Under the Land Use / Rural and Urban Development research area, IGCS focuses on urban expansion, with a particular emphasis on the peri-urban fringes of cities and functional urban-rural interdependencies. Researchers seek to understand the drivers behind expansion and growth, the role of institutions and policies and how they interact with urban, suburban and rural aspirations, the social, economic and environmental impacts of peri-urban growth and how these processes are governed.

IGCS’ research methods range from statistical analyses and in-depth qualitative studies to developing simulation-based models of urban dynamics. IGCS seeks to be action-oriented in its research approach. Our objective is to use our research insights to actively contribute to land-use planning, regional economic development, infrastructure and policy development for urban areas to support sustainability transition. The government, the private sector and civil society are essential stakeholders and partners in our efforts.

Ongoing

• Peri-cene (ongoing)
• Adaptive Governance Model to Tackle Climate Change Risks in Chennai (ongoing)

Completed

• Water as Leverage (completed)
• Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience in peri-urban Chennai in the Study Area of Sriperumbudur: Sustainable Resources Management, Livelihoods and Governance (completed)

Bellanova, L., Uphoff, F., Bellanova, P., Engels, N., Prabu, P., Yaswanth, P., Lehmkuhl, F., Reicherter, K., Schwarzbauer, J. (2021, under review). Contemporary pollution of urban floodplains in Chennai, India. Chemosphere.

Woiwode, Christoph, Niko Schäpke, Olivia Bina, Stella Veciana, Iris Kunze, Oliver Parodi, Petra Schweizer-Ries & Christine Wamsler (2021) Inner transformation to sustainability as a deep leverage point: fostering new avenues for change through dialogue and reflection. Sustainability Science DOI 10.1007/s11625-020-00882-y. Open Access https://rdcu.be/cdSSn (Special Issue on Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformations: https://link.springer.com/journal/11625/topicalCollection/AC_0586d-76989122be-98437b68eb3b6f01a) (Link)

Woiwode, Christoph and Olivia Bina (2021). Transdisciplinarity revisited: Transformative potential of lessons we might learn. In Fokdal/Bina/Chiles/Ojamae/Paadam (eds.) Enabling the City – Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Encounters in Research and Practice. London and New York: Routledge. Open Access (Link)

Fromhold-Eisebith, M.; Eisebith, G. (2019): What can Smart City policies in emerging economies actually achieve? Conceptual considerations and empirical insights from India. In: World Development 123: 1. (Link)

Steinhausen, M.J.; Wagner, P. D.; Narasimhan, B.; Waske, B. (2018): Combining Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data for improved land use and land cover mapping of monsoon regions. In: International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 73: 595-604. (Link)

Wilken, F.; Wagner, P. D.; Narasimhan, B.; Fiener, P. (2017): Spatio-temporal patterns of land use and cropping frequency in a tropical catchment of South India. In: Applied Geography 89: 124-132. (Link)

Wagner, P. D.; Bhallamudi, S. M.; Narasimhan, B.; Kantakumar, L. N.; Sudheer, K. P.; Kumar, S.; Schneider, K.; Fiener, P. (2016): Dynamic integration of land use changes in a hydrologic assessment of a rapidly developing Indian catchment. In: Science of the Total Environment 539: 153-164. (Link)

Hackenbroch, K.; Woiwode, C. (2016): Narratives of Sustainable Indian Urbanism: The Logics of Global and Local Knowledge Mobilities in Chennai. In: South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 14. (Link)

Woiwode, C.; Furst, A. (2015): Anpassung an Überschwemmungen in Chennai: Möglichkeiten der Resilienzsteigerung durch kollaborative PrÄventions- und Anpassungsmassnahmen bei Überschwemmungen in Chennai, Indien [Adaptation to Floods in Chennai]. In: RaumPlanung 182 (6) and Trialog 120/121: 47-53. (Link)

Fiener, P.; Gottfried, T.; Sommer, M.; Steger, K. (2014): Soil organic carbon patterns under different land uses in South India. In: Geoderma Regional 2: 91-101. (Link)

Volz, P., Woiwode, C. (2022): Towards a Sustainable Food System Transformation of the Chennai Region, IGCS Research Brief 1/2022 (February), IIT Madras, Chennai. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20679.1680 (Link)

