Ronita Bardhan

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Associate) at University of Cambridge

This study presents results from an experimental investigation of the severity and sources of household air pollution across two low-income housing archetypes in Mumbai. Experimentation was carried out in Dharavi—one of the world's largest slums—and two nearby communities representing Mumbai's current slum resettlement scheme. Household surveys wer...

Thermal adaptation in low-income housing of Mumbai, India is investigated using a longitudinal field study and in-situ field measurements. 705 set of responses from two different neighbourhoods were analysed to understand the patterns of behavioural adaptation. Spatial configuration, temporal factors and underlying societal norms influenced the com...

India locked down 1.3 billion people on March 25, 2020, in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. The economic cost of it was estimated at USD 98 billion, while the social costs are still unknown. This study investigated how government formed reactive policies to fight coronavirus across its policy sectors. Primary data was collected from the Press Informa...

Many governments have begun to adopt aggressive targets for electric vehicles. However, studies of the drivers of electric vehicle (EV) adoption are scarce. Social media interactions can provide a new data-driven vantage point to explore such drivers. This study uses data from 36,000 public posts on Facebook to investigate inter-sectionality in EV-...

Understanding the variability in intra-urban forms is essential for protecting future-proofing cities from climate volatilities. However, the classification of urban forms is costly due to its reliance on high-resolution datasets, limited in the Global South's low-income cities. Additionally, the current classifiers are constrained in characterizin...

Europe is consistently experiencing hottest summers. Understanding people's thermal comfort and stress and responses to heat waves has become increasingly important. While much of the literature has recognised the overheating risks in the UK's domestic housing stock, there remains a gap in analysing residents' indoor heat exposure during heatwaves....

In the UK, 28 million households consume 25% of the total energy and contribute to 25% of the carbon emissions. It is vital to focus on sustainability and energy efficiency within the building sector for decarbonizing purposes. However, traditional methods that involve detailed building simulation or on-site inspections are time-consuming, labor-in...

This 68-country survey (n = 71,922) examines how people encounter information about science and communicate about it with others, identifies crosscountry differences, and tests the extent to which economic and sociopolitical conditions predict such differences. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most count...

Heatwaves, intensified by climate change and rapid urbanisation, pose significant threats to urban systems, particularly in the Global South, where adaptive capacity is constrained. This study investigates the relationship between heatwaves and nighttime light (NTL) radiance, a proxy of nighttime economic activity, in four hyperdense cities: Delhi,...

This 68-country survey (n = 71,922) examines how people encounter information about science and communicate about it with others, identifies cross-country differences, and tests the extent to which economic and sociopolitical conditions predict such differences. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most coun...

Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns w...

Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as public health, new technologies or climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science-society nexus acros...

This study proposes a methodology and a proof of concept to target and prioritize mass retrofitting of residential buildings in the UK using open building datasets that combine fabric energy efficiency and fuel poverty to meet the net-zero targets. The methodological framework uses a series of multi-variate statistical and geospatial methods that c...

Both energy performance certificates (EPCs) and thermal infrared (TIR) images play key roles in mapping the energy performance of the urban building stock. In this paper, we developed parametric building archetypes using an EPC database and conducted temperature clustering on TIR images acquired from drones and satellite datasets. We evaluated 1,72...

In developing countries like India, car users not only self-drive their cars, as commonly practised in developed countries. They also employ a permanent driver so that they can be driver-driven. The paper presents a convergent mixed-method approach to understanding car users’ choice to self-drive or be driver-driven. Semi-structured interviews were...

Urban planners and other stakeholders often view trees as the ultimate panacea for mitigating urban heat stress; however, their cooling efficacy varies globally and is influenced by three primary factors: tree traits, urban morphology, and climate conditions. This study analyzes 182 studies on the cooling effects of urban trees across 17 climates i...

Focusing specifically on the gender–climate–health nexus, this Personal View builds on existing feminist works and analyses to discuss why intersectional approaches to climate policy and inclusive representation in climate decision making are crucial for achieving just and equitable solutions to address the impacts of climate change on human health...

Background Global south faces detrimental impacts of climate change, particularly the escalation of extreme heat and the heightened prevalence of vector-borne diseases. Building-level risk mitigation strategies frequently exhibit synergistic or conflicting effects on the two-fold risk. This research investigates health risks posed by indoor heat an...

Energy performance certificate (EPC) and thermal infrared (TIR) images both play a key role in the energy performance mapping of the urban building stock. In this paper, we developed parametric building archetypes using an EPC database and conducted temperature clustering on TIR images acquired through drones and satellite datasets. We evaluated 17...

Redevelopment of low-income settlements by re-densifying cities is a common approach in the Global South to improve living conditions and tackle the housing shortage. However, the effectiveness of the housing design in redevelopment schemes remains to be questioned. This study evaluates a proposed design of a slum redevelopment project in Mumbai, I...

