Anu Ramaswami
Biographic Data
| ID | 4401172 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anu Ramaswami |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anu |
| FAMILY NAME | Ramaswami |
| SIGNATURE | RAMASWAMI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Minnesota |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0476-2315 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 49 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 99 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The urban burden of disease in India
This study—for the first time—quantifies multiple health risks across 40 + Indian cities associated with seven key physical provisioning systems—energy (cooking fuels), mobility, housing, water and sanitation, food, and greenery—and compares them with national risk profiles. We harmonize diverse urban-scale datasets to estimate premature mortality per 100,000 population from diverse risk factors including inadequate infrastructure, environmental …
Quantifying the impact of urban physical provisioning systems and environmental attributes on subjective wellbeing
Quantitatively understanding how physical provisioning systems (energy, mobility, shelter, water, waste management, greenery) and environmental conditions (pollution, noise, extreme heat) shape subjective well-being (SWB) is central to decoupling human well-being from natural resource use, especially in urban areas where most of the world’s population resides. Yet, large-N urban surveys that measure both evaluative and emotional SWB and methods t…
Do larger homes improve human well-being? Insights from India and U.S. cities
Unpacking the Association of Multiple Urban Infrastructures with Subjective Well-Being
Planners seek to understand how physical infrastructure and social provisioning systems shape subjective well-being (SWB) of urban residents. However, unpacking this relationship has been challenging due to complex social, ecological, and infrastructural linkages, and the use of different measures of well-being across diverse studies. In this paper, for the first time, we compare three measures of evaluative and emotional SWB employing a consiste…
Right-scaling and scaling-up knowledge co-production for decarbonization, climate-resilience and equity through [multilevel] metropolitan climate action planning
Quantifying US metropolitan level environmental burdens & benefits from greater localization of vegetable farming
Several US urban food action plans propose increasing local and regional vegetable production for the presumed environmental and nutritional benefits. However, such efforts, if applied nationwide, can propagate environmental benefits or disbenefits to other geographies that have not been previously evaluated. Our paper quantifies the environmental benefits and disbenefits at the metropolitan scale nationwide from various localization scenarios ra…
Studying extreme heat and social inequality in Global South cities
Comparing happiness associated with household and community gardening
Municipal food action planning promotes local food production based on presumed environmental, health, equity, and well-being benefits. However, little is known about the well-being benefits of household versus community-scale agricultural gardening. This exploratory study in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, USA, presents a first direct comparison of happiness (net affect, average happiness, and average meaningfulness) associated with agricultural …
Urban circular carbon economy through electrochemically influenced microbiomes
Food waste and wastewater are two of the largest carbon streams in urban systems and have huge potential in waste carbon valorization and carbon circularity, which are vital to achieving net-zero emissions goals. Conventional waste treatment practices, however, largely fail to realize the potential and often create additional socio-environmental externalities. Microbiome-based waste recovery, particularly electrochemically influenced processes li…
Exploring income and racial inequality in preparedness for Hurricane Ida (2021)
Preparedness for adverse events is critical to building urban resilience to climate-related risks. While most extant studies investigate preparedness patterns based on survey data, this study explores the potential of big digital footprint data (i.e. population visits to points of interest (POI)) to investigate preparedness patterns in the real case of Hurricane Ida (2021). We further investigate income and racial inequality in preparedness by co…
Data innovation in industrial ecology
A data framework for assessing social inequality and equity in multi‐sector social, ecological, infrastructural urban systems
Cities are increasingly advancing multiple societal goals related to environmental sustainability, health, well‐being, and equity. However, there are few comprehensive data sets that address social inequality and equity across multiple infrastructure sectors, determinants, and outcomes, particularly at fine intra‐urban spatial scales. This paper: (1) Offers an overarching conceptualization of inequality and equity in multi‐sector urban systems; (…
County-level analysis of current local capacity of agriculture to meet household demand
With the goal of informing local food-action planning, this paper develops the first county-level database detailing agrifood consumption and production across 3114 counties in the United States. The database covers 12 070 food items that comprise the entire diet, mapping them to the production demand of 95 agrifood commodities. Agrifood demand is delineated further into fresh and processed components, along with characterization of animal feed, …
