Faculty Profile

Dr. Praveen Singh research interests include environmental history of India, environmental governance and adaptation to climate change. He has a Masters degree in History and Ph.D. in History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His Ph.D. deals with the policies and practices of flood control and management during the colonial period in eastern India. Since then he has worked on policies and practices of community based natural resource management in South Asia, and climate change adaptation in the flood plains of eastern India.

Dr. Singh joined AUD in September 2009. He was working with Winrock International India as a Programme Officer during 2007-09, and with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore during 2004-07. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies. He has also been consultant to organizations like ICIMOD, ISET and ActionAid.

SELECTED RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS
1.Presented a paper ‘Making of the Flood Control Policy and Interest Groups in North Bihar’ in a Seminar Disasters, Development, and People: A critical review of experiences from India organized by Centre for Regional Studies, University of Hyderabad on 31 March 2010. 

2.Presented a paper ‘Performance of DRR Strategies in Changing Climate: A case study of eastern UP’ in the thematic session ‘Climate Change’ at the 2nd India Disaster Management Congress organized by NIDM at New Delhi on 4-6 November 2009.

3.Presented a paper ‘Adapting to Water Stress and Hazards: The Case of Kosi River Basin in Bihar, India’ in The Scientific and Technical Conference on Adapting to Climate Change in Asia: Exploring Linkages between Adaptation and Development organized by ISET and IDRC at Kathmandu on 29-30 August, 2009.

4.Presented a paper ‘Evaluating Costs and Benefits of Flood Risk Reduction under changing climate conditions: A Case of Rohini River Basin, India’ at an international workshop on Risk to Resilience: Strategic Tools for Disaster Risk Management organized by NIDM, ISET and WII in New Delhi on 3-4 February 2009.

5.Presented a paper ‘Evaluating Costs and Benefits of Drought Risk Reduction under changing climate in UP, India’ in a workshop From Risk to Resilience organized by ISET-Nepal in Kathmandu on 14 November 2008.

6.Paper titled ‘Women in Agricultural Revival: A Case Study of Charlands in Bangladesh’ in a conference Women in Agriculture in South Asia from August 12-14 in Delhi organised by Aga Khan Foundation.

7.Paper titled ‘Colonial Intervention in Flood Control in North Bihar, 1850-1954’ presented in a Workshop on Nature in the Raj: Colonial Environments and Indigenous Knowledge on 18-19 August, 2006 in NMML, Teen Murti, New Delhi.

8.Paper titled ‘Colonial Intervention in Flood Control in North Bihar, 1850-1954’ presented in a Conference on Writing Twentieth Century History: From Colony to Nation on 27-29 March 2006 at JNU, New Delhi.

9.Paper titled ‘Nationalist Perspective on Floods: A Case Study of North Bihar’ was presented on my behalf at the Annual Meet of the Association of Asian Studies, USA at Chicago, 29 March-3 April 2005.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
Dr. Singh is currently involved in documenting and assessing adaptation strategies, and the development imperatives in the floodplains of eastern India. He is also working on politics of development and the resulting environmental change in the growing urban conglomeration around Delhi.

Journal Articles
1.“Colonial State, Zamindars and the Politics of Flood Control in North’ (1850-1954)”, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 45 (2), 2008 

2.“Bridging the Ganga Action Plan: Monitoring failure at Kanpur” in Economic and Political Weekly, February 18, 2006 (pp. 590-592). 

Book Chapters 

1.Praveen Singh, N.Ghosh, R. Hansda & N. Choudhary, “Life in the Shadow of Embankments: Turning Lost Lands into Assets in the Kosi Basin of Bihar, India”, in Local Responses to Too Much and Too Little Water in the Greater Himalayan Region, ICIMOD, Kathmandu, 2009 (33-42).

2.Praveen Singh, “Adapting to Water Stress and Hazard: The Case of Kosi River Basin in Bihar, India”, in S. Opitz-Stapleton, L. Seraydarian, Marcus Moench & Ajaya Dixit (eds.), Shifting the Response Terrain, ISET & ISET-N, Kathmandu, 2009 (47-52).

3.Praveen Singh, “The Kosi Floods: Embankment Failure, Climate Change and Tipping Points” in S. Opitz-Stapleton et al. (eds), Shifting the Response Terrain, (53-58).

