Nidhi Subramanyam

Dr. Nidhi 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. She also investigates questions on urban governance and rural-urban transitions in cities of the global South. At their core, all her projects interrogate how planning processes reflect and reinforce the status quo in moments of transition and how different social groups contest inequalities and transform planning at such moments to create just and sustainable futures.

Dr. Subramanyam is a faculty affiliate with the School of Cities, the Data Sciences Institute, and the Centre for South Asian Studies at University of Toronto. She welcomes inquiries from undergraduate and graduate students interested in pursuing water-sanitation infrastructure planning, planning and governance in cities of the Global South, rural-urban transitions, just adaptation, environmental dispossessions, and critical data studies as it applies to environmental planning.
 

Publications

Subramanyam N., with Social Awareness and Voluntary Education (SAVE)**. (2024). Untapped transformative potential in decentralized groundwater sources that improve households' resilience in India's water-scarce urban environments. Habitat International, 151, 103140. DOI: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2024.103140

Subramanyam N. (2024). Planning the liveable if not the ideal: Frontline planners’ discretionary actions and inequalities in everyday intermittent water supply planning in Tiruppur, India. Planning Theory & Practice, 25(2), 165–183. DOI: 10.1080/14649357.2024.2345870

Subramanyam N. with Bouma D*. (2024, online first). Migrating injustices in the small city: Drought-impacted interstate migrant workers’ experiences in Tiruppur’s sanitation sector. Climate and Development. DOI: 10.1080/17565529.2024.2330978

Carswell G, De Neve G, and Subramanyam N. (2022). Getting home during lockdown: migration disruption, labour control and linked lives in India at the time of Covid-19. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48(1), 4603-4621. DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2022.2099360

Subramanyam, N., and Marais, L. (2022). Making Mangaung Metro: The politics of metropolitan reform in a South African secondary city. Urban Studies, 54(14): 2893-2911. DOI: 10.1177/00420980211065895

Special Issue

MacAlister, C., and Subramanyam, N. (2018). Adaptive water management in the face of climate change. Water International, 43(2). DOI: 10.1080/02508060.2018.1444307