Socially-differentiated urban metabolism methodology informs equity in coupled carbon-air pollution mitigation strategies
A differentiated urban metabolism methodology is developed to quantify inequality and inform social equity in urban infrastructure strategies aimed at mitigating local in-boundary PM2.5 and co-beneficially reducing transboundary greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The method differentiates community-wide local PM2.5 and transboundary GHG emission contributions by households of different income strata, alongside commercial and industrial activities. A…
Carbon analytics for net-zero emissions sustainable cities
Understanding subjective well-being
Is gardening associated with greater happiness of urban residents? A multi-activity, dynamic assessment in the Twin-Cities region, USA
As cities seek to become more livable and environment-friendly, activities like bicycling, walking, and urban gardening (household and community-gardening) are receiving much attention. However, few field studies have measured well-being of urban gardening, particularly during household gardening. Our study develops protocols to measure emotional well-being (EWB) reported during household gardening, comparing it with other leisure and day-to-day …
Comparing urban food system characteristics and actions in US and Indian cities from a multi‐environmental impact perspective
Food action plans in many global cities articulate interest in multiple objectives including reducing in‐ and trans‐boundary environmental impacts (water, land, greenhouse gas (GHG)). However, there exist few standardized analytical tools to compare food system characteristics and actions across cities and countries to assess trade‐offs between multiple objectives (i.e., health, equity) with environmental outcomes. This paper demonstrates a strea…
Unpacking the Urban Infrastructure Nexus with Environment, Health, Livability, Well-Being, and Equity
Urban food–energy–water systems
With the majority of the world's population living in urban areas, cities now drive global flows of food, energy, and water, with unprecedented implications for the sustainability of the planet and its people. This focus issue presents research on the nexus between food, energy, and water (FEW), as it relates to urban areas, broadly conceived. The eight papers in this issue are interdisciplinary, multiscalar, and cross-sectoral as they consider t…
Exploring the Nonlinear Relationship between the Built Environment and Active Travel in the Twin Cities
Active travel is important to public health and the environment. Previous studies substantiate built environment influences active travel, but they seldom assess its overall contribution. Most of the studies assume that built environment characteristics have linear associations with active travel. This study uses Gradient Boosting Decision Trees to explore nonlinear relationships between the built environment and active travel in the Twin Cities.…
Examining threshold effects of built environment elements on travel-related carbon-dioxide emissions
Industrial symbiosis potential and urban infrastructure capacity in Mysuru, India
If the material intensive enterprises in an urban area of several million people shared physical resources that might otherwise be wasted, what environmental and public benefits would result? This study develops an algorithm based on lifecycle assessment tools for determining a city’s industrial symbiosis potential —that is, the sum of the wastes and byproducts from a city’s industrial enterprises that could reasonably serve as resource inputs to…
Impact of the Economic Structure of Cities on Urban Scaling Factors
We explore the population‐scaling and gross domestic product (GDP)‐scaling relationships of material and energy flow (MEF) parameters in different city types based on economic structure. Using migration‐corrected population data, we classify 233 Chinese city propers ( Shiqu ) as “highly industrial” (share of secondary GDP exceeds 63.9%), “highly commercial” (share of tertiary GDP exceeds 52.6%), and “mixed‐economy” (the remaining cities). We find…
Resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India
This paper develops a methodology to assess the resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India and compares those requirements to current community-wide material and energy flows. Methods include: (a) identifying minimum service level benchmarks for the provision of infrastructure services including housing, electricity and clean cooking fuels; (b) assessing the percentage of homes that lack access to infrastructure or that consume…
Regional Governance and Institutional Collective Action for Environmental Sustainability
This research investigates why various mechanisms of cooperation among local authorities are chosen using the theoretical lens of institutional collective action ( ICA ). The article analyzes 564 local collaboration agreements drawn from four urban regions of China to explain the choices of environmental collaboration agreements among cities. Examples of three forms of interlocal agreements—informal, formal, and imposed agreements—are analyzed. O…
Exploring the Nonlinear Relationship between the Built Environment and Active Travel in the Twin Cities
