Regional Development Planning and Practice: Contemporary Issues in South Asia (Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences)

This book, through a bunch of systematic and analytical notes and scientific commentaries, acquaints the readers with the innovative methods of regional development, measurement of the development in regional scale, regional development models, and policy prescriptions. Conceptualizing development as a regional process is a geographer's brainchild, and the sense of region has long been rooted deeply in the fundamental research practices that geographers are accustomed to. The geographical perspective of regions entails conceptualizing them nested horizontally as the formal region and hierarchical relationships in space with spatial flows or interactions as the functional region. In geographical research, the region works as a tool by serving as a statistical unit of analysis. More importantly, however, regions serve as the fundamental spatial units of management and planning by specifying a territory or a part of it for which a certain spatial development or regulatory plan is sought.This book addresses the complex processes in different regions of the world, particularly South Asia, to perceive the regional development planning involved and the sustainable management practiced there. The book is a useful resource for socio-economic planners, policymakers, and policy researchers.

Mukunda Mishra is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and designated vice principal of Dr. Meghnad Saha College in West Bengal, India. The college is affiliated with the University of Gour Banga. Dr. Mishra completed his postgraduate studies in geography and environmental management at Vidyasagar University and holds a Ph.D. in geography from the same university. He was selected for the National Merit Scholarship by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. His research chiefly focuses on analyzing unequal human development and creating multi-criteria predictive models. He has more than 10 years of hands-on experience in dealing with development issues at the ground level in various districts of eastern India. Dr. Mishra has in his credit to publish one monograph and two edited research volumes so far from the house of Springer-Nature and he has more than twenty-five research articles and book chapters published in the journals and books of international repute. Besides serving as the reviewer of several reputed journals published by Springer-Nature and Elsevier Inc., he is continuing as the Managing and Publishing Editor of Ensemble, a UGC-CARE (India) enlisted journal of repute, since its inception to date.

 

Dr. R.B. Singh is the former professor of geography at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. Presently he holds the position of the secretary general and treasurer of the International Geographical Union (IGU); and the chair of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)–Central Food Technological Research Institute of the Government of India. He is also a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the Scientific Committee for Urban Health and Well-Being. He was awarded the Japan Society for the Promotion of Scientific Research Fellowship and has presented papers and chaired sessions in more than 45 countries. He has published 14 books, 36 edited research volumes, and more than 240 research papers. He has supervised 36 Ph.D. and 81 M.Phil. students. In 1988 the UNESCO/International Social Science Council awarded him research and study grants in social and human sciences.

 

Andrews José de Lucena is an associate professor, the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has completed his master’s in geography from the State University of Rio de Janeiro and holds a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering (COPPE/UFRJ). His research interest is chiefly concerned with the urban climate and its research methods, climate change, and the natural environment. He participated in and integrated research projects with several professionals and institutions in the areas of climatology and urban meteorology, atmospheric-hydrological modeling, remote sensing in urban areas, and urban development in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. He coordinates the Integrated Laboratory of Applied Physical Geography (LIGA/UFRRJ) and integrates the Environmental Satellite Applications Laboratory of the Meteorology Department (LASA/UFRJ). He manages the website Climatologia with information about land surface temperature (LST) of the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro from 1984 to the present.

 

Soumendu Chatterjee is a professor and the head of the Department of Geography at the Presidency University in Kolkata, India. He has been teaching geographical science at the undergraduate and graduate levels for more than 20 years. His primary research interest is creating scientific models to predict complex physical and human processes on the Earth’s surface. He has more than 100 publications in national and international journals, and he has headed several research projects funded by the University Grants Commission (of India), the Department of Science & Technology (GOI), the Indian Council ofSocial Science Research (ICSSR), and other agencies in India and abroad.