Are women at higher relative risk of mortality from the effects of climate change and global warming than men? Does sociocultural context matter? The evidence from the existing literature suggests this may be true in the global north, but the findings from studies in the global south are not so clear. We employ 30 years of extreme-temperature-relat...

Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment may challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science society nexus across different cultural contexts,...

Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public...

The indoor environment in office spaces has a significant impact on occupants’ health, satisfaction, well-being and productivity. The use of co-working space is rising as a potential alternative workspace post pandemic to respond to the preference for hybrid and flexible working. Hence, it is imperative to understand how the space planning and desi...

Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic 1,2. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low pub...

Rapid increases in heat exposure in urban areas, fueled by both climate change and urban heat islands (UHI), are manifesting as a pressing concern. Planting and conserving urban trees is one of the pivotal strategies in mitigating outdoor heat and optimizing thermal comfort. We present an integrated review and meta-analysis of 131 studies conducted...

Rapid increases in heat exposure in urban areas, fueled by both climate change and urban heat islands (UHI), are manifesting as a pressing concern. Planting and conserving urban trees is one of the pivotal strategies in mitigating outdoor heat and optimizing thermal comfort. We present an integrated review and meta-analysis of 131 studies conducted...

Rapid increases in heat exposure in urban areas, fueled by both climate change and urban heat islands (UHI), are manifesting as a pressing concern. Planting and conserving urban trees is one of the pivotal strategies in mitigating outdoor heat and optimizing thermal comfort. We present an integrated review and meta-analysis of 131 studies conducted...

Nowadays, cities are frequently exposed to heatwaves, worsening outdoor thermal comfort and increasing cooling energy demand in summer. Urban forestry is seen as one of the viable and preferable solutions to combat extreme heat events and urban heat island (UHI) in times of climate change. While many cities have initiated tree-planting programs in...

Rising demand for space cooling has been placing enormous strain on various technological, environmental, and societal dimensions, resulting in issues related to energy consumption, environmental sustainability, health and well-being, affordability, and equity. Holistic approaches that combine energy efficiency optimization, policy-making, and soci...

The future of workspace is significantly shaped by the advancements in technologies, changes in work patterns and workers’ desire for an improved well-being. Co-working space is an alternative workspace solution, for cost-effectiveness, the opportunity for diverse and flexible design and multi-use. This study examined the human-centric design choic...

Cross-ventilation is inadequate in double-loaded inexpensive flats, especially on the leeward side of the structures, widespread in tropical developing nations. Using validated CFD models, this work attempts to parametrically assess closed-vertical void designs to optimise the ventilation efficiency of a double-loaded apartment building. The aspect...

In low-income neighbourhoods in the global south, heat disproportionately affects the health of women (see, for example, J. Malik and R. Bardhan Energy Build. 281, 112756; 2023), so simply providing more shade will not be enough (see V. K. Turner et al. Nature 619, 694–697; 2023). To protect women against heatwaves, their everyday sociocultural rea...

In India, slums have undergone a transformational process since the 1950s when independent India started incorporating Slums within the urban policy. After 75 years of several slum amenable policies, India’s current solution to control slums is slum rehabilitation housing (SRH). This chapter takes a deeper look at the why? How? What? and What-ifs o...

Due to the unprecedented burdens on public health, agriculture, and other socio-economic and cultural systems, climate change-induced heatwaves in India can hinder or reverse the country’s progress in fulfilling the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Moreover, the Indian government’s reliance on its Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI), which may u...

With rapid urbanization and massive low-income housing construction, Kenya is under severe risks of indoor and outdoor overheating, which is commonly seen as an accelerator of transmission and geographical expansion of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria. This study uses computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation to investigate the indoor heat...

(1) Background: Primary health care institutions (PHCI) play an important role in reducing health inequities and achieving universal health coverage. However, despite the increasing inputs of healthcare resources in China, the proportion of patient visits in PHCI keeps declining. In 2020, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic further exerted a severe...

This brief communication interprets three decades' evolution of building cooling demand of urban and rural areas through the lens of five representative cities, i.e., Hong Kong, Sydney, Montreal, Zurich, and London. The upward trend and extremes in building cooling demand, estimated from cooling degree hours (CDH) using meteorological data from 199...

Nowadays, cities are frequently exposed to heatwaves, worsening the outdoor thermal comfort and increasing cooling energy demand in summer. Urban forestry is seen as one of the viable and preferable solutions to combating extreme heat events and urban heat island (UHI) in times of climate change. While many cities have initiated tree-planting progr...

Urban trees play a crucial role in urban climate in many aspects. However, existing research has not adequately explored the impact from a time-evolving perspective, that is, tree growth over time. To bridge this research gap, this study investigates in a wind tunnel the effects of tree-to-canyon foliage cover and relative height (0.32-1.1 times ca...