Active travel is important to public health and the environment. Previous studies substantiate built environment influences active travel, but they seldom assess its overall contribution. Most of the studies assume that built environment characteristics have linear associations with active travel. This study uses Gradient Boosting Decision Trees to explore nonlinear relationships between the built environment and active travel in the Twin Cities.…
Patterns of urban infrastructure capital investment in Chinese cities and explanation through a political market lens
Cities across the developing world have experienced great challenges in making sufficient capital investment in urban infrastructure (CIUI) during periods of rapid urbanization, yet this phenomenon has captured little academic attention. Focusing on Chinese cities, this study analyzed the investment patterns at the temporal, sectoral, and spatial scales and investigated the drivers through the lens of the political market framework. China’s natio…
Carbon analytics for net-zero emissions sustainable cities
A novel analysis of consumption-based carbon footprints in China
Exploring health outcomes as a motivator for low-carbon city development
Integrated Environmental Assessment
A Demand-Centered, Hybrid Life-Cycle Methodology for City-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories
Greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting for individual cities is confounded by spatial scale and boundary effects that impact the allocation of regional material and energy flows. This paper develops a demand-centered, hybrid life-cycle-based methodology for conducting city-scale GHG inventories that incorporates (1) spatial allocation of surface and airline travel across colocated cities in larger metropolitan regions, and, (2) life-cycle assessment (LC…
Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Global Cities
The world's population is now over 50% urban, and cities make an important contribution to national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Many cities are developing strategies to reduce their emissions. Here we ask how and why emissions differ between cities. Our study often global cities shows how a balance of geophysical factors (climate, access to resources, and gateway status) and technical factors (power generation, urban design, and waste process…
Greenhouse Gas Emission Footprints and Energy Use Benchmarks for Eight U.S. Cities
A hybrid life cycle-based trans-boundary greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions footprint is elucidated at the city-scale and evaluated for 8 US cities. The method incorporates end-uses of energy within city boundaries, plus cross-boundary demand for airline/freight transport and embodied energy of four key urban materials [food, water, energy (fuels), and shelter (cement)], essential for life in all cities. These cross-boundary activities contributed 47…
Methodology for inventorying greenhouse gas emissions from global cities
Sustainable Urban Systems
Implementing Trans‐Boundary Infrastructure‐Based Greenhouse Gas Accounting for Delhi, India
Community‐wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting is confounded by the relatively small spatial size of cities compared to nations—due to which, energy use in essential infrastructures serving cities, such as commuter and airline transport, energy supply, water supply, wastewater infrastructures, and others, often occurs outside the boundaries of the cities using them. The trans‐boundary infrastructure supply chain footprint (TBIF) GHG emi…
Carbon Footprinting of Cities and Implications for Analysis of Urban Material and Energy Flows
A Social‐Ecological‐Infrastructural Systems Framework for Interdisciplinary Study of Sustainable City Systems
Cities are embedded within larger‐scale engineered infrastructures (e.g., electric power, water supply, and transportation networks) that convey natural resources over large distances for use by people in cities. The sustainability of city systems therefore depends upon complex, cross‐scale interactions between the natural system, the transboundary engineered infrastructures, and the multiple social actors and institutions that govern these infra…
Translating Research to Policy for Sustainable Cities
What metrics best reflect the energy and carbon intensity of cities? Insights from theory and modeling of 20 US cities
Three broad approaches have emerged for energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting for individual cities: (a) purely in-boundary source-based accounting (IB); (b) community-wide infrastructure GHG emissions footprinting (CIF) incorporating life cycle GHGs (in-boundary plus trans-boundary) of key infrastructures providing water, energy, food, shelter, mobility–connectivity, waste management/sanitation and public amenities to support community-wide…
Exploring health outcomes as a motivator for low-carbon city development
The Water Withdrawal Footprint of Energy Supply to Cities
Water footprints traditionally estimate water lost as a result of evapotranspiration (or otherwise unavailable for downstream uses) associated with producing a certain good, and the same embodied in trade across regions is used to estimate regional and national water footprints. These footprints, however, do not address risk posed to city energy supplies characterized by insufficient streamflow to support energy production, such as cooling water …
Tracking urban carbon footprints from production and consumption perspectives
