PhD Candidate (to defend in 2025)
TU Delft, The Netherlands
Associate Partner for Consulting at Geospatial World LLC, USA
︎I have relocated to the USA.

Email: supriya.urban@gmail.com
LinkedIn | Blog | Google Scholar

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I am an urban planner specializing in the nexus of climate change and cities.

My work investigates how rapidly evolving urban regions are incorporating short- and long-term climate commitments into their planning and policy processes. A central aspect of my research is the examination of systemic data and knowledge disparities between cities in developed and developing regions. These disparities present significant challenges to the creation of equitable and context-specific urban resilience strategies.

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My doctoral research at the TU Delft Resilience Lab (advised by Prof Tina Comes & Dr Nazli Yonca Aydin) explored methodologies for urban planning under conditions of climate uncertainty. This included: (a) a theoretical framework that explores the temporal dynamics of “connected and moving” cities, (b) a conceptual framework for embedding resilience within urban planning , and (c) a blended approach to crafting future urban scenarios, utilizing computational models, narrative scenarios, practitioner insights, and localized datasets. I evaluated the applicability of (a) and (b) through extensive empirical research in India and the Netherlands. My research methods are interdisciplinary, combining text mining, systematic reviews, qualitative interviews, design-driven workshops, and spatial modeling at the metropolitan scale.

︎ Professionally, I have provided knowledge support on urban development, resilient infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, and public health to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), Center for Urban Disaster Risk Reduction + Resilience, National Disaster Management Authority of India, and National Institute of Public Finance and Policy . I received the C40 Women4Climate mentorship and the TU Delft Global Fellowship.

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I have degrees in Architecture and Urbanism (Honours: Infrastructure and Environment).

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Updates:

︎I will be at the ESRI User Conference 2025 - See you in San Diego!
︎I will be speaking at the Cesium Developer Summit on trends in the Open Geospatial Market. Join us in Philadelphia.
︎I will be speaking at the Harvard Conference on the Geography of Digital Twins.
︎I will be at the USGIF GEOINT Conference 2025 - See you in St Louis!
Winner: Allianz Climate Risk Award.
Talk: “Rise-Up: Integrating Resilience into Urban Planning for managing Uncertainty”. AMS Scientific Conference 2024, Amsterdam.
Publication : Krishnan, S., Aydin, N.Y. and Comes, T., 2024. TIMEWISE: Temporal Dynamics for Urban Resilience-theoretical insights and empirical reflections from Amsterdam and Mumbai. npj Urban Sustainability, 4(1), p.4.
Publication: Krishnan, S., Aydin, N.Y. and Comes, T., 2023. RISE-UP: Resilience in urban planning for climate uncertainty-empirical insights and theoretical reflections from case studies in Amsterdam and Mumbai. Cities, 141, p.104464.
Talk: June 2023:”Land-use models and Urban resilience.” The International Conference on Resilient Systems, Mexico City.
Media: Story of Science at TU Delft: “ The Future Ground: Planning Cities for an Uncertain Future.”
Publication: “ With overcrowding, weather and age, curbing bridge collapses in India is complex but not impossible.” Scroll, Nov 2022.
Talk: Urban risk and Planning for Mumbai. DRI Technical Conference, New Delhi, Oct 2022.
Talk: “An integrated framework for incorporating climate risk into urban land-use change modeling“. ESREL 2022, Dublin.
Workshop: Jun 2022: Organised a training event at World Urban Forum: “Resilience for All”. Katowice, Poland.
Jan 2022: Selected for the C40 Cities Women4Climate program Mumbai
Publication: Krishnan, S., Aydin, N.Y. and Comes, T., 2021. Planning support systems for long-term climate resilience: a critical review. Urban Informatics and Future Cities, pp.465-498.