Woiwode C. et al. (2022) Indo-German Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Sharing Experience and Co-creating Knowledge for Sustainable Urban Livelihoods Design. In: Melles G.B. (eds) Designing Social Innovation for Sustainable Livelihoods. Design Science and Innovation. Springer, Singapore. (Link)

Woiwode, Christoph and Olivia Bina (2021). Transdisciplinarity revisited: Transformative potential of lessons we might learn. In Fokdal/Bina/Chiles/Ojamae/Paadam (eds.) Enabling the City – Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Encounters in Research and Practice. London and New York: Routledge. Open Access (Link)

Woiwode, C. and N. Woiwode (2019): Practical Spirituality and the Contemporary City: Awakening the Transformative Power for Sustainable Living. In: Giri, A.K. (Ed.) Practical Spirituality and Human Development. Palgrave Mcmillan. ISBN: 978-981-13-3687-4. https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/978981133686 (Link)

Beelen, K. (2019): Translating friction. Mapping data and (peri‐)urbanization in the case of Chennai, South India. In: T. Coomans et al. (eds.) Mapping historical landscapes in transformations: 45-62. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Beelen, K. (2019): Back to the land: Post-political utopias of organic living. In: K.C. Ho et al. (eds.) Post-Politics and Civil Society in Asian Cities: Spaces of Depoliticisation. pp. 72-90, London: Routledge. (Link)

Woiwode, C. and L. Kishor Bhati (2018): Enabling transformative urban development for integral sustainability: a case for tapping the potential of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy in planning practice and theory. In: Leal Filho, Walter and Consorte-McCrea, Adriana (eds.) Handbook of Sustainability and Humanities. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. (Link)

Ayyangar, A.; Bhargava, A.; Masillamani, B; Radhakrishnan, U; Roul, A.; Ramachandran, A., Chella Rajan, S. (2017): Future Sea Level Rise: Assessment of Loss and Damage in Chennai by 2050. Report submitted to the Tamil Nadu Land Use Research Board.

Beelen, K. (2016): Workshop Report on BYPASSLAB, By-Pass Infrastructures on the Peri-Urban Fringe, Indo-German Centre for Sustainability, IIT Madras.

Chella Rajan, S., Lehmann, H. (2015): Policy Paper of the Indo-German Expert Group on Green and Inclusive Economy: Sustainable Lifestyles. Pathways and Choices for India and Germany. GIZ and Federal Environment Agency, Germany. (Link)

Chella Rajan, S. et al. (2014): Long-term Energy and Development Pathways for India, Indo German Centre for Sustainability (IGCS) Technical Report No.1: 52.

Helm, L., Uphoff, F., Bellanova, P., Engels, N., Schwarzbauer, J., Lehmkuhl, F., Reicherter, K., 2021. Remobilization of hazardous contaminants caused by climate-induced flood events in (sub-)tropical river systems (Chennai, India). EGU Vienna, Austria, EGU21-14389. (Link)

Klaus Reicherter and Jan Schwarzbauer, key note on Flood Pollution. GetInCicero workshop series on Flood Pollution, 17-11/11/2021, Aachen, Germany.

Luisa Bellanova, key note on Riverine and Coastal sedimentary archives – the chronology of flood events. GetInCicero workshop series on Flood Pollution, Aachen, 17-11/11/2021, Aachen, Germany.

Invited speaker for a guest lecture in the course on “Environmental Ethics” (Online) 18th January 2022, Krea University

IGCS Workshop at Jugendkonferenz, Bangalore 14th–20th November: Dr. Woiwode, with the other three IGCS Postdocs, delivered a workshop of 10 hrs during the Youth Conference “Future: We’ll make it.” hosted by the Goethe Institut Bangalore and the German ZfA (The Central Agency for Schools Abroad, New Delhi).

Dr. Woiwode was invited speaker for the panel “Rethinking Nature-based Solutions” at the GIZ Symposium “Plan OK Please: Cities and Pandemics”, 29th Sep 2021.

Dr. Woiwode was invited by DAAD as moderator of the panel “Citizen Involvement in Policy and Science” at the Indo-German Forum on Cities and Climate hosted by DWIH New Delhi 16th–17th of March. IGCS was also represented with an Info Booth during the event. Together with the other IGCS Postdocs, Dr. Woiwode represented IGCS with an Information Booth at the “3rd Annual Sustainability Fair: Renewable Energy and Water Resources” convened by IIT Gandhinagar, 26th of March 2021.

