Landscape, heritage and technological innovation: towards a framework of sustainability of cultural landscape in a desert town in India

Landscape heritage and Landscape justice are recent concepts in landscape studies. Landscape heritage speaks about listening to multiple voices in decision-making on landscape and heritage, especially listening to non-experts, and indigenous voices. Landscape justice is about ensuring equal access to natural resources/natural landscape. The study is based on Jaisalmer, a desert town with the only living fort in Asia, located in Thar Desert at the India–Pakistan border. The study proposes a conceptual framework on the sustainability of cultural landscape that is used to reflect peoples’ livelihood around (lack of access to) water. The framework identifies three main dimensions: the shifting natural landscape, unrecognised critical (tangible and intangible) heritage and challenges with water post-Indira Gandhi Canal project, a central government intervention for desert greening.