Faculty

Shruti Syal

Assistant Professor

Raleigh Building Rm. 3019 Phone: (804) 828-1215 Email: syals@vcu.edu

Expertise

-Systems Research (SES, CAS, SNA)
-Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH)
-Urban informality
-Urban ecology

Shruti Syal is an Assistant Professor at the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. She holds a BSc in Biology from McGill University, a MSc in Environmental Studies from The Energy & Resources Institute, and a PhD in Regional Planning from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She studies cities as integrated human-environment systems, applying various conceptual and empirical frameworks for complex systems study to examine WaSH infrastructure, stormwater management and green infrastructure, and governance of infrastructure and environmental quality. Her dissertation established environmental remediation of the river Yamuna and “slum” upgradation in Delhi as interdependent goals, challenging the dichotomies that plague planning practice in Indian cities, and received the Gill-Chin Lim Award for Best Dissertation in International Planning (2019).

TOPICS

Urban "Informality," Urban Ecology, Water and Waste Governance and Management, Nature-Based Solutions

FRAMEWORKS

Systems Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), Social-Ecological Systems (SES), Social Network Analysis (SNA)

METHODS

Mixed methods, SESF, SNA

CURRENT RESEARCH

Research projects apply complex systems study frameworks to strengthen urban planners' and policymakers' understanding of urban resilience. There are two publications on the theoretical and methodological exploration of these frameworks:

Syal, S. (2021). Learning from pandemics: Applying resilience thinking to identify priorities for planning urban settlements. Journal of Urban Management, 10(3), 205-217.
Syal, S., & McConville, J. (expected 2024). Panorama: Mapping Complex Systems for Resilience-oriented Planning and Policymaking. [Presented October 2023 at the ACSP Conference]

One project is mapping the WaSH sector institutional network as a first step to developing a roadmap to link decentralized water remediation agendas to “slum” upgradation in rapidly urbanizing megacities. You can read more about this project in this VCU News article, this Wilder School article, and this article by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.

Research Team: Monali Mal ('23-'24), Michael O'Grady ('22-'23), Adelaide Alexander ('22-'23), Callie Houghland (22-'23), Katy Miller ('22-'23), Elena Johnson (F'22)

Related Publications:

Syal, S. (2019). A socio-ecological systems perspective on planning for informality. Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Rishi, S., & Syal, S. (2020). Learning from Delhi’s Experience. The Routledge handbook of planning megacities in the global south.

Rehman, N., Parikh, A., Lamb, Z., Syal, S., Ghertner, D. A., Menon, S., Anwar, N., Nabi, H., Butt, W., Ranganathan, M., Srinivasan, K., Bhat, H. Powis, A., & Anand, N. (2023). SOUTH ASIAN URBAN CLIMATES: Towards Pluralistic Narratives and Expanded Lexicons. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Syal, S. (expected 2024). Overregulated and Underserved: regulatory overlap in WaSH service provision in Delhi’s 'informal' settlements. Presented in August 2023 at International Conference on Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Development in the Global South. Manuscript under review.
Syal, S. (expected 2024). (Unprivileged) Polluter Pays: Conflicts of Rights in Delhi's stormwater drain-adjacent 'informal' settlements. Manuscript under review.

A second project maps current and planned greening projects (representing the city’s natural capital) and their related social networks (representing the city’s social capital) as a first step to apply a systems perspective to coordinate multi-use greening projects for urban resilience. You can read a brief project profile in this VCU News article.

Geographic focus: Richmond, VA.

Research Team: co-PIs: Jennifer Ciminelli and Lillian Lewis, and RAs: Derek Cathcart (F'23), Tiffani Vasco ('23-'24), Katy Miller ('23-'24)

Related Publications:

Syal, S., Ciminelli, J. & Lewis, L. (expected 2024). Integrating Actor Network Theory, Social Network Analysis, and Suitability Analysis to map Social and Natural Capital in Cities.

Instruction:

URSP 313: Research Methods in Urban and Regional Planning (S'21, S'22, S'23, S'24)
URSP 332: Environmental Management (F'21, S'22, F'23)
URSP 515: Watersheds Planning and Governance (S'21, F'23)

URSP 650: Natural Resources and Environmental Planning (F'20, F'21, F'22)
URSP 591: Special Topics - Planning in the International Context (S'23, S'24)

She received a VCU Library Affordable Course Content Award to beta test Open Educational Resources (OERs) for URSP 650. These are nine highly scaffolded, applied learning assignments that are the core learning component of the weekly modules. These include skill-building exercises teaching the use of open access databases and web tools for analyses, and the guided exploration and evaluation of selected case studies on the Lincoln Institute Case Study Library and International Planning Case Studies Project.