Urban areas are experiencing excessive heating. Addressing the heat is a challenging but essential task where not only engineering and climatic knowledge matters but also a deep understanding of social and economic dimensions. We synthesize the state of the art in heat mitigation technologies and develop an 'ITE index' framework that evaluates the...

Beating excessive urban heat calls for a whole-system approach, where several individual mitigation measures have to be implemented together. We assess the use of green walls, green roofs, reflective roofs, thermally efficient buildings, high-efficiency indoor cooling, urban forestry, evaporative pavement, and constructed shade for directly reducin...

The nexus of thermal comfort, affordability, and resilient buildings is receiving great attention in the rapidly urbanizing world. Understanding the thermal comfort needs, and preferences of the low-income population are crucial in developing an equitable approach to fight climate change and meet sustainable development goals. However, thermal comf...

The supplementary data consists of two PDF files, the first of which contains the foundation and (re)construction years of the 107 selected courtyards in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and the second of which provides the UTCI and air temperature maps at 1.5 m height from the validated ENVI-met models.

The building and construction sector accounts for around 39% of global carbon dioxide emissions and remains a hard-to-abate sector. We use a data-driven analysis of global high-level climate action on emissions reduction in the building sector using 256,717 English-language tweets across a 13-year time frame (2009–2021). Using natural language proc...

Hybrid working has reshaped people’s routines and working habits, while the workplace needs to evolve with the new working pattern. Co-working space is seen as an alternative work environment, for cost-effectiveness, the opportunity for flexible design and multi- use. This study investigates the occupancy patterns and occupants’ behaviour using mul...

The dynamic thermal conditions profoundly impact on the quality of physical, cultural, and social experiences in courtyard spaces. This research aims to identify the microclimatic dissimilarities between courtyards in terms of tempering seasonal–diurnal thermal extremes and enriching ground-level thermal textures. The methodology included field mea...

The work pattern has been reshaped towards a hybrid style since the lockdown in the pandemic, while the office design needs to be evolved with the change in working mode. It is important to understand how to design the workspace to meet the new demand. This study investigates the environmental performance of a flexible co-working space in London by...

Provision of affordable housing and energy access is an urgent challenge in India and South Africa. This study adopts a participatory filmmaking approach to understand women’s agency in low-income domestic housing in Mumbai and Cape Town. Through their films, the women shared insights of how the transitional housing environment has impacted their e...

Climate change is a global problem, but climate solutions primarily need to be deployed at a local level. Local stakeholders play a vital role in taking decisive action to meet national and international climate targets. Effective local, regional and national policy and governance frameworks are needed. During the 2021-2022 academic year, the Cambr...

This paper introduces a database of 34 field-measured building occupant behavior datasets collected from 15 countries and 39 institutions across 10 climatic zones covering various building types in both commercial and residential sectors. This is a comprehensive global database about building occupant behavior. The database includes occupancy patte...

This study set out to understand the dynamics of human thermal sensation and perception associated with outdoor thermal variability in urban contexts. Previous studies found that compact urban forms and green features can contribute to urban climate diversity, and conjectured whether the wax and wane of thermal stress can promote thermal satisfacti...

The pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) at the beginning of 2020 has restricted the human population indoor with some allowance for recreation in green spaces for social interaction and daily exercise. Understanding and measuring the risk of COVID-19 infection during public urban green spaces (PUGS) visits is essential to reduce the spread of...

The social well-being and health of the occupants of low-income housing depends not just on improved infrastructure and security of tenure but also on neighbourhood and apartment design characteristics. This study compares 14 best-practice habitat design models for low-income mass housing in nine Indian states, with Dharavi slum and slum rehabs in...

Does concrete have to be used widely? Given the large amounts of GHGs generated by concrete, what alternative materials and design optimisations exist? Ronita Bardhan (University of Cambridge) and Ramit Debnath (University of Cambridge) discuss some options for how we can immediately reduce concrete consumption. Link: https://www.buildingsandcitie...

This study evaluates the effect of complete nationwide lockdown in 2020 on residential electricity demand across 13 Indian cities and the role of digitalisation using a public smart meter dataset. We undertake a data-driven approach to explore the energy impacts of work-from-home norms across five dwelling typologies. Our methodology includes clima...

Double-loaded affordable apartments, which are commonly seen in tropical developing countries, suffer from poor cross-ventilation, particularly on the leeward side of the buildings. This study aims to parametrically evaluate closed-vertical void configurations to improve the ventilation performance of the double-loaded apartment building using the...

Rapid urbanization pressure and poverty have created a push for affordable housing within the global south. The design of affordable housing can have consequences on the thermal (dis)comfort and behaviour of the occupants, hence requiring an occupant-centric approach to ensure sustainability. This paper investigates occupant behaviour within the ur...

