Environmental Management and Sustainability in India - Case Studies from West Bengal

This volume explores the spatial side of sustainability using cases from India. It provides a variety of chapters from scholars from West Bengal and elsewhere in the country, highlighting spatial perspectives on environmental issues and offering insight on sustainable development in the subcontinent from a geographical perspective. A wide variety of topics are covered here, including but not limited to mitigation of and adaptation to climate issues, hydrogeomorphologic issues, environmental management, agricultural sustainability, ecosystem services, urban environmental management and tourism issues. The lessons learned here are transferable to other contexts, and the book is a resource for researchers, academics, practitioners, government organizations, NGOs and anyone else interested in the spatial side of sustainability.  

Dr. Nilanjana Das Chatterjee is Professor and former HOD in the Department of Geography, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India. She received her Ph.D. award from Burdwan University in 2009. She is an expert in the field of Bio-geography with special reference to human-elephant conflict in forest fringes and fragmented forest, Environment, Landscape ecology with special reference to urban ecology, Tribal Culture and Women's studies. She has nearly 25 years of experience in research and teaching, and has authored more than 80 national and international research articles with high impact factor journals and received many prestigious awards. She is one of the twenty women scientists recognized by wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. She is an enthusiastic IUCN Commission member of CEM. Six research scholars achieved their Ph.D. award and twelve students completed their M Phil degree under her supervision. She has completed a major project funded by ICSSR, New Delhi. Now she has completed a research programme funded by ICSSR on 'Crime against Women West Bengal'. She has authored the book 'Man Elephant Conflict: A case study from forests in West Bengal, India' published from Springer in 2016 and co-author of the book River Sand Mining Modelling and Sustainable Practice:The Kangsabati River, India, published from Springer Environmental Science and Engineering Series in 2021.Recently she has published another book on GIS Application for crime prediction: A spatio-temporal analysis for crime against women in West Bengal, India.  Being a devoted teacher her passion is to maintain a good student teacher relationship.

Dr. Abhay Sankar Sahu is an Associate Professor and former HOD in the Department of Geography, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, West Bengal, India. He has also served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Kashipur M.M. Mahavidyalaya, Purulia, West Bengal, India. He pursued his B.Sc. (Honours), M. Sc., and Ph. D. in Geography from The University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India. His Ph. D. thesis is on 'Environmental Significance of Water-Front Embankments in South and Eastern Medinipur Coast' and he has been awarded in the year of 2010. His research interest covers Environmental Geomorphology, Environmental Geography and Hazard Geography. He is continuously engaged in study and research works on river morphology, waterfront embankments, flood and waterlogging, riverbank erosion, coastal erosion, ecotourism, EIA and EMP, remote sensing and GIS, geographical bigdata and machine learning. He has nearly 20 years of experience in research and teaching, and has contributed more than 45 research papers published in different reputed national and international level journals and edited volumes. He has completed as a Principal Investigator of a project sponsored by the UGC, New Delhi, India, on 'Toward an Exploration of an Embankment System in the Moyna Flood Basin', and also completed as a Research Investigator of a project under the UGC-BSR start-up grant on 'Environmental Consequences of Water-logging Problem in Purba Medinipur District, West Bengal: Evaluation, Mapping, and Management'. Presently he is working as a Principal Investigator of a project under the RUSA Component- 10 (Entrepreneurship and Career Hub), University of Kalyani, W.B., India, on 'Understanding the problems of homestay tourism in the Mousuni Island of Sundarbans and entrepreneurship development'. He has successfully completed a lot of courses, training programmes and workshops on geospatial technologies, climate change, data analysis and machine learning in geoinformatics organized by the reputed governmental institutions like NATMO, Kolkata; NRSC (ISRO), Hyderabad; ICFRE, Dehradun; IIRS, Dehradun; NRDMS-DST, New Delhi; DSTBT, Kolkata; etc. At present, he is guiding as a supervisor a number of scholars towards their doctoral degree and already five research scholars achieved their Ph.D. award. He is a life member of more than ten different academic associations and institutions.