Ashraful Alam

Dr. Ashraful Alam

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Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

14Years (2013-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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16 September 2019 in Land
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
SAsanjana ahmed
sanjana ahmed
Mahbubur MeenarMahbubur Meenar
Mahbubur Meenar
AAAshraful Alam
Ashraful Alam
In a warming world, urban environmental stresses are exacerbated by population-increase-induced development of grey infrastructure that usually leaves minimal scope for blue (and green) elements and processes, potentially resulting in mismanagement of stormwater and flooding issues. This paper explores how urban growth planning in the megacity of Dhaka, Bangladesh can be guided by a blue-green infrastructure (BGI) network that combines blue, green, and grey elements together to provide a multifunctional urban form. We take a three-step approach: First, we analyze the existing spatial morphology to understand potential locations of development and challenges, as well as the types of solutions necessary for water management in different typologies of urban densities. Next, we analyze existing and potential blue and green network locations. Finally, we propose the structural framework for a BGI network at both macro and micro scales. The proposed network takes different forms at different scales and locations and offers different types of flood control and stormwater management options. These can provide directions on Dhaka’s future urban consolidation and expansion with a balance of man-made and natural elements and enable environmental, social, spatial, financial, and governance benefits. The paper concludes with some practical implications and challenges for implementing BGI in Dhaka.


9 June 2020 in Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
DRDallas Rogers
Dallas Rogers
MHMiles Herbert
Miles Herbert
CWCarolyn Whitzman
Carolyn Whitzman
EMEugene McCann
Eugene McCann
PMPaul J. Maginn
Paul J. Maginn
SCSusan Caldis
Susan Caldis
This critical commentary reflects on a rapidly mobilised international podcast project, in which 25 urban scholars from around the world provided audio recordings about their cities during COVID‐19. New digital tools are increasing the speeds, formats and breadth of the research and communication mediums available to researchers. Voice recorders on mobile phones and digital audio editing on laptops allows researchers to collaborate in new ways, and this podcast project pushed at the boundaries of what a research method and community might be. Many of those who provided short audio 'reports from the field' recorded on their mobile phones were struggling to make sense of their experience in their city during COVID‐19. The substantive sections of this commentary discuss the digital methodology opportunities that podcasting affords geographical scholarship. In this case the methodology includes the curated production of the podcast and critical reflection on the podcast process through collaborative writing. Then putting this methodology into action some limited reflections on cities under COVID‐19 lockdown and social distancing initiatives around the world are provided to demonstrate the utility and limitations of this method.

17 February 2020 in Housing Studies
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
AAAshraful Alam
Ashraful Alam
AMAndrew McGregor
Andrew McGregor
DHDonna Houston
Donna Houston
The paper contributes to the growing research on relational thinking about housing and home by exploring the informal homes of rural migrants in Khulna city, Bangladesh. The concept of ‘unbounding’ is used to trace the fluidity and connections established between migrant homes and neighbourhood socio-ecologies. Walking interviews exploring women’s livelihoods reveal that different expendable agencies of the urban environment (e.g. trash, weeds and animal excreta) create conditions for labour in which migrant women hold specific competencies to secure essential resources for home. Unbounding positions home within a socio-ecology of multiple houses that women traverse to support their urban living. The approach offers opportunities to examine the unique ways urban homeless populations strategically as well as affectively engage with under-recognized agencies and actors in informal settlements. Unbounding provides a useful lens with which to raise new conceptual and empirical questions about housing and home in relation to the city that contributes to the homes and livelihoods of marginalized populations.

13 October 2022 in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
AAAshraful Alam
Ashraful Alam
MKMomtaj Bintay Khalil
Momtaj Bintay Khalil

4 November 2018 in Social & Cultural Geography
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
AAAshraful Alam
Ashraful Alam
AMAndrew McGregor
Andrew McGregor
DHDonna Houston
Donna Houston
More-than-human relations have gained much attention in the study of home and homemaking in Western contexts. We contribute to and geographically expand this growing literature by focusing on informal homes established by climate migrants living in the urban fringes of Khulna city, Bangladesh. To explore these precarious dwellings we develop a more-than-human approach, focusing upon the agencies and relations of plants, animals and elements of nature in securing homes. We focus on the more-than-human imaginaries that bring together human and non-human bodies and contribute to the conditions and capacities of homemaking. We have identified three dominant imaginaries (aesthetic, spiritual and economic) through which homes are produced and maintained. These imaginaries inform the material dimensions of migrant home-ecologies in unconventional but important ways, influencing the production of internal and external spaces. We conclude that reimagining non-humans as co-constituting home provides unique insights into the diverse strategies and experiences of marginalized communities and their socio-ecological complexities in urban space. Thinking through cities and their uneven metabolic processes in this way can generate innovative approaches for engaging with marginalized people in the urban fringe.