This working paper is an evidence submitted to the Royal Institution for British Architects that makes the case that the built environment must drastically reduce its carbon emissions to work towards net zero. Here we advocate for climate repair through the built environment by decarbonising UK’s building sector through both improved energy efficie...

Like many countries of rapid urbanisation, Ethiopia has an acute low-income housing shortage. Ethiopia’s Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) can be seen as an attempt to innovate low-income housing provision. Over 200,000 IHDP units have been built since 2005. Drawing from a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) survey in Amhara region, this...

International Energy Agency https://www.iea.org/articles/better-energy-efficiency-policy-with-digital-tools

The global pandemic has reshaped the use of working space dramatically, mainly due to the implementation of the working from home policy and indoor social distancing requirements. This calls for the rethinking of the current office design approaches and the proposal of specific design strategies to provide a safer and healthier environment for empl...

The microclimate shaped by urban form is one of the critical determinants for the success of public spaces. To date, hundreds of studies have revealed the potential of mitigating heat and cold stresses by spatial-enclosure strategies to reduce thermal discomfort. However, most of them have placed more emphasis on taming the thermal extremes, rather...

While public green spaces (PGS) are opined to be central in the pandemic recovery, higher accessibility to PGS also mean a higher risk of infection spread from the raised possibility of people encountering each other. This study explores the distributive effects of accessibility of PGS on the COVID-19 cases distribution using a geo-spatially varyin...

Thermal comfort actions in low-income group (LIG) housing are often dictated by the adaptive occupant behaviour coupled with socio-economic and socio-cultural regimes. This work aimed at exploring the influence of occupant behaviour on thermal comfort improvements within the slum rehabilitation housing located in Mumbai, India. The study focused on...

Indoor thermal comfort is critical to building sustainability besides improving occupants’ health, well-being and productivity. However, the applicability of existing comfort standards within different climatic conditions and contextual settings is often in question. This study presents the findings from a longitudinal thermal comfort study conduct...

Infrastructure systems are primarily located in urban areas. The urban climate is often different from the surrounding rural climate. It is generally warmer, rainier, less windy and more polluted. This means that more drastic effects of changing climate will be experienced by the urban infrastructure systems than the surrounding areas (Krayenhoff e...

A transverse field study was conducted in 1216 slum rehabilitation housing units of Mumbai to understand the occupant behaviour towards thermal comfort and energy consumption. The data were analysed using a structural equation modelling approach to investigate the effects of occupant factors on thermal comfort perception within the low-income popul...

Daylight and ventilation effective design guidelines remain under-researched in the current habitat design policies of India. This study is of its first kind where environmental metrics and occupant health status were investigated together in the recently developed two hyperdense multirise slum rehabilitation housing (SRH) of Mumbai. A mixed-mode r...

The low-income housing of dense metropolitan cities focuses solely on occupancy maximization, thus significantly neglecting indoor livability parameters energy-saving potential and daylight efficiency. The existing unit designs lack rational insight on fenestration detailing window size and location, which, when modified, impacts the indoor dayligh...

Slum rehabilitation housing (SRH) are critical transitional spaces in urban informality that has deep-rooted implications on poverty alleviation efforts. However, current literature reports systemic injustices in SRH on access to essential services, including energy injustices. This study investigated distributive injustices in the SRH across three...

Double-loaded affordable apartments are commonly seen in tropical developing countries to maximize total floor areas. However, the double-loaded apartments would possibly cause poor cross-ventilation, particularly on the leeward side of the buildings. This study aims to propose an alternative design for double-loaded affordable apartments for effic...

This article aims to exhibit the potential of natural ventilation (nat-vent) as a passive cooling method within the low-income tenement units in tropical climatic regions using Mumbai as a case example. Furthermore, it also highlights the significance of interior design and optimized location of ‘active zone’ in delivering improved experiential nat...

The thermal environment in Recreational Open Spaces (ROS) is primarily a result of the surrounding built form which includes buildings, trees, and surface treatment materials. To study the impact of land surface treatment choice and urban form on the thermal characteristics of open spaces, a case study assessment was undertaken in the dense urban c...

Like many countries of rapid urbanisation, Ethiopia has an acute low-income housing shortage. Ethiopia�s Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) can be seen as an attempt to innovate low-income housing provision. Over 200,000 IHDP units have been built since 2005. Drawing from a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) survey in Amhara region, this...

Slum rehabilitation housing (SRH) are critical transitional spaces in urban informality that has deep-rooted implications on poverty alleviation efforts. However, current literature reports systemic injustices in SRH on access to essential services, including energy injustices. This study investigated distributive injustices in the SRH across three...

Land use compatibility has always remained an integrally crucial factor for city development. Traditional contentious theories integrating land use planning principles, demand-oriented market development and industry-induced air pollution regulations have debated the adjacency of residential and industrial land uses. However, in the event of inevit...