DEBARCHANA BISWAS

About

Dr. Debarchana Biswas is a Human Geographer working as Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT Guwahati). She holds a PhD and an MSc in Geography from the University of Calcutta. Her research focuses on climate change, migration, intersectional vulnerabilities, and just transition, with a strong grounding in social and environmental justice.

Her research interests have been shaped by extensive field-based engagement in ecologically fragile and climate-vulnerable regions, including the Indian Sundarbans and flood-prone districts of Assam. She examines how climate risks, infrastructure development, and governance processes interact to shape livelihood insecurity, migration dynamics, and adaptive capacities, particularly among marginalised communities.

Currently, she is a key researcher in the Peri-Nature Project which investigates long-term transformations in peri-urban stormwater regimes around Guwahati. Within this project, her work foregrounds lived experiences, socio-technical transitions, and justice-oriented perspectives to understand how urban expansion, infrastructural interventions, and environmental change reconfigure human–water relations in peri-urban contexts.

Methodologically, she adopts interdisciplinary and mixed approaches, combining political ecology, science-technology-society (STS) perspectives, qualitative field methods, and geospatial tools such as GIS and remote sensing. Her broader research agenda includes climate-induced migration, just transition, gendered and intersectional dimensions of vulnerability and resilience, and participatory planning for inclusive and sustainable transitions.

Employment

• Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati INSTITUTE POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW
  2024 - Present
• Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
  2023 - 2024

Education

Education history is unavailable.

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (11)

• Mapping circular economy research in India’s water sector: a systematic review (2020–2025)
  Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2026 DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2026.101622
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• Stranded by climate: exploring the complex realities of migration in Dhemaji, Assam
  Regional Environmental Change 2026 DOI: 10.1007/s10113-025-02514-6
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• Neglect to recognition: Embracing women as key agents in climate solutions
  Environmental Science & Policy 2025 DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104216
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• ‘We are not simply Indians’: Intersecting ethnic identity diversity among the Chinese communities of Kolkata
  Asian Ethnicity 2025 DOI: 10.1080/14631369.2024.2416236
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• Local institutional strategies and responses to climate change risks in the Indian Sundarbans: A political economic analysis
  Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 2025 DOI: 10.1177/25148486241295536
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• Gender-Transformative Approaches for Climate Change Adaptation
  Springer Nature Switzerland 2025 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-90236-9
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• An analysis of local political forces around the management of climate change-led disasters in the Indian Sundarbans
  Asian Journal of Social Science 2024 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajss.2024.02.001
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• A Review of Acculturative Stress Among the Chinese Community of Kolkata
  2022 DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4195716
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• A review of the acculturative stress scale for the Chinese community of Kolkata
  Social Sciences & Humanities Open 2022 DOI: 10.1016/j.ssaho.2022.100365
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• Social Morphology, Human Welfare, and Sustainability
  Springer International Publishing 2022 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-96760-4
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