| Sumario: | Global urban water demands and supply have increased enormously in recent decades, resulting in increased volumes of urban wastewater available. In many cities of the Global South, a substantial portion of this wastewater is either untreated or partially treated and is being discharged into surrounding urban aquatic environments. Urbanization trends, coupled with increasing water flows, often alter the overall basin hydrology and contaminate regional urban water systems. At the same time, these flows create opportunities for wastewater reuse, especially in urban and peri-urban agriculture. The current study focuses on a specific case study of Hyderabad city in India and its influence on the hydrology of the Musi River basin, the potential for wastewater reuse in peri-urban or downstream agriculture, and the impacts of wastewater irrigation on regional water quality. The research presents water availability dynamics in the basin by evaluating the interplay between wastewater reuse, basin hydrology, irrigation dynamics, and land use changes. Using hydrological and landscape analysis, earth observation, and statistical techniques, the study highlights changes in water availability conditions in the Musi River basin and peri-urban or downstream agriculture dynamics with urban wastewater available for irrigation. The findings also reveal significant variations in regional water quality, notably increased salinity and nutrient conditions with the increase in wastewater availability in the basin. Further, land use transformations driven by urbanization are evident, where agricultural areas are being developed into urban built-up spaces, while previously barren or unused lands are repurposed for agriculture. This intricate dynamic emphasizes the dual pressures on land and water resources, underscoring the urgent need to integrate water and waste management in urban and peri-urban settings.
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