Aromar Revi
Aromar Revi is the founding Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) India’s prospective interdisciplinary national urban University. Over fifteen years, he built IIHS into one of the world’s leading education, research, training, advisory and implementation-support institutions, located in the global south.
He is a polymath, global practice and thought leader, educator and institution builder with close to 40 years of local to global interdisciplinary experience. He is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and the Law and Management schools of the University of Delhi.
Aromar has led 235 major practice, consulting and research assignments across a dozen broad areas. He has deep governance, institutional development, management and implementation experience, across public, private, civil society and academic institutions.
He is an globally cited scholar across half a dozen fields. Aromar’ policy, practice and research work lie at the interface of four themes: sustainable development and sustainability science; sustainable urbanisation and the emerging discipline of ‘urban science’; climate action and climate science; and disaster risk reduction and risk science. Aromar has lectured and taught at over 100 leading universities across all six continents.
Aromar has been a senior advisor to multiple ministries of the Government of India, since the late 1980s; consulted with a wide range of international development institutions, national and transnational firms on economic, environmental and social change at global, regional and urban scales. He has helped structure, design and review development investments of $ 15 billion; worked on 5 of the world’s 10 largest cities; urban and rural areas across India; and on projects in over a dozen countries.
Aromar is a global expert on implementing Sustainable Development; Co-Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), where he led a successful global campaign for an urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 11) for the UN. He is a member of the UCLG-Ubuntu, Commissioner of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water that presented its report to the UN Global Conference on Water 2023.
Aromar is one of the world’s leading experts on global environmental change. He is a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of the: IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR15), 2022 synthesis chapter on Climate Resilient Development Pathways and member of the Core Writing Team (CWT) of the 2023 IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report (SYR). In 2014, he was a CLA of the IPCC Assessment Report 5 (AR5) on Urban Areas. He was a co-lead of the 2022 four report Summary for Urban Policymakers series of the IPCC AR6 cycle launched at CoP27 and CLA of the Scaling up Climate Finance Report 2021, commissioned by the Green Climate Fund.
He is one of South Asia’s most experienced risk and disaster management professionals having led teams to plan & execute rehabilitation programmes for ten major earthquake, cyclone and flood events affecting over 5 million people. Aromar has been a member of the UNDRR' Advisory Board for eight of its Global Assessment of Risk (GAR) reports.
He is a polymath, global practice and thought leader, educator and institution builder with close to 40 years of local to global interdisciplinary experience. He is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and the Law and Management schools of the University of Delhi.
Aromar has led 235 major practice, consulting and research assignments across a dozen broad areas. He has deep governance, institutional development, management and implementation experience, across public, private, civil society and academic institutions.
He is an globally cited scholar across half a dozen fields. Aromar’ policy, practice and research work lie at the interface of four themes: sustainable development and sustainability science; sustainable urbanisation and the emerging discipline of ‘urban science’; climate action and climate science; and disaster risk reduction and risk science. Aromar has lectured and taught at over 100 leading universities across all six continents.
Aromar has been a senior advisor to multiple ministries of the Government of India, since the late 1980s; consulted with a wide range of international development institutions, national and transnational firms on economic, environmental and social change at global, regional and urban scales. He has helped structure, design and review development investments of $ 15 billion; worked on 5 of the world’s 10 largest cities; urban and rural areas across India; and on projects in over a dozen countries.
Aromar is a global expert on implementing Sustainable Development; Co-Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), where he led a successful global campaign for an urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 11) for the UN. He is a member of the UCLG-Ubuntu, Commissioner of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water that presented its report to the UN Global Conference on Water 2023.
Aromar is one of the world’s leading experts on global environmental change. He is a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of the: IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR15), 2022 synthesis chapter on Climate Resilient Development Pathways and member of the Core Writing Team (CWT) of the 2023 IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report (SYR). In 2014, he was a CLA of the IPCC Assessment Report 5 (AR5) on Urban Areas. He was a co-lead of the 2022 four report Summary for Urban Policymakers series of the IPCC AR6 cycle launched at CoP27 and CLA of the Scaling up Climate Finance Report 2021, commissioned by the Green Climate Fund.
He is one of South Asia’s most experienced risk and disaster management professionals having led teams to plan & execute rehabilitation programmes for ten major earthquake, cyclone and flood events affecting over 5 million people. Aromar has been a member of the UNDRR' Advisory Board for eight of its Global Assessment of Risk (GAR) reports.
