Dr. Ayon Kumar Tarafdar

Carrying Capacity based Environmental Planning; Vulnerabilites and Resilience Assessment; Urban Planning in the Context of Climate Change; Disaster Preparedness Planning (Flood, Heat and Drought); Water Sensitive Planning; Informality in Planning

Geospatial and Statistical Applications in Planning, Ecological Footprints, Impact Assessment, Disaster Risk Assessment Tools, Water Resource Management Tools; Basic Planning Techniques

Carrying Capacity Approach in Spatial Planning

Exploring Linkages between Urban Environmental Challenges and Local development Practices. Neighbourhoods of Kolkata, India: Research studied human-induced urban flooding Kolkata, due to improper capacity of storm water drainage and rainwater percolation, and due to the practise of bounded communication that led to rampant landuse changes. Research suggested a ‘disjointed communication framework’ that overlaps a ‘synoptic (GIS-based) carrying capacity assessments’ of drainage with the ‘local people’s development agenda’, in order to evolve a Decision Support System (DSS) for local development decisions. The thesis suggested a detailed 7 step ‘local planning framework’ that is participatory in essence yet based on rational carrying capacity assessment in the context of environmental parameters.

Extending 'carrying capacity assessment' to aspects of water availability, consumption and use in relation to land use planning; to aspects of land availability, land degradation and its neutralisation; to aspects of infrastrucutre availability, use and capacity and land use planning