Nidhi Subramanyam
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography & Planning
Affiliated faculty, Centre for South Asian Studies
Location
Room 5023, Sidney Smith Hall (100 St. George)
Biography
Nidhi Subramanyam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography & Planning. Subramanyam’s ongoing research investigates just approaches to plan and govern water and wastewater infrastructures in the face of rapid urbanization and the growing impacts of climate change. Her most recent projects have focused on planning, governance, and water-sanitation infrastructures in small cities and geographies undergoing rural-urban transitions in India. She is also involved in collaborative research projects on secondary city governance in South Africa and the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on socially marginalized migrant workers in India. Subramanyam’s work on urban water governance, climate change adaptation, land dispossession, and rural-urban transitions has appeared in the journals Environment and Planning C: Politics & Space, Water International, and Water Policy. At the University of Toronto, Subramanyam is excited to work with students and colleagues on projects that critically examine the planning of climate-resilient infrastructures and the use of sustainability indicators in urban planning to advance ideas and practices that produce just and equitable cities.
Education
Ph.D., Cornell University (2021)
Master of Regional Planning, Cornell University (2014)
Bachelor of Architecture, University of Mumbai (2010)
Research Interests
Planning in the Global South
Urban governance
Water-sanitation infrastructure planning
Climate change adaptation
Sustainable development
The politics of dispossession
Ethnographic, participatory, and qualitative research methods
Urbanization and rural-urban transitions in South Asia
Selected Publications
Articles
Subramanyam, Nidhi, & Kudva, Neema. (2020) Acquiescence in the face of dispossession in the Mahindra World City Special Economic Zone, Tamil Nadu, India. Environment & Planning C: Politics and Space 39(1): 114-131.
Subramanyam, Nidhi. (2020) A small improvement: Small cities lag in expanding household water coverage across urban India. Water Policy 22(3): 468-482.
Subramanyam, Nidhi, & MacAlister, Charlotte. (2016) Governance of flooding risks in informal settlements in satellite cities in the Mumbai region.” South Asian Water Studies 5(3): 12–27.
Special Issue
MacAlister, Charlotte, & Subramanyam, Nidhi. Eds. (2018) Adaptive water management in the face of climate change: Innovative solutions from the global South. Water International 43(2).