Since joining the Centre for Land and Water Resource Management (CLWRM) at GBPNIHE in February 2025, my research has focused on strengthening the scientific understanding of land and water systems under varying climatic and socioeconomic conditions. The overall aim has been to provide (i)Actionable evidence for conserving water resources following a semi-distributed hydrologic model, and (ii) Enhancing farm-level resilience, and guiding policy and practice for sustainable agricultural development in the Himalayan region and across India. This work has spanned (i) Hydrological modeling at the basin scale for a portion of Upper Ganga Basin, (ii) Climate-smart adaptation in a key food crop across South Asia, (iii) Development of Pan-India farm typologies for targeted interventions, and, most recently, (iv) Initiation of a UNEP-TEEB supported project that evaluates ecosystem services following approaches of true value accounting.

The first stream of research applied hydrological modeling using SWAT and SWAT-CUP along with generation of future response (2030 & 2050) across 03 policy scenarios (BaU, optimistic & pessimistic) following two RCPs (4.5 & 8.5) for the USGCM basin of Upper Ganga Basin in Uttar Pradesh (UP) in the context of organic farming (OF) and agroforestry (AgF) systems. The research was further extended to the access the response, followed by the valuation of water yield from 04 districts of UP, namely, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, and Mirzapur, respectively.The outcomes displayed: (i) Modest changes in water yield under different land-use policy scenariosacross 2030 and 2050 projections. While previous studies have documented positive hydrological effectsof OF and AgF, the findings of this study indicate localizedrather than basin-wide impacts, (ii) OF and AgF can enhance soil moisture retention and infiltration at the field scale, their large-scale hydrological impacts remain context-dependent, emphasizing the need for spatially adaptive water management strategies, and (iii) Regional variability of precipitation, soil type, and vegetation cover plays a crucial role in determining the net impact of OF and AgF on hydrological processes.

The second strand of work examined climate-smart adaptation options for potato-based systems in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, following the PRISMA methodology for 08 adaptation strategies, viz., intercropping, mulching, nutrient management, crop rotation/diversification, irrigation management, OF, stress-tolerant varieties, and altering planting dates, using random effect modeling with REML. The results suggest that: (i) Mulching and altering planting dates improves the yield most w.r.t. the convention systems (28.30% and 28.11%), (ii) OF, however, showed high variability and some negative confidence bounds, and (iii) Effectiveness of mulching and OF depend heavily on site-specific factors, such as soil type, climatic conditions, and farming practices, (iv) Tailoring agricultural adaptations to local conditions by optimizing crop combinations, soil health, nutrient applications, and precision irrigation is recommended, and (iv) Combiningstrategies like mulching with pest management or intercropping alongside stress-tolerant varieties can enhance benefits and climate resilience.

The third area of research developed Pan-India level farm typologies for small/marginal farms using survey data from 16 states and 12 agro-climatic zones. PCA is utilized as the preferred data reduction technique, followed by HCA for clustering to develop farm-level typologies. This approach identified six distinct farm types (FT1–FT6), each characterized by different crop-livestock combinations, resource endowments, and water-use practices. When integrated farming system (IFS) models were aligned with these farm categories, income improvements of 1.5 to 3 times were observed compared to baseline systems, alongside enhanced resilience to climatic and input-related risks. The typology-based framework developed under this study allows extension agencies, planners, and policymakers to design farm-level and livelihood interventions more precisely, ensuring that interventions are adapted to the resource contexts and constraints of different farm households.

In addition to these published works, a new project has been initiated under the UNEP TEEB Phase-II that seeks to quantify and evaluate ecosystem services using the TEEB (2010) framework, for the Almora and Haridwar districts of Uttarakhand.Together, these studies and the ongoing UNEP TEEB project form a coherent body of work that addresses the central challenges of land and water management in the changing climate. From hydrologic modeling that identifies hydrological hotspots, to crop-level adaptation measures that conserve water while sustaining yields, to farm typologies that enable targeted interventions, and finally to ecosystem accounting that captures the value of services beyond markets, each contributes to the core mandate of CLWRM.