Naresh Kumar
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Durham, Durham, UK.
"I pursue research in the broader area of (a) environment and health, (b) methods of geo-spatial analysis, (c) location-allocation for decision support system, and (d) spatial-statistical methods of visualization. In the first, I study the health outcomes of human interaction in social and physical environments."
My current NIH project examines the association between long term personal exposure and respiratory health in pre (before the year 2002) and post air pollution regulation periods in Delhi, India. The research exploits advances in atmospheric remote sensing and geo-spatial analysis for estimating air pollution at a high spatial resolution (such as at every household location) in pre and post regulation periods, and for imputing long term personal exposure to air pollution. An individual’s personal exposure is retrieved by linking his/her (routine) spatial interaction with the air pollution level at every place this individual has spent sometime during the course of his/her life.
In the second, I work on the methods of examining spatial dependency and causality of stochastically distributed point events; these methods have edge over the conventional methods that are based on the characteristics of the Cartesian space. In the third, I use location-allocation models for service area demarcation, locational efficiency evaluation of services and planning public and private services. In the final, my research focus is on innovative methods of visualization that improve our understanding of the underlying spatial-statistical structure of the mapped data.
Graduate Advisees
Major Courses
Upper Division/Graduate
- Contemporary Environmental Issues
- GIS for Environmental Studies
- Environment and Health: GIS Applications
- GIS for Environmental Studies
- Environment and Health: GIS Applications
Graduate
Selected Grants:
- 2005-2007: Health and Air Quality Regulation in Delhi, India: The main goal of this project is to estimate air pollution at a high spatial-temporal resolution in pre and post environmental regulation periods in Delhi using atmospheric remote sensing and geo-spatial methods, and then use these estimates to compute long term personal exposure to ambient air pollutants and its effect on respiratory health. Air pollution and health data will be collected in Delhi, which has been subject to environmental regulation in recent years, and its neighboring districts, largely unaffected by such regulation. The air pollution estimates to be retrieved from MODIS satellites in the post regulation period will be validated using the air quality data to be collected at 150 sites in Delhi and 50 sites in the neighboring states. The project also includes the second round of survey of the 1600 households (in the year 2006-07) that were surveyed in January-March 2004. (Role: Principal Investigator; Collaborators: Prof. Andrew Foster, Economics Dept, Brown University, Dr. Allen Chu, NASA, Dr. Sachidanand Tripathi, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur; Funding Agency: NICHD, NIH; Amount: $275,000.)
- 2003-2005 Urbanization, Health, and Environmental Quality in coastal Ghana: In this project, we are investigating the effect of urbanization on environmental and health risks, and how these in turn influence local thinking about environmental issues. The main goals of the project are to (1) examine association between population dynamics and pollution levels in eight lagoon, (2) conduct focus groups and in-depth interviews with respondents located in the region, addressing questions of health behavior and demographic activity, (3) conduct exploratory drinking water quality measurements at the household and community level, (4) delineate watersheds of coastal water bodies, (5) develop a population growth and land use profile of the study area, and (6) conduct preliminary analysis of the interrelationships among urbanization, lagoon water quality, fish catches and human health. (Role: Co-Investigator; PI: Prof. Michael White, Brown University; Funding Agency: NIH; Amount: $200,000)
- 2003-2004: Air Quality and respiratory health in Delhi, India: The main objectives of this project were (a) to evaluate the feasibility of retrieving indirect estimates of air quality from satellite imageries based on the relationship between aerosol optical depth retrieved from satellite imageries and air pollution measured at 113 sites in Delhi, India and (b) to examine the association between the state of respiratory health and exposure to air pollution, measured by suspended particulate matters (PM2.5). We collected data on suspended particulate matters in a range of 1 to 10 micron (aerodynamic diameter) at 113 sites in Delhi (India) from July-December 2003, followed by an extensive respiratory health, socio-economic and demographic survey of 1,600 households (about 4000 individuals) in different strata identified based on air pollution levels and proximity to pollution sources from January to March 2004. (Role: PI; Co-PI: Prof. Andrew D. Foster, Brown University; Funding Agency: Seed Grant, Population Studies and Training Center (PSTC), Brown University; Amount: $50,000).
