Research Question

Rural sustainability in peri-urban areas: 

landscape studies on current practice in Asia-Pacific

Objectives

• To identify the characteristics, challenges, and opportunities of the peri-urban areas specific to your country and region in Asia-Pacific context for sustainability attainment;  
• To review and compare respective typology of strategies, such as policies, and other public, private or community approaches, and their major components for the promotion and implementation of rural sustainability;   
• To draw upon experience and insights from local rural revitalization cases and develop a list of enabling and success factors for rural revitalization; and
• To summarise the best practice principles, guidelines for actions and collaborative approaches for rural sustainability in Asia-Pacific for knowledge exchange purpose.

Outline and Methodology

1. Introduction – an overview of the status of rural sustainability development in respective city/country/region.
   • Challenges that peri-urban areas face in terms of:
     • Resource management 
     • Demographics 
     • Land use changes and conflicts 
     • Vulnerability to environmental shocks and stresses
   • Opportunities that peri-urban areas have as geographic and social transitional zones
     • Access to urban areas
     • Cooperation and collaboration with different types of organisations in urban areas
     • Space for experiments in improving current systems
2. Review on current practice and measures – compilation of current policies as well as other public, private and community-based approaches on rural revitalization at the macro policy context: 
   • A review of the policy, institutional and social contexts for rural revitalization. Relevant topics may include: community economic initiatives, branding and place-making campaigns, policy and institutional innovation, etc. They could be discussed with respect to the below factors:
     • Level of community inclusion and initiative
     • Diversity of actors involved
     • Improvement of socio-technical and socio-ecological systems, as well as emergence of new systems in order to meet social, economic, and environmental challenges 
     • Presence of experimentation and social learning
     • Cultural heritage integration
   • Identification and discussion of aspects of policies and institution arrangements that could enable innovative rural sustainability projects
3. Case study matrix – an in-depth analysis of 1-2 selected case investigations with the purpose of illustrating the real-life challenges as well as the effectiveness of the policy practice and application. 
4. Rural revitalization framework – a logic diagram to include inputs (resources), throughputs (processes and systems), outputs and impact (expected outcomes and results) along with check lists of principles for objective framing and guidelines for collaboration:
   • The logic diagram should include relevant institutions and discuss aspects of policies that can help innovative and experimental rural sustainability projects succeed
   • Suggestions for planning and implementing successful rural sustainability projects in Asia Pacific.

References

Adell, G. (1999). Theories and models of the peri-urban interface: A changing conceptual landscape. UK: DPU.

Vij, S. & Narain, V. (2016). “Land, water & power: The demise of common property resources in periurban Gurgan, India”. Land Use Policy, Vol. 50, pp. 59-66.

Wastfelt, A. & Zhang, Q. (2016). “Reclaiming localisation for revitalising agriculture: A case study of peri-urban agricultural change in Gothenburg, Sweden”. Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 47, pp. 172-185.