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Books by Aromar Revi
The experiences of the contributors, many of whom have actively contributed their expertise to disaster management and recovery, help us understand what problems require a swift response and which aspects should be based on detailed analyses keeping in mind local conditions. Reconstruction is seen as offering an opportunity to rebuild society such that all sections of the population are empowered and brought into the community’s decision-making process. It is also an opportunity to develop construction techniques that are suited to local materials and skills but are also more earthquake-resistant than the old. And finally, there is the realisation that the best first responders are local community groups which need to be nurtured, and trained in crisis management and risk mitigation
The volume articulates the role of habitat and housing processes as 'organizing principles' and entry points into the process of social mobilization and poverty alleviation, through a mixture of perspective papers and detailed case studies from child focused development, the Rights of the Child to technology, finance and project management. The cases are primarily from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and India, with a few other international examples"
Chapters by Aromar Revi
The foundation for the book is detailed city case studies on Bangalore, Bangkok, Dar es Salaam, Durban, London, Manizales, Mexico City, New York and Rosario. Each of these was led by authors who contributed to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment and are thus acknowledged as among the world’s top specialists in this field.
This book highlights where there is innovation and progress in cities and how this was achieved. Also where there is little progress and no action and where there is no capacity to act. It also assesses the extent to which cities can address the Sustainable Development Goals within commitments to also dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this, it highlights how much progress on these different agendas depends on local governments and their capacities to work with their low-income populations.
Working Group II contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (WGII AR5) evaluates how patterns of risks and potential benefits are shifting due to climate change and how risks can be reduced through mitigation and adaptation. It recognizes that risks of climate change will vary across regions and populations, through space and time, dependent on myriad factors including the extent of mitigation and adaptation"
inevitably face in conception as well as implementation.
The experiences of the contributors, many of whom have actively contributed their expertise to disaster management and recovery, help us understand what problems require a swift response and which aspects should be based on detailed analyses keeping in mind local conditions. Reconstruction is seen as offering an opportunity to rebuild society such that all sections of the population are empowered and brought into the community’s decision-making process. It is also an opportunity to develop construction techniques that are suited to local materials and skills but are also more earthquake-resistant than the old. And finally, there is the realisation that the best first responders are local community groups which need to be nurtured, and trained in crisis management and risk mitigation
The volume articulates the role of habitat and housing processes as 'organizing principles' and entry points into the process of social mobilization and poverty alleviation, through a mixture of perspective papers and detailed case studies from child focused development, the Rights of the Child to technology, finance and project management. The cases are primarily from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and India, with a few other international examples"
The foundation for the book is detailed city case studies on Bangalore, Bangkok, Dar es Salaam, Durban, London, Manizales, Mexico City, New York and Rosario. Each of these was led by authors who contributed to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment and are thus acknowledged as among the world’s top specialists in this field.
This book highlights where there is innovation and progress in cities and how this was achieved. Also where there is little progress and no action and where there is no capacity to act. It also assesses the extent to which cities can address the Sustainable Development Goals within commitments to also dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this, it highlights how much progress on these different agendas depends on local governments and their capacities to work with their low-income populations.
Working Group II contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (WGII AR5) evaluates how patterns of risks and potential benefits are shifting due to climate change and how risks can be reduced through mitigation and adaptation. It recognizes that risks of climate change will vary across regions and populations, through space and time, dependent on myriad factors including the extent of mitigation and adaptation"
inevitably face in conception as well as implementation.
Urban poverty is multi-dimensional in scope; widening in numbers and deepening faster than rural poverty in India. Traditional uni-dimensional poverty reduction approaches that have had some success in rural India have and will fail in urban India. The governance, resources management, and risk mitigation frames have a strong rural emphasis – making change even more difficult.
UNDP can lead in the creation of a new multi-dimensional and human development-centred entitlement framework and discourse to address urban poverty in the XII Plan. This will enable: significant increases in urban employment; the urban informal sector to grow faster and at higher productivity than the national economy; filling of institutional and knowledge gaps so that available resources and innovation can be deployed efficiently and scaled effectively. This would meet the inclusion, sustainability and growth imperatives of the Plan and help close structural gaps: between large villages and small towns; manufacturing and services-led development; rapidly developing and deeply vulnerable economic and social groups and regions.
The UNISDR Scientiic and Technical Advisory Group (STAG) and partners have been working to embed a broader approach to disasters which includes prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. It is no longer suficient to react oncea disaster has occurred, because even if disasters are well managed, the mental and physical impacts on the survivors, broader society and the economy can be
devastating and felt over the long term. With disasters increasing in frequency andseverity, the International Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 5 (2014) recognised the urgent need to focus on sustainable development.
settlements, is crucial to the success of Agenda 2030. Despite the key role of local authorities in SDG implementation, there is very little guidance material currently available on how to adapt the global goals to the local level. The SDG Cities Guide aims to fill this knowledge-gap, and
suggest how city leaders, local practitioners and policy makers can use the SDGs to guide on the-ground planning and development.