- 2003: Air Quality and Respiratory Health in Delhi – Feasibility Analysis: The main objective of the award was to examine the feasibility to study the health effects of recently implemented air quality regulation in Delhi, India. (Role: PI; Funding Agency: Seed Grant, PSTC, Brown University; Amount: $3,500)
Office
302 Jessup Hall
Mailing Address
Department of Geography
316 Jessup Hall
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Phone: (319) 335-0259
Fax: (319) 335-2725
E-mail: naresh-kumar@uiowa.edu
http://jh302-nk-01.iowa.uiowa.edu
Top
(Within each year: first journals, then book chapters, & finally proceedings)
Link to more recent articles: click here.
2004:
Kumar, N. (2004). Frequency Histogram Legend in the Choropleth Map: A Substitute to Traditional Legend, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 31(4): 217-236.
Kumar, N. (2004). Changing Geographic Access to and Locational Efficiency of Health Services in Two Indian Districts between 1981 and 1996, Social Science and Medicine, 58(10): 2045-2067.
2003:
Kumar, N. (2003), Mapping Spatial and Statistical Distributions in Choropleth Map, ArcUser, 6(4): 48-49.
Kumar, N. and C. Waylor (2003). Proximity to Alcohol-Serving Establishments and Crime Probabilities in Savannah, Georgia: A Statistical and GIS Analysis, Southeastern Geographer, XXXXIII(1), 125-42.
2000:
Kumar, N. (2000). Democratization and Automation in Cartography, The Cartographic Journal¸ 37(1), 65-77.
Kumar, N. (2000), Locational Analysis of Public and Private Health Services in Rohtak and Bhiwani Districts, India, 1981-1996, Proceedings of Map-2000, 10-11 April, 2000.
1999:
Atkins, P. J., J. Townsend, S. Raju and N. Kumar (1999). India’s Missing Millions, Geography Review, 13(1), 2-10.
1998:
Kumar, N. (1998). Vegetation Canopy Cover in A Metropolitan Setup: A Study of Jawaharlal Nehru University Campus and Surroundings, South Delhi, India, 1987-97, In Proceedings of 27th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment, June 8-12, 1998, TromsÆ, Norway, pp. 526-29.
1997:
Kumar, N. and Ian S. Evans (1997). Map Output format from GIS: Optimising Visual Quality of Paper and Electronic Atlases, The Cartographic Journal, 34(1), pp. 37-41.
Kumar, N., S. Raju, P.J. Atkins, J.G. Townsend (1997). Where angels fear to tread? Mapping women and men in India, Environment and Planning A, vol. 29, pp. 2207-2215.
Atkins, P.J., J.G. Townsend, S. Raju and N. Kumar (1997). A Geography of Sex ratio in India, Espace Populations and Societies-Extract, 1997-2(3), pp. 161-71.
1996:
Kumar, N. (1996). Aspects of the Production of Gender Atlas of India with ARC/INFO, The Cartographic Journal, 33, pp.27-38.
1994:
Kumar, N. (1994). The Feasibility of GIS in the Indian Context, Annals, NAGI, XIV(1), pp. 67-73.
Kumar, N. (1994). GIS Application to the Study of Infrastructure Development of Rural Areas, Annals,NAGI, XIV(2), pp. 100-106.
Monographs
1999: Raju, S., P.J. Atkins, N. Kumar, and J.G. Townsend. (1999). An Atlas of Men and Women in India, New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Discussion Papers and Technical Reports
1997:
Kumar, N. (1997). Availability of and accessibility to Infrastructure Services in Rural Areas: A Study of Rohtak and Bhiwani Districts, Haryana, 1981-91, Working Paper, Published by the Department of Geography, University of Durham, Durham.
1996:
Kumar, N. (1996). Development of Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing in India, January to May 1996: A country report on GIS and RS advances in India, presented before IGU in Aug 1996.
