framed our understanding of sustainability challenges and, as a result, the production of solution strategies. In countering this, some academic centers have sought to promote interdisciplinary research, starting from the recognition that the scale and complexity of sustainability...

There has been widespread recognition in the Global South of the role of participatory governance approaches to urban development in responding to citizens’ immediate concerns. However, critiques note that participatory initiatives are often avenues for the political and economic elite to ensure their interests and profits, rather than improving th...

The ambition to be recognized as a ‘World City’ or ‘Global City’ is rapidly increasing not the least among cities in the global south such as Hyderabad in India and Johannesburg in South Africa. While such a status seems promising for attracting foreign capital and for expanding the economic potential of urban areas, it may have adverse impacts on...

Urban water scarcity is increasingly seen as a governance issue, not least in cities like Hyderabad, India, where the demand for urban water exceeds the available supply to the extent that some low priority areas in the city receive water for only a few hours on alternate days. Based on a multi-level perspective in transition studies, this study ex...

Integrated Water Management (IWM) in line with the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) promotes a collaborative-oriented approach to tackle water management issues. This requires the participation of various government departments and stakeholder groups along with scientists and experts from different scientific disciplines. Conflict, ar...

The advocates of the transition sustainability paradigm acknowledge the role of institutions (regime practices) to establish enforceable legislation to tackle environmental problems. In this respect, a radical systemic reconfiguration in regime practices is required to achieve sustainability objectives, i.e. sustainable water resource management. D...

Governance of common resources such as water calls for rethinking structure, legal frameworks and property rights. In order to promote the decentralization of water governance, Water User Associations (WUAs) were created in many countries, such as India and Turkey, to operate and maintain irrigation systems as well as take over the responsibility o...