Dr Arjun Rao

Bio

Researcher in flood resilience and informal settlements, working with community-led planning.

Dr Arjun Rao is a Senior Research Fellow studying flood resilience in fast-growing cities, with a particular focus on the informal settlements that bear the heaviest burden when waters rise. He works alongside community planners in Jakarta to understand how neighbourhoods already adapt, and how natural infrastructure can strengthen those responses.

His fieldwork combines hydraulic modelling with participatory mapping, so that the people living with flooding help shape where drainage, retention ponds, and restored wetlands go. The aim is evidence that holds up scientifically and still reflects how a place actually floods.

Researchers and community organisations interested in his flood-resilience work can contact him at a.rao@ntu.edu.sg.