Balakrishnan Balachandran
Biography
Dr. B.R. Balachandran is the Executive Director of the Sustainable Solutions Lab (SSL) at UMass Boston, a collaborative research institute focused on climate change resilience for historically excluded communities. At SSL, he provides strategic leadership and oversees research projects, including a MassDOT project for the resilience of the rail line to Cape Cod. His research examines disaster-induced displacement in Louisiana and wildfire resilience in California. Bala is a certified urban planner and international development consultant with over 30 years of experience.
Area of Expertise
- Planning for post-disaster recovery, resilience, and adaptation
- Land use - transport integration, land use planning, and urban land management
- Affordable housing policy, integrating social, economic, and environmental concerns
- Planning for resilient and sustainable water and wastewater management.
Degrees
Ph.D. in Regional Planning, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 2022
Professional Publications & Contributions
Doctoral dissertation
- Balachandran, Balakrishnan. 2022. “Risk vs. risk: Planning and risk management in disaster-induced displacement and relocation.” Doctoral dissertation, Champaign: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- My dissertation examined how planning and policymaking processes deal with risk tradeoffs in disaster-induced relocation. Through qualitative case study research in the coastal communities of South Louisiana, I document a complex risk landscape involving interactions between multiple hazard exposure, poverty, racial marginalization, and isolation. These risks erode people-place relationships, causing attritional displacement. Further, the policy setting forces people to trade off the risk of hazards against risk to livelihood, social capital, health, and identity. I demonstrate the use of Risk Tradeoff Analysis to reveal and address these tradeoffs.
Refereed Journal Articles
- Balachandran, Balakrishnan, Robert B. Olshansky, and Laurie A. Johnson. 2021. “Planning for Disaster-Induced Relocation of Communities.” Journal of the American Planning Association.
- Kraemer, P., B.R. Balachandran, S. Haran, R. Pai, C.F. Prochaska, and R. Sachdeva. 2010. “City-Wide Planning for Decentralized Basic Needs Services (DBNS).” Water Practice and Technology 5 (wpt2010115).
Book chapters
- Balachandran, Balakrishnan, Arjun Joshi, and Yue Li. 2023. “Private Cities - Case Study - Jamshedpur, India. ” In Private Cities: Outstanding Examples from Developing Countries and Their Implications for Urban Policy. Urban Development Series. Washington, DC: World Bank.
- Balachandran, Balakrishnan, Arjun Joshi, and Yue Li. 2023. “Private Cities - Case Study - Gurgaon, India. ” In Private Cities: Outstanding Examples from Developing Countries and Their Implications for Urban Policy. Urban Development Series. Washington, DC: World Bank..
- Balachandran, Balakrishnan R. 2017. “The Reconstruction of Bhuj: Reflecting on the Planning Process.” In Land Use Management in Disaster Risk Reduction, 31–61. Disaster Risk Reduction. Springer, Tokyo.
- Balachandran, B.R. 2010. Land use and Physical Planning chapter in Jha et al., “Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for Reconstructing after Natural Disasters.” The World Bank.
- Balachandran, B.R. 2010. “Planning the Reconstruction of Bhuj.” In Recovering from Earthquakes: Response, Reconstruction and Impact Mitigation in India, edited by Aromar Revi and Shirish Patel, 159–203. Routledge.
Manuscripts under preparation
- Ronald L. Schumann III, Miranda H. Mockrin, Balakrishnan Balachandran, Sherri Brokopp Binder, Alex Greer“Flashpoints Between Wildfire Recovery & Mitigation in Northern California”; for the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction; to be submitted in July 2024.
- Balachandran, Balakrishnan. “Planning for risk trade-offs in disaster-induced relocation: Exploring the application of Risk Tradeoff Analysis”; to be submitted to the Journal of the American Planning Association.
Additional Information
Dr. Balachandran is a certified urban planner and international development consultant with over 30 years of professional experience. He has expertise and experience in the following areas: planning for post-disaster recovery, resilience, and adaptation; land use - transport integration, land use planning, and urban land management; affordable housing policy, integrating social, economic, and environmental concerns; and planning for resilient and sustainable water and wastewater management. He recently provided advisory services to the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, and KfW Bankengruppe on post-disaster recovery, institutional reforms, and capacity building for climate-resilient urban planning.
He has served as Director and a member of the Governing Board in several organizations, including consulting firms and non-profits focused on sustainability, resilience, and adaptation, providing strategic planning advice at an organizational level. These organizations include CEPT University and Environmental Planning Collaborative in Ahmedabad, India, and CDD Society and Alchemy Urban Systems Pvt. Ltd. in Bangalore, India.