This paper draws from long-term ethnographic data on the biophysical, cultural, and political dynamics of urban river degradation in Nepal’s capital city. It examines conflicting social strategies for classifying the components of heterogeneous riparian areas along the Bagmati and Bishnumati Rivers. Both rivers have undergone significant morphological change in recent decades, driven in large part by sand harvesting for the construction industry. Mining exposed extensive barren flats in the former river bed; these were in turn claimed as habitable land by landless migrants to the city. Designating such dynamic areas as land or river had direct implications for the fate and proliferation of the thousands of informal slum settlements in the riparian zone. Competing maps were used by some to demonstrate that slum inhabitants were active agents of river degradation, while others sought to show them to be responsible river stewards.
Results/Conclusions
The case identifies co-productive synergies between a dynamic river system, rapid urban development, and a constantly shifting spatial distribution of informal housing. It illustrates the social and political power of delineating and reinforcing land and river system boundaries, even as both shift in reality as cities develop and migrants establish claims to land and housing.