4.Praveen Singh, D. Kull, S. Chopde & S. Wajih, “Quantitative Cost-Benefit Assessment of Flood Mitigation Options: Uttar Pradesh, India” in The Risk to Resilience (RtR) Team, Catalysing Climate and Disaster Resilience: Processes for Identifying Tangible and Economically Robust Strategies, ISET & ISET-N, Kathmandu, 2009 (169-222).

5.R. Mechler, S. Hochrainer, Praveen Singh et al., “Combining Innovative Strategies for Effective Drought Risk Management: Costs and Benefits of Insurance and Irrigation in Uttar Pradesh, India” in RtR Team, Catalysing Climate and Disaster Resilience, 2009 (223-51).

6.Praveen Singh, “Bridging the GAP in Kanpur Ganga: The Failure of Monitoring Agencies” in Joy, K. J., Biksham Gujja, Suhas Paranjape, Vinod Goud and Shruti Vispute (eds.), Water Conflicts in India: A Million Revolts in the Making, Routledge, London/ New Delhi, 2007 (pp. 210-216).

7.Ajit Menon, Praveen Singh, Suhas Paranjape & K.J. Joy, “Hivre Bazar: A ‘Model’ Watershed Experiment” in Ajit Menon et. al, Community-Based Natural Resource Management in South Asia: Issues and Cases from South Asia, New Delhi/ London/ California/Singapore, SAGE, 2007 (pp. 28-71).

8.Esha Shah & Praveen Singh, “Community Based Natural Resource Management in Gopalpura, Rajasthan” in Ajit Menon et. al, 2007 (pp.115-58).

9.Sharachchandra Lele & Praveen Singh, “Community Based Natural Resource Management in the Central Himalayas: The Work of Doodha Toli Lok Vikas Sansthan” in Ajit Menon et. al, 2007 (pp. 196-241).

10.Praveen Singh & Suhas Paranjape, “Sustainable Livelihoods in Riverine Charlands: The Case of Gono Chetona”, in Ajit Menon et. al, 2007 (pp. 242-86).

Books
1.Ajit Menon, Praveen Singh, Esha Shah, Shrachchandra Lele, Suhas Paranjape & K.J. Joy, Community-Based Natural Resource Management in South Asia: Issues and Cases from South Asia, New Delhi, SAGE, 2007.

Reports
1.Praveen Singh, N. Ghose, N. Chaudhary, R. Hansda, Life in the Shadow of Embankments: Turning lost lands into assets in the Koshi Basin of Bihar, India, Kathmandu, ICIMOD, 2009.

Working Papers
1.Daniel Kull, Praveen Singh, Shashikant Chopde & Shiraz Wajih, ‘Evaluation Cost and Benefits of Flood Reduction Under Changing Climatic Conditions: The Case of Rohini River Basin, India’, From Risk to Resilience Working Paper No. 4, ISET, ISET-Nepal & Provention, Kathmandu, 2008.

2.Reinhard Mechler, Stefan Hochrainer, Daniel Kull, Praveen Singh, Shashikant Chopde, ‘Uttar Pradesh Drought Cost Benefit Analysis, India’, From Risk to Resilience Working Paper No. 5, ISET, ISET-Nepal & Provention, Kathmandu, 2008.

Book Reviews
1.Satyajit Singh, Taming the Waters: The Political Economy of Large Dams in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997 in Science, Technology & Society, 5 (1), January-June 2000.

2.Rohan D’Souza, Drowned and Dammed: Colonial Capitalism and Flood Control in Eastern India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006 in Down to Earth, 15 (12) November 15, 2006.

3.Daniel Klingensmith, ‘One Valley and a Thousand’: Dams, Nationalism, and Development, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007 in Down to Earth, July 15, 2007.

Forthcoming
1.One of the several authors in Ajaya Dixit (ed.), Adaptation and Livelihood Resilience: Implementation Pilots and Research in Region Vulnerable to Extreme Climate Variability and Change, ISET-Nepal.

2.Praveen Singh, “Flood Control in North Bihar: An environmental history from the ‘Ground-Level’ (1850-1954)” in Deepak Kumar, V. Damodaran & Rohan D’Souza (eds.), The British Empire and the Natural World: Environmental Encounters in South Asia, OUP.