Cities are hotspots of socio-economic activities and greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this study was to extend the research range of the urban carbon footprint (CF) to cover emissions embodied in products traded among regions and intra-city sectors. Using Xiamen City as a study case, the total urban-related emissions were evaluated, and the carbon flows among regions and intra-city sectors were tracked. Then five urban CF accountings were eva…
The ‘thirsty’ water-electricity nexus
There is a lack of field data on the water withdrawal and consumption intensity of thermoelectric power plants in China. With China’s ambitious electricity capacity expansion and ever-growing water deficit, the overlooked water dimension of thermoelectric power generation could soon have significant water sustainability implications, and field data on water intensity of thermoelectric power plants will be essential to further our understanding of…
Meta-principles for developing smart, sustainable, and healthy cities
Policy directives in several nations are focusing on the development of smart cities, linking innovations in the data sciences with the goal of advancing human well-being and sustainability on a highly urbanized planet. To achieve this goal, smart initiatives must move beyond city-level data to a higher-order understanding of cities as transboundary, multisectoral, multiscalar, social-ecological-infrastructural systems with diverse actors, priori…
Municipal solid waste and dung cake burning
The Taj Mahal—an iconic World Heritage monument built of white marble—has become discolored with time, due, in part, to high levels of particulate matter (PM) soiling its surface (Bergin et al 2015 Environ. Sci. Technol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es504005q 49 http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es504005q ). Such discoloration has required extensive and costly treatment (2015 Two Hundred Sixty Second Report on Effects of Pollution on Taj Parliament of India…
A novel analysis of consumption-based carbon footprints in China
An urban systems framework to assess the trans-boundary food-energy-water nexus
This paper develops a generalizable systems framework to analyze the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus from an urban systems perspective, connecting in- and trans-boundary interactions, quantifying multiple environmental impacts of community-wide FEW provisioning to cities, and visualizing FEW supply-chain risks posed to cities by the environment. Delhi’s community-wide food demand includes household consumption by socio-economic-strata, visitors- an…
Wastewater treatment and reuse in urban agriculture
Nutrients and water found in domestic treated wastewater are valuable and can be reutilized in urban agriculture as a potential strategy to provide communities with access to fresh produce. In this paper, this proposition is examined by conducting a field study in the rapidly developing city of Hyderabad, India. Urban agriculture trade-offs in water use, energy use and GHG emissions, nutrient uptake, and crop pathogen quality are evaluated, and i…
Estimating the potential for industrial waste heat reutilization in urban district energy systems
Utilizing low-grade waste heat from industries to heat and cool homes and businesses through fourth generation district energy systems (DES) is a novel strategy to reduce energy use. This paper develops a generalizable methodology to estimate the energy saving potential for heating/cooling in 20 cities in two Chinese provinces, representing cold winter and hot summer regions respectively. We also conduct a life-cycle analysis of the new infrastru…
Regional Governance and Institutional Collective Action for Environmental Sustainability
This research investigates why various mechanisms of cooperation among local authorities are chosen using the theoretical lens of institutional collective action ( ICA ). The article analyzes 564 local collaboration agreements drawn from four urban regions of China to explain the choices of environmental collaboration agreements among cities. Examples of three forms of interlocal agreements—informal, formal, and imposed agreements—are analyzed. O…
Impact of the Economic Structure of Cities on Urban Scaling Factors
We explore the population‐scaling and gross domestic product (GDP)‐scaling relationships of material and energy flow (MEF) parameters in different city types based on economic structure. Using migration‐corrected population data, we classify 233 Chinese city propers ( Shiqu ) as “highly industrial” (share of secondary GDP exceeds 63.9%), “highly commercial” (share of tertiary GDP exceeds 52.6%), and “mixed‐economy” (the remaining cities). We find…
Resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India
This paper develops a methodology to assess the resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India and compares those requirements to current community-wide material and energy flows. Methods include: (a) identifying minimum service level benchmarks for the provision of infrastructure services including housing, electricity and clean cooking fuels; (b) assessing the percentage of homes that lack access to infrastructure or that consume…
Demographic Inequities in Health Outcomes and Air Pollution Exposure in the Atlanta Area and its Relationship to Urban Infrastructure
Economics (30 works) · Geography (27 works) · Business (23 works) · Environmental Science (23 works) · Engineering (21 works) · Environmental Impact and Sustainability (17 works) · Urban Transport and Accessibility (17 works) · Natural resource economics (16 works) · Greenhouse gas (15 works) · Ecology (14 works)