Amitangshu Acharya

I am a critical geographer and political ecologist by training. I have worked as a development practitioner and researcher across civil society organisations, philanthropic foundations, and international research institutes before completing my PhD from the University of Edinburgh, UK, as a Leverhulme Trust Scholar. Prior to joining academia, I co-conceptualised and implemented the Participatory Groundwater Management (PGWM) Programme at Arghyam, which went on to become India's largest civil society network on groundwater for almost a decade. Later, my research at ICIMOD, Nepal, on how communities forecast floods using local knowledge systems highlighted the need for pluralising knowledge of flood management in Himalayan River basins, which was cited and discussed to illustrate knowledge co-production in the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC), in 2019. Prior to joining Monash, I was Senior Lecturer, Water and Society, at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, the Netherlands, where I coordinated the MSc course on Water and Sustainable Development and taught qualitative research methodologies, history and philosophy of science, and decolonial and postcolonial approaches to water. I also founded and coordinated the PhD Course on Decolonising Science at IHE Delft, the first of its kind for universities in the Netherlands for STEM and interdisciplinary doctoral candidates. I was the Principal Investigator of the WaterPIP KAN project (2023-2026), which explored the information needs of smallholder and marginal farmers for irrigation across Benin, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, and Kenya. I am committed to public-facing scholarship, which is why, apart from being a TEDx speaker, I have written on water cultures, the climate crisis, and everyday urbanism in The Economist, The Independent, Places Journal, Huffington Post, The Hindu, Khaleej Times, Indian Express, Scroll.in, and The Mint. I am also engaged with practising slow journalism. My research interests are located at the intersection of political ecology and Science and Technology Studies (STS). My research interests include decolonising sustainability, plural knowledges, urban water, and environmental justice. I am specifically interested in what I call the "political ecology of small things" in which I investigate how the urban middle class technomediate their environmental concerns in South and Southeast Asia. In parallel, I am exploring the politics of traditional, indigenous, and local knowledges in climate science. My other areas of interest engage with and critically examine contemporary approaches and frameworks such as Nature-based Solutions (NbS), Circular Economy, and Planetary Boundaries in which wetlands, deltas, rivers, and cities emerge as heuristics.

[2026] The plural lives of rubble: a research agenda for disaster geographies Gioli, G. & Acharya, A., 2026, Geography and Disasters: Places, Processes and the Human Geographical Imagination. O'Grady, N. & Sou, G. (eds.). 1st ed. New York NY USA: Bloomsbury Academic, p. 61-79 19 p. [2026] Water justice needs careful interdisciplinary research Rusca, M., Zwarteveen, M., Acharya, A., Alba, R., Haeffner, M. & Krueger, T., Mar 2026, In: Nature Water. 4, 3, p. 277-286 10 p. [2024] Tasting numbers: the numerical politics of Total Dissolved Solids and the privatisation of drinking water quality in Bhuj City, India Acharya, A., 2024, In: Water Alternatives: an interdisciplinary journal on water, politics and development. 17, 2, p. 469-490 22 p.