Richa Dhawale

Disaster Risk Assessment | Climate Adaptation | Remote Sensing | Urban Planning

Richa Dhawale is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Hydrology, Global Institute of Water Security (GIWS), University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Her work lies at the intersection of climate change adaptation, flood and drought vulnerability, and coupled human–water systems.

Her current research involves developing comprehensive vulnerability indices, validating agent-based models of household and community flood response using behavioral datasets, and contributing to large-scale water risk assessments, including the BHP Water Resource Suitability Assessment.

She holds a PhD in Architecture and Regional Planning from IIT Kharagpur, where she developed a system dynamics framework to assess urban drought, integrating climate indices, remote sensing, and stakeholder-based research.

Trained as an architect and planner, she brings a strong spatial and human-centered perspective to climate risk research, with a focus on policy relevance, equity, and adaptation pathways.