IIT Hyderabad professor to head global study on air pollution

HYDERABAD: A researcher from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad Dr Aalok Khandekar is leading an air pollution governance study to characterize how coordination between ‘understanding’ and ‘governing’ air pollution happening in 10 different cities of the world, including Hyderabad.

The global initiative that also includes Beijing, Bangalore, Houston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York, Albany, Delhi, Chennai and Pune, is funded by US National Science Foundation and Azim Premji Foundation.

Speaking about the study and its outcome, Dr Khandekar, assistant professor of Anthropology/Sociology, Department of Liberal Arts, IITH said, “We want to understand how actors in different communities identify problems, use relevant data, interpret and think creatively about that data, and are moved to action.’’

Since understanding and addressing air pollution requires coordination among different scientific fields, different government agencies, and between educational, research and government domain, the 6+ cities research team works to characterize how such coordination happens (or not). Air pollution has received more attention in recent years, with WHO identifying air pollution as the world’s largest single environmental health risk.

6 + Cities Study on  air pollution

Originally there were six cities in the study with research groups in Beijing, Bengaluru, Houston, Philadelphia, New York City and Albany.  The study has now been been expanded to include more Indian cities.