Fiener, P. (2016): Land use induced potential for carbon sequestration in South India–lessons learned from a detailed soil organic carbon survey in an intensively used catchment in Tamil Nadu. Oral presentation at Indo-German Conference on Sustainability: Exploring planetary boundaries and their challenges and opportunities, February 27-28 2016, Chennai, India.

Wagner, P.D., Murty B. S., Narasimhan, B.; Kantakumar N. L., Kumar, S.; Fiener, P. (2016): Analyzing the effects of dynamic representations of land use change in hydrologic impact assessments. Oral presentation at Indo-German Conference on Sustainability: Exploring planetary boundaries and their challenges and opportunities, February 27-28 2016, Chennai, India.

Struss, P.; Steinbruch, F.; Woiwode, C. (2016): Water Management in a Peri-urban Region in India: Designing a Model Library for Process-oriented Diagnosis and Decision Support.” Poster presentation at PHM16, Denver, Colorado, USA. (Link)

Struss, P., Steinbruch, F., Woiwode, C. (2016): Structuring the Domain Knowledge for Model-based Decision Support to Water Management in a Peri-urban Region in India. In: 29th International Workshop on Qualitative Reasoning (QR16) 2016, New York City, USA. (Link)

Purushothaman, K.; Devi, A.; Chella Rajan, S. (2016): Agent-based modelling of peri-urban land conversions as decisions of land-owning farmers. In: Proceedings of the Indo German Conference on Sustainability – Energy and Power: 208- 210, Chennai, India.

Woiwode, C. (2016): Chennai Floods 2015: A View from Cop 21 Paris Agreement Implementation in India. In: Southasiadisasters.net, Publications 145: 5. All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI), Ahmedabad, India.

Hill, C. (2015): Social Resilience with respect to rapid Urbanisation: A comparative study of employment groups within peri-urban Chennai. In: XVI N-Aerus Conference: Who wins and who loses?: 92.

Charlotte, A.; Hill, C.; John, R.; Kuttler, T.; Chella Rajan, S.; Roul, A.; Woiwode, C. (2015): Peri-urban Dynamics and Sustainability in Chennai: The Case of Sriperumbudur. In: XVI N-Aerus Conference: Who wins and who loses?: 107. (Link)

Wilken, F.; Wagner, P. D.; Schneider, K.; Fiener, P. (2014): Untersuchung des Landnutzungs- und Landbewirtschaftungswandels unter Verwendung eines wissensbasierten Fernerkundungsalgorithmus in einemtropischen Einzugsgebiet in Südindien. Oral presentation at the Annual Conference of the South Asia Study Group, January 24 -25 2014, Freiburg, Germany. (Link)

Fiener, P.; Gottfried, T.; Sommer, M.; Steger, K. (2014): Layer- and land use-specific analysis of soil organic carbon patterns in a small catchment in the semi-arid and tropical south of India. Oral presentation at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014, Vienna, Austria. (Link)

Wagner, P.D.; Murty B. S.; Kantakumar, N. L.; Narasimhan, B.; Sudheer, K. P.; Kumar, S.; Schneider, K.; Fiener, P. (2014): Future land use change in India: A case study on land use developments and their hydrologic implications in the Mula and Mutha Rivers catchment upstream of Pune. Poster presentation at the EARSeL SIG LULC – NASA LCLUC Workshop 2014, 17-18 March 2014, Berlin, Germany. (Link)

Woiwode, C.; Selvakumar, S. (2014): Urbanization, Planning and Spirituality for a Sustainable World. Contributory paper for the 8th All India Students’ Conference on Science and Spiritual Quest, 1-2 February 2014, IIT BHU, India. (Link)

Wagner, P.D.; Murty B. S.; Narasimhan, B.; Kantakumar, L. N.; Sudheer, K. P.; Kumar, S.; Schneider, K.; Fiener, P. (2013): Auswirkungen von Landnutzungsänderungen auf die Wasserressourcen in Indien: Mögliche zukünftige Entwicklungen im Einzugsgebiet der Flüsse Mula und Mutha oberhalb der Stadt Pune. Oral presentation at the Jahrestagung des AK Hydrologie, November 21-23, 2013, Augsburg, Germany.