A Kashmir student at Jamia Millia Islamia University has been awarded the 2020 Global Urban Thesis Award by Netherlands based DAIDA foundation for his research on water management and traditional water systems (Khul) in Srinagar city.
Syed Suhaib Naqshbandi is among the four who have been awarded for their research around the year’s theme of water and development.
He shares his award with Jui Yi Hung of KU Leuven University in Belgium.
Suhaib’s research focuses on re-establishing the linkages of water-system in Srinagar City. The research delineates the traditional water systems in Srinagar, and how “the same evolved as the indigenous mechanism of flood control across Valley of Kashmir.”
“Traditional Adaptive landscape strategies of; linking the different water bodies by digging waterways locally called as (Khuls) and reserving land parcels to act as wetland during high water yield, has evolved as the indigenous mechanism of flood control across Valley of Kashmir,” reads the explanatory note about Suhaib’s research on the website of Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (HIS), Erasmus University Rotterdam.
The Award, according to the website, aims to acknowledge and support master graduates who, through their work, help improve the urban infrastructure and living conditions for vulnerable groups in the rapidly growing cities of developing economies.