Forward calculations with the demographic model, PHOENIX, and the IFs Economy model show that such developments of population and income are possible, provided that sufficient and timely investments in health care and education take place. Additional model simulations, including those using the TIMER energy model, indicate that ecological and socio-economic constraints might bar these positive developments. Only rigorous government policy initiatives striving for sustainable management of India's resources (land, water, energy) and appropriate investments in education and health can lead to a real increase in well-being for a large part of the population.
The primary objectives of the IIHS curriculum are to create for human settlements professionals, practitioners and researchers from India and other parts of the world:
An interdisciplinary innovation-oriented knowledge base appropriate to the transformatory opportunities and challenges of South Asian and international settlements in the 21st century
A quality application-oriented and experiential learning environment that reaches out through and beyond an open campus to across India and other parts of the world.
A set of opportunities for inclusion, integrated human development and an engagement with Indian Constitutional values
Opportunities to develop the technical, integrative and epistemological capacities to:
Design, develop and help deploy the appropriate technologies, infrastructure and management systems from across the globe
Incubate and catalyse technical, institutional and social innovation, sustainability and enable good governance
Effectively respond to contemporary and emerging challenges drawing on both disciplinary and indigenous knowledge
Serve as a platform for dialogue between the state, private and civil society sectors and citizens, especially the most vulnerable
Be rooted in South Asian culture, arts, and craft, language and scholarship and thereby set global standards for praxis, education and research.
Avenues for the deepening of the pedagogical and reflective capacities of the faculty to transact an integrated, interdisciplinary programme to meet these transformatory goals.
The primary objectives of the IIHS curriculum are to create for human settlements professionals, practitioners and researchers from India and other parts of the world:
An interdisciplinary innovation-oriented knowledge base appropriate to the transformatory opportunities and challenges of South Asian and international settlements in the 21st century
A quality application-oriented and experiential learning environment that reaches out through and beyond an open campus to across India and other parts of the world.
A set of opportunities for inclusion, integrated human development and an engagement with Indian Constitutional values
Opportunities to develop the technical, integrative and epistemological capacities to:
Design, develop and help deploy the appropriate technologies, infrastructure and management systems from across the globe
Incubate and catalyse technical, institutional and social innovation, sustainability and enable good governance
Effectively respond to contemporary and emerging challenges drawing on both disciplinary and indigenous knowledge
Serve as a platform for dialogue between the state, private and civil society sectors and citizens, especially the most vulnerable
Be rooted in South Asian culture, arts, and craft, language and scholarship and thereby set global standards for praxis, education and research.
Avenues for the deepening of the pedagogical and reflective capacities of the faculty to transact an integrated, interdisciplinary programme to meet these transformatory goals.
The primary objectives of the IIHS curriculum are to create for human settlements professionals, practitioners and researchers from India and others parts of the world:
This note outlines the principles, foundations, structures and first formulations of this curriculum at the graduate, undergraduate and doctoral levels and the academic and research programmes in
which it will be housed.
The primary objectives of the IIHS curriculum are to create for human settlements professionals, practitioners and researchers from India and others parts of the world:
An appropriate innovation-oriented knowledge base
A quality application-oriented experiential learning environment
Opportunities for inclusion, integrated human development and an engagement with Indian
Constitutional values
Deepening of the pedagogical and reflective capacities of the faculty to transact an integrated,
interdisciplinary programme to meet transformatory goals
This note outlines the principles, foundations, structures and first formulations of this curriculum at the graduate, undergraduate and doctoral levels and the academic and research programmes in which it will be housed.
The term "RUrbanism" was introduced by the designers of "Goa 2100," a planning project for the capital city of Panjim, in the Indian state of Goa. Goa 2100 won a Special Jury Prize in the high-profile International Sustainable Urban Systems Design competition (Tokyo, 2003). The project is a model of RUrbanism in practice, and it introduces a wide array of new design concepts and analytical tools to support sustainability planning and a transition to sustainability.
Urbanisation aims to publish comparative as well as collaborative interdisciplinary scholarship that will illuminate the global urban condition beginning with a firm footprint in the Global South. A platform that brings together inter-disciplinary scholarship on the urban, it is equally interested in critical and reflexive discussions on diverse forms and sectors of urban practice. It seeks to do so not only to inform urban theory, policy and practice but also to enable the construction of diverse forms of knowledge and knowledge production needed to enable us to understand contemporary urban life.
