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Richa Sharma

richa-neu

PhD Student / TERI University

Project description:

Urbanization led land cover changes greatly impact the natural environment and thus pose a number of problems for human well being. One of such impacts includes the anthropogenically modified urban climate, which is well demonstrated by urban heating often expressed as Urban Heat Island (UHI). My research focuses on a two-fold objectives; Firstly, understanding the phenomenon of UHI using geospatial tools includes temporal behavior of UHI (diurnal as well as seasonal variations), spatial arrangement (with respect to land use land cover patterns) and to study its evolution. Secondly, to analyze and compare policies from developed and developing worlds regarding urban planning that may have an impact on UHI development or mitigation processes. Hence, I will study the gaps from policy viewpoints to navigate through the legal obstacles regarding planned urbanization and hence come up with suggestions regarding urban planning and policies to combat the newly emerging challenges such as UHI for instance.

First of these objectives is already in process wherein I have employed Landsat TM satellite data and have used algorithms to compute LST, and using statistical techniques I am trying to establish a relationship between LST and LULC. Apart from relating LST and hence UHI with only physical and biological environment I plan to study it in context with socio-economic factors. I hence propose to perform the second part of this first objective and the second policy based objective of my doctoral thesis under FFU student exchange program at Berlin.