IHRR hosts research visitors from IIT Mandi, India

Dr Ashutosh Kumar visited from 9 January to 10 February 2023 and Aditi Rana visited from 13 February to 27 February 2023. Both visits were funded by the IHRR.

Dr Ashutosh Kumar is an Early Career Academic at IIT Mandi. The visit by Dr Ashutosh Kumar allowed fruitful discussions in the framework of the NERC funded SEAL project (Landslides Susceptibility and Adaptability in South East Asian Countries) led by Professors Ashraf Osman and David Toll. Dr Kumar has been a key collaborator in the SEAL, which brought together internationally recognised experts in landslides and climate change impacts on civil engineering infrastructure. As part of SEAL, he organised multi-stakeholder events involving participants from industry and academia focused on impact, outreach, and dissemination of the guidelines available for constructing and maintaining infrastructure on sloping ground. Dr Kumar gave an IHRR seminar on his work on a Climate Adaptive Barrier Layer for slope stabilisation during his visit.

During her visit to Durham University, MTech student Aditi Rana was trained in the use of advanced laboratory testing. She carried out laboratory testing on soils from India in the geotechnical engineering laboratory of the Department of Engineering. She presented her results on Climate Adaptive Barrier Layer for slope stabilisation during an IHRR landslide seminar. This work, carried out at IIT Mandi, was funded through Durham University from the CACTUS (Climate Active Control for Urban Spaces) and SEAL projects.

As a note, Aditi Rana has been welcomed back to Durham in December 2023. Since her first visit, she has been accepted for PhD studies at Portsmouth University and is now collaborating with Professor David Toll on her PhD on “The effects of climate change on the performance of geo-infrastructure under cyclic loading”.