Aariz Ahmed is a Ph.D. student at the School of Natural Science and Engineering. He is working with Prof. R Srikanth. His broad research interest lies in water resources management, geospatial application for sustainable development and natural resources management. His Ph.D. thesis, titled “Interlinking of Rivers for Integrated Water Resources Management”, Prior to joining Ph. D at NIAS, he worked as a Project Associate at CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur. He has also been a part of HERE Technologies, a mapping and cloud company in Mumbai. Aariz has completed M.Tech (Environmental science and Technology), PG diploma in Remote sensing and GIS from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.
Brief Description of PhD Thesis
India's water resources planning, management, and development has been strongly affected by the intense spatial and temporal variations in precipitation patterns. These trends have prompted the Government of India and several State Governments to take up major water transfer projects towards overcoming the water scarcity issue. In view of this, National Water Development Agency (NWDA) has taken up a massive river-interlinking project, and nearly 30 links have been proposed encompassing the major rivers. The focus of my doctoral research lies in the Krishna (Almatti)-Pennar ILR project, in the peninsular India. The study aims to investigate the Social, Environmental, and Hydrological dimensions of the ILR project. Further, advanced geospatial techniques will be used to explore feasible alternative routes for the Almatti-Pennar ILR Project to maximise the socio-economic benefits, while minimizing costs and social/environmental impacts. This Research will also provide a conceptual template to look at other ILR projects.