Urbanisation is a response to a particular moment of 21st century global urbanisation within an increasingly re-arranged world. The drivers and locations of contemporary urbanisation are after a long historical gap, in the ‘Global South’ i.e. the countries of Asia, Africa and South America. This moment poses challenges for which we possess neither effective knowledge nor adequate practice. Urbanisation emerges out of three interconnected responses to this moment.
The first is to provide a platform to understand contemporary global urbanisation with a firm footprint in the South. In doing so, we see the ‘Global South’ not as a physical location but as a representative of a particular set of challenges and opportunities that determine the central questions of our age and demand critical analysis and effective intervention.
The second is to build on this new knowledge to re-think the epistemological canon of urbanisation and its associated systems and processes. This ‘canon’ built on a 19th and 20th century imagination and practice has proved to be particular rather than universal. The journal stands firmly with the ‘southern turn’ in urban theory, building new knowledge from the experiences of cities and regions of the Global South to speak with all cities and settlements and re-think the foundations of current urban theory.
The third is to reflexively engage with and theorise practice. Urban questions refuse simple boundaries of sector or domain in addition to discipline or the assumed ‘theory-practice’ divide. The ‘wicked problems’ of cities, city-regions and hybrid rural-urban settlements are sites that defy most canonical knowledge, techniques, methods, categories and terms. Yet there remain few platforms within which to document, reflect upon, critique and analyse practice, let alone imagine new forms and techniques of practice. Some of this is because of the continuing persistence of hierarchies between forms of knowledge and its production – an artificial separation that this journal explicitly seeks to address.
The journal also aims to enhance knowledge and understanding of the two-way interactions between urbanization processes and patterns and environmental changes at the local, regional, and global scales. In addition to mitigation and adaptation concerns these also include related social and economic issues such as the impacts of globalisation and financial crises, evidence-based liveability versus utopian planning principles, restoring dignity to the marginalized beyond mere participation, environmental justice and sustainable resource utilisation. The Journal, thus, seeks to connect theory and practice in ways that are useful to academics, policy makers, community activists and professionals who are concerned with or engaged in building and governing cities in ways that enhance environmental viability and foster urban equity and well being and engender economic vibrancy and political accountability.
Urban meteorology and climate:
• Urban canopy and boundary layer
• Urban heat island effects
• Coastal flooding
• Urban energy budget
• Impact of urban meteorology, materials, and form on urban energy use
• Urban hydrologic cycle
• Urban-coastal interactions
• Feedbacks between air quality, local climate and global climate change
• Urban impact on precipitation
• Urban microclimate and weather events
Urban environmental pollution:
• Emissions and chemistry
• Urban air quality
• Aerosol formation and dynamics
• Large-scale pollution from urban agglomerations
• Emergency preparedness
• Indoor and outdoor environment
• Population exposure and health impacts
• Urban vegetation impacts and green cities
Adaptation to global change:
• Urban drivers of climate change
• Urban vulnerability to climate hazards and climate change
• Urban infrastructure systems
• Flood control
• Energy supply
• Urban ecosystems
• Urban water
Urban economic and social issues:
• Urban climate impacts and environmental justice
• Urban climate and public health
• Urban transportation systems
• Urban materials, energy consumption, and health
• Poverty, gender and vulnerability in urban areas
• Urban migration and demographic change
• Urban housing and land markets
• Urban policy, planning and design
• Urban land use and land cover
• Urban governance, institutions and innovation
• Relationships between urban and non-urban areas
• Cities in the global context
• Neighborhoods and urban spaces
Research Approaches:
• Theory
• Modeling and decision support tools
• Monitoring and analysis
people will eventually live in cities – and yet, as many will
continue to live in rural areas. The overwhelming scale of the
Indian situation is without parallel and requires new ways of
planning, even new ways of educating planners. Aromar Revi
joined the conversation on housing and planning from his office
at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in Bangalore,
India.
privately funded, globally ranked education and action-oriented
research institution created by a number of India’s leading
entrepreneurs, professionals and thought leaders to address the
multi-dimensional and inter-disciplinary challenge of the country’s
urban growth. Edgar Pieterse speaks to Aromar Revi, the institute’s
future-orientated director, about his revolutionary approach to
curriculum and imagining what is possible.
Africa and Asia are at the centre of the urban, social and economic transitions that the world will witness over the next two decades. It is important that we see political imaginations and leadership from these geographies that address local, regional and global themes.
Africa and Asia are at the centre of the urban, social and economic transitions that the world will witness over the next two decades. It is important that we see political imaginations and leadership from these geographies that address local, regional and global themes.