Projects

Research Projects

EPIC IIT Delhi Logo The Farmpond Collaboration Sand Rivers Logo




I am currently leading multiple research projects. Click on the above logos or the links below for further details.

  1. Project EPIC (2024 - 2027): EPIC (Equity Perspectives for Irrigation Care or Control) aims to understand and operationalize ideas of equity and fairness in irrigation water distribution. Through multiple case studies, we aim to unpack grounded perspectives of equity and trigger a transformation in irrigation management practice by developing new tools that mainstream equity concerns within irrigation engineers, practitioners and policymakers. This project is being implemented together with eight partners across four countries - India, Tanzania, Ethiopia and the Netherlands. Do check out the EPIC project website for more details on our case study areas and project outputs!

  2. The Farmpond Collaboration (2024 - 2026): A critical study of policies and practices of farm-ponds in diverse social-ecological systems: This is an ambitious trans-disciplinary project that we have initiated in collaboration with the Revitalizing Rainfed Agriculture (RRA) Network. Together, we are leading an effort to create a community of practice with organizations across the country that are engaged in designing and implementing farm-pond programs in diverse agro-ecological zones. Our goal is to capture diverse characteristics and practices associated with farm-ponds and develop guidelines for incorporating systems level attributes in farm-pond programs. For more details, click here

  3. Project A4Store (2023 - 2028): Smallholder farming families Adapt African Alluvial Aquifers to Strengthen Their Own Resilience. Project A4Store focuses on "sand-rivers" of semi-arid drylands of Africa and India. As part of this project, the IITD team is studying the socio-hydrological factors that have led to the overexploitation of the Luni river basin in western Rajasthan. See our storymap describing our initial explorations, and our joint initiative of Moving Upstream:Luni with Veditum foundation

  4. Project Varuna (2024-2026): Development of a system dynamics model for small river rejuvenation. This project is funded by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) and part of IIT BHU's project on Decision Support System (DSS) for small river rejuvenation. Using Varuna as a case study our research team together with a consortium of partners aims to develop a system dynamics model to support decision making in small river rejuvenation

In addition to the above, I am also interested in contributing to development of tools for collective action in natural resource management. See, for example, this and this. Currently, I collaborate with Prof. Aaditeshwar Seth in the EPIC and CoRE stack projects, with the objective of supporting rural communities to participate in decision making for sustainable and equitable land and water management through programs such as MGNREGA.