Flood & drought vulnerability
Developing multidimensional vulnerability indices that combine social, climatic, and hydrological indicators for regional risk assessment.
Climate risk · Water security · Spatial planning
Richa Dhawale Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Geography and Planning, Centre for Hydrology
Global Institute for Water Security (GIWS)
University of Saskatchewan
I am passionate about water and climate change, and about understanding how climate hazards affect communities, infrastructure, and decision-making. My research focuses on flood and drought vulnerability, climate adaptation, remote sensing, and policy-relevant risk assessment.
About
Research at the intersection of climate adaptation, water security, and planning.
Richa Dhawale is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Hydrology, Global Institute of Water Security (GIWS), University of Saskatchewan. Her research examines climate change adaptation, flood and drought vulnerability, disaster risk assessment, and coupled human–water systems.
Trained as an architect and an urban planner, she brings a spatial, interdisciplinary, and human-centered perspective to climate risk research. Her doctoral work at IIT Kharagpur developed a system dynamics framework to assess urban drought and evaluate water-stress policy trade-offs.
Core expertise
- Flood and drought vulnerability assessment
- Climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction
- Remote sensing, GIS, and spatial risk mapping
- Socio-hydrological and coupled human–water systems
- Urban planning, policy analysis, and stakeholder research
Research focus
Connecting hazard data, social vulnerability, and decision-making.
Climate adaptation pathways
Translating climate and water-risk evidence into adaptation strategies, planning tools, and stakeholder-facing frameworks.
Human–water systems
Studying household and community disaster mitigation behavior through behavioral data, equity-focused modeling, and agent-based approaches.
Geospatial risk analysis
Applying GIS, remote sensing, drought indices, and spatial analysis to map hazard exposure, resilience, and water stress.
Education
Academic training in architecture and regional planning.
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur
Architecture and Regional Planning
Thesis: A system dynamics framework to assess the urban drought.
- Developed a dynamic modelling approach to simulate urban water stress and policy trade-offs, with applications in climate adaptation and risk management.
- Conducted extensive primary surveys with government officials, planners, and community members to capture multi-level perspectives on drought risk and adaptive practices.
- Published peer-reviewed articles on drought indices, risk assessment, and remote sensing applications.
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur
Architecture and Regional Planning · CGPA 8.42/10.0
Thesis: Planning for Drought: Moving from Crisis Management to Risk Assessment, Maharashtra.
- Specialized in climate-resilient planning and water governance, with a focus on integrating risk assessment into regional development policies.
- Carried out primary surveys and stakeholder interviews with local officials and communities to assess perceptions, preparedness, and planning gaps in drought management.
Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur
Architecture and Regional Planning · CGPA 8.02/10.0
Thesis: Tribal Museum and Learning Centre, Nagpur.
- Trained in urban and regional planning, spatial design, and sustainable infrastructure, with a focus on socio-cultural and environmental dimensions of planning.
- Conducted urban planning surveys to understand settlement patterns, community needs, and socio-cultural aspects of design within regional development contexts.
Selected work
Selected projects, partnerships, and professional contributions.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Global Institute of Water Security, University of Saskatchewan
- Global Water Futures: Contributing to flood and drought vulnerability research, with a focus on social vulnerability, human dimensions of water-related hazards, and the integration of socio-economic, climatic, hydrological, and geospatial indicators for risk assessment. Creating screening-level Flood Inundation Maps (FIM) for regional scale.
- BHP Water Resources Situational Analysis, Jansen area: Supporting the synthesis of grey literature, municipal and regional planning documents, geospatial datasets, water and wastewater infrastructure information, hydrological conditions, and socio-demographic profiles.
- Living Skies Postdoctoral Fellowship: Working on coupled human–water systems research, including the validation and scenario testing of agent-based models that examine household and community flood-response behaviour, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and equity-related dimensions of disaster risk.
- CIROH-funded Think Tank on impact-based forecasting: Contributing to research on impact-based forecasting and decision-support for water-related extremes, including communication pathways, decision points, stakeholder needs, and the role of social and hydrological modelling in improving flood and drought preparedness.
- CIROH-funded “To Serve the Underserved” project: Supporting research on social vulnerability for flood inundation mapping, with a focus on vulnerable communities, equity-informed indicators, interest-holder guidance, and methods for connecting vulnerability information with flood forecasting and decision-making tools. Conducted a workshop at DevCon 2025, Vermont, United States.
- CIROH-funded USGS project: Collecting all the datasets and preparing screening-level Flood Inundation Maps for the Canadian side of the study area.
Public Safety Canada: Community Risk Index Research Task Team
Served as a technical expert and reviewer, reviewing evidence, indicators, and methodological approaches related to community risk, disaster resilience, social vulnerability, and climate-related hazards.
Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) Fellowship Programme
Served as a reviewer for fellowship applications and research proposals, assessing relevance, methodological quality, disaster resilience contribution, and potential policy and practice impact.
Publications
Selected publications.
2025
Flood-ABM: An agent-based model of differential flood effects on population groups and their decision-making processes.
Addai, O., Soares, C., Dhawale, R., Schuster, C. J., & Spiteri, R. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
2024
Assessing the multidimensional nature of flood and drought vulnerability index: A systematic review of literature.
Dhawale, R., Schuster, C. J., & Pietroniro, A. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
2022
Water balance analysis using Palmer Drought Severity Index for drought-prone regions of Marathwada, India.
Dhawale, R., Paul, S. K., & George, J. S. Journal of River Basin Management.
2019
Moving from crisis management to risk assessment for drought planning using SPI and SWI: Case study of Marathwada, India.
Dhawale, R., & Paul, S. Global Assessment Report, UNISDR.
2018
A comparative analysis of drought indices on vegetation through remote sensing for Latur region of India.
Dhawale, R., & Paul, S. K. ISPRS Archives.
Engagement
Reviewing, teaching, and interest-holder-facing work.
Professional service
- Reviewer, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure Fellowship Programme
- Technical Expert / Reviewer, Public Safety Canada Community Risk Index Research Task Team
- Panel Member, Water Security Panel, Engineering Design Mutualisms Laboratory
- Contributed to the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) course on Geospatial Analysis in Urban Planning, conducted by IIT Kharagpur and organized by IIT Madras, 2020
Teaching and invited talks
- Teaching Assistant, IIT Kharagpur: climatology, solar architecture, design studios, CAD and simulation
- Invited speaker on remote sensing applications in disaster management
- Invited speaker, Water Resource Center (WRC), Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Engineering, on drought disaster management for architecture students
- Environmental planning and city development for Smart City Project, Collaboration with Georgia Tech (Atlanta) & IIT Varanasi
Methods and tools
Contact
Get in touch.
For research collaboration, speaking, reviewing, or academic inquiries, please contact me by email.