Krishnachandran Balakrishnan

Lead - Research | kbalakrishnan at iihs dot co dot in
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EDUCATION:
2016    PhD, Environmental Planning, University of California, Berkeley, USA
2008    Master of Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley, USA
2003    BArch, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi

 

 

  

Countries: India, United States, Egypt
States: Karnataka
Cities: Bangalore
Languages: English, Hindi, Malayalam

Krishna works on urban spatial analysis research. His current focus is on developing methods for fine grained population and socio-economic mapping to understand spatial inequality in Indian cities, particularly in the context of urban water resources.  In Bengaluru, he has been working on methods for mapping population at 30 m resolution, analysing inequality in access to domestic piped water supply and estimating urban groundwater budgets.

 

Krishna also has a design practice, which currently focuses on small scale residential projects. He tries to make these residences as energy and resource efficient as possible.

 

At IIHS, Krishna supports research and practice projects and is also involved in teaching for the Urban Fellows Programme and Urban Practitioners’ Programme.

Journal Articles

  • Tripathy, P., Balakrishnan, K., de Franchis, C., & Kumar, A. (2022). Generating megacity-scale building height maps without DGNSS surveyed GCPs: An open-source approach. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 49(9), 2312–2330. https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083221084990
  • Kumar, P. K., Balakrishnan, K., & Tripathy, P. (2021). A CNN based method for Sub-pixel urban land cover classification using Landsat-5 TM and Resourcesat-1 LISS-IV imagery.
  • Tripathy, P., Rao, P., Balakrishnan, K., & Malladi, T. (2021). An open-source tool to extract natural continuity and hierarchy of urban street networks. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 48(8), 2188-2205. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399808320967680
  • Tomer, S. K., Sekhar, M., Balakrishnan, K., Malghan, D., Thiyaku, S., Gautam, M., & Mehta, V. K. (2021). A model-based estimate of the groundwater budget and associated uncertainties in Bengaluru, India. Urban Water Journal, 18(1), 1-11.
  • Balakrishnan, K. (2020). A method for urban population density prediction at 30m resolution. Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 47(3), 193-213.
  • Balakrishnan, K. & Anand, S. (2015), The Sub-cities of Bengaluru: Understanding urban heterogeneity through empirical typologies. Economic & Political Weekly, 50(22), 63–72.

 

Books/Book Chapters

  • Surie, A., Goswami, A., Arakali, A., Revi, A., Ravindranath, D., Bhan, G., Anand, G., Balakrishnan, K., Kapoor, N., Sami, N., Vasanth, P., Anand, S., Smitha, M. B., Viswanath, S., Baberwal, S., Mitra, S., Batikar, T., & John, V. (2023). Towards a new urban practice: The urban fellows programme 2016-2022. Indian Institute for Human Settlements. https://doi.org/10.24943/9788195847303
  • Wankhade, K., & Balakrishnan, K. (2010). Sustainable settlements design: Innovation in curriculum. In F. Ceschin, C. Vezzoli, & J. Zhang (Eds.), Sustainability in Design: Now! Challenges and Opportunities for Design Research, Education and Practice in the XXI century (pp. 832-839). Sheffield, U.K.: Greenleaf Publishing.

 

Other Writings 

  • Balakrishnan, K. (2022). Towards more equitable and sustainable urban water systems in India: The role of granular data (Policy Brief). PEAK Urban. https://www.peak-urban.org/publications/towards-more-equitable-and-sustainable-urban-water-systems-india-role-granular-dataa
  • Balakrishnan, K. (2016), Heterogeneity within Indian cities: Methods for empirical analysis (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of California, Berkeley.
  • Wankhade, K., Balakrishnan, K., & Vishnu, M. J. (2014). Sustaining policy momentum: Urban water supply and sanitation in India (IIHS-RF paper on urban water and sanitation in India). Bangalore: Indian Institute for Human Settlements. https://doi.org/10.24943/iihsrfpps6.2014
  • Balakrishnan, K., Bhan, G., Parikh, A., Goswami, A., Sundaresan, J., Sudhira, H. S., … Wankhade, K. (2013). The masters of urban practice: Curriculum framework version 5.0.  Bangalore: Indian Institute for Human Settlements. https://doi.org/10.24943/mupv5.2013
  • Kondolf, G.M., Mozingo, L., Marzion, R., Balakrishnan, K. Gohar, A., El Adli, K… Tidmore, R. (2011). Connecting Cairo to the Nile: Renewing life and heritage on the river (Working Paper No. WP-2011-06). Berkeley: Institute for Urban and Regional Development, University of California.
  • Balakrishnan, K., Bhan, G., Parikh, A., Goswami, A., Sundaresan, J., Revi, A., & Wankhade, K. (2010). The masters of urban practice: Draft curriculum framework version 4.0. New Delhi: Indian Institute for Human Settlements.
  • Wankhade, K., Bhan, G., Parikh, A., Balakrishnan, K., Goswami, A., & Revi, A. (2010). The masters of urban practice: Draft curriculum framework version 3.0. New Delhi: Indian Institute for Human Settlements. https://doi.org/10.24943/mupv3.2010
  • Tripathy, P., Balakrishnan, K., de Franchis, C., & Kumar, A. (2019). An open-source method for generating building height maps from Cartosat-I stereo imagery. Poster presentation at the Living Planet Symposium, Milan.
  • Balakrishnan, K. (2018). Sabarmati Riverfront Development: An Exercise in ‘High-Modernism’?. Paper presented at the IS Rivers Conference, Lyon, France.
  • Wankhade, K., & Balakrishnan, K. (2011, November). Land, infrastructure and ecological sustainability in Indian cities. Paper presented at the India Urban Conference 2011: Evidence and experience, Infosys Training Centre, Mysore. https://doi.org/10.24943/9789351568377