Development & Climate Change (DCC)
Research Group:
Development and Climate Change (DCC: research group) is set-up to address contemporary challenges in the development sector, importantly from climate change and environment prospective. As, development and environment interact in powerful ways, a series of research projects are underway by individual researchers at the department to investigate national and transnational development challenges to development e.g., disasters, forced migration and diasporas; socio-economic and politico-cultural dynamics of climate change, mitigation and adaptation strategies, poverty, society and culture, human health etc. Furthermore, the research team is engaged in investigating the main causes of environmental degradation, and climate change threats to humans, economy and society. Both basic and applied researches not only find out cases but also propose mitigative and adoptive (resilience and conservation) techniques to address the ever rising issues.
DCC Research Group has an interdisciplinary team, supervised by:
Dr. Umer Khayyam (PhD University of Münster, Germany)
Mrs. Sheeba Farooq (MS University of Reading, UK)
Funded Research Projects in DCC:
- Title & Time Period: The Pakistan Publishing and Mentoring Workshop – Tackling Climate Change Challenges in Pakistan, September 13-17, 2021.
Funding Body & Ref. No: The British Academy & Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), WW20200132
Worth & Role: PKR 4.0m./GBP 19,710. Dr. Umer Khayyam-Co-PI.
Description: It’s a four-day workshop based on interdisciplinary group of early-career Pakistani researchers engaged in research on the topic; climate change vulnerability in Pakistan. The objectives of the workshop were to; build writing capacity amongst local Pakistani researchers, conduct peer review and writing mentorship, and produce a special issue geared toward the journal of Climate and Development. It was also to build connections between Pakistani-UK (Oxford) researchers to foster ongoing academic exchange, collaboration and mentorship to bridge the research deficit and equip local researchers to apply for global grants and to add their voice to the global disciplinary debates on climate change
2. Title: Health Concerns of the Textile Weaving Workers and Associated Community. Year 2018-19.
Funding Body and Ref.: HEC Pakistan (TRGP.1-HEC/HRD/HAS/SS/2017/17369)
Worth & Role: PKR 3.0 m./USD 20,000. Mrs. Sheeba Farooq-Co-PI.
Description: Textile industry’s share in total exports of Pakistan is 60% and this sector contributes 27% of industrial value addition. Major chunk (40%) of the industrial labor force in Pakistan is employed in textile industry. Moreover, this sector contributes 9.5% to the GDP of the country. Pakistan is ranked fourth among the largest producers of cotton and third largest consumer. Overall, the textile sector in district Kasur comprises of 8000 looms, 43416 rotors and 1391269 spindles (Pre-Investment Study- District Kasur, 2009). Most of the power looms unit are small and the infrastructure does not provide aseptic environment to workers in the weaving industry. Bad lighted environment, cotton dust and noise are considered responsible for bad health effects among the worker in the weaving industry and in the associated community. The scarce literature on occupational health in weaving industry of Pakistan highlights only the few associated diseases among the workers of weaving industry without comparing with the control group or without controlling for the confounding factors. There is hardly any study available which studies the impact of ambient particulate matter (cotton dust) on the health of associated community. This study is aiming to bridge this gap in literature by (i) comparing the treatment group (weaving industry workers) with the control group and (ii) studying the impact on the associated community.
3. Title: Adaptation to Climate Change: Building Resistant Livelihood for the Vulnerable Communities of Hazara and Malakand Division of KPK, Pakistan. Year 2017-19.
Funding Body & Ref. No: HEC Pakistan (TRGP.1-HEC/HRD/HAS/SS/2017/17369)
Worth & Role: PKR 3.7m./USD 23,000. Dr. Umer Khayyam-PI and Mrs. Sheeba Farooq- Co-PI.
Description: The aim of this research project was to analyse the adverse effects of flooding on the livelihood, and economic status and rise in poverty amongst the poor community in (11 districts) of Hazara and Malakand Division, KP Pakistan. Also, the study has examined local mitigation strategies and institutional response to increase resilient of the effected communities.
[Since 2017, over 30 individual research projects/theses are successfully completed in the domain. The extracted research papers are published/under-review in peer-review/HEC Pak. Recognised journals, locally and globally].