Profile
Sandeep Agrawal is an Associate Dean in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research and a Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta. He was an Associate Chair in the department and inaugural director of the School of Urban and Regional Planning between 2013 and 2023. During his tenure as director, he led the development of MSc Planning and PhD specialization in urban planning, and established the School in 2018. Prior to moving to the University of Alberta, he was Associate Director and Founding Graduate Program Director of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson).
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Urban Heat Island Effect in Canada: Insights from Five Major Cities University of Alberta Publication 2024-01-01 Yuwei Duan,
Agrawal, S. , Arturo Sánchez‐Azofeifa, Nilusha Welegedara
Seasonal Land Surface Temperatures of Local Climate Zones in a High-Latitude City in Canada University of Alberta Publication 2024-01-01 Household energy-related carbon footprint in residential neighbourhoods in high-latitude cities: A case of Edmonton in Canada Understanding all the possible greenhouse gas (GHG) emission sources and factors is key to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, as targeted by the Paris Agreement, and thereby, averting the severe consequences of climate change. In this study, we explored household energy-related GHG (HEGHG) emissions in 265 residential neighbourhoods in a high-latitude city that experiences opposite temperature extremes. Our results revealed that the average annual per capita GHG emissions from dwellings in the city are 45% higher than those from personal transportation, highlighting the urgent need for greater emphasis on reducing GHG emissions from dwellings in high-latitude cities. The findings also indicate that per capita HEGHG emissions significantly increase with increasing neighbourhood income levels (r=0.8). Conversely, per capita HEGHG emissions decrease with an increased percentage of tenants in the neighbourhood (r=-0.5), potentially due to renters' proximity to workplaces and public transportation and their propensity to live in small dwellings to reduce expenses. An increase in the percentage of households struggling to afford homeownership is also associated with a decrease in HEGHG emissions (r=-0.3). These findings can help facilitate the focus on areas of high-latitude cities where the mitigation measures may have the most impact in reducing carbon footprint. University of Alberta Publication 2023-12-02 Superdiversity in Canadian cities: Today's migration has made Canadian citiesmore diverse than ever - in multiple ways University of British Columbia, University of Alberta Publication 2024-11-11 Southern urbanism: A systematic review of concepts, debates, and future directions. GeoJournal, 88(3), 2587-2608. University of Alberta Publication 2024-11-15 Migration Disrupted: How technological transformation is reshaping human mobility Migration Disrupted was an interdisciplinary, hybrid conference held at Toronto Metropolitan University from May 7-9, 2024, organized by CERC Migration and Bridging Divides. The conference focused on how advanced digital technologies (ADTs) are transforming human mobility, with an emphasis on their impact on migrant integration, citizenship, employment, health care, and urban experience in Canada and beyond. Through a series of panels, fireside chats, and breakout sessions, researchers, policymakers, and civil society leaders examined both opportunities and challenges created by technological transformation, including digital divides, the ethics of artificial intelligence, infrastructure for inclusive cities, and the future of migrant work. Video recordings of sessions are available.
Other Toronto Metropolitan University, University of Alberta, University of British Columbia, Concordia University Activity 2024-05-07 Triandafyllidou, A. , Ebrahim Bagheri,
Gruzd, A. , Georgiana Mathurin,
Abu-Laban, Y. ,
Agrawal, S. ,
Farooq, B. , Joel Dissanayake,
Banerjee, R. ,
Huot, S. ,
Mazalek, A. ,
Zhuang, Z. ,
Rockwell, G. ,
Wong, J. ,
Paquet, M. Other Design and Development of Electric Dual-Function Weed Controller and Fertilizer Distribution Machine University of Alberta Publication 2025-06-04 Chetan Chilu Bondkhal,
Agrawal, S. , D B Pardeshi, Priyanka Ramlal Halwai
Efficient Power Converter Using Solar System University of Alberta Publication 2025-06-04 Abhijeet Kopare, Ashiwini Aniket Shinde,
Agrawal, S. , D B Pardeshi
Design and Realization of a Multi-Level DC-AC Converter for High-Efficiency Power Conversion University of Alberta Publication 2025-06-04 The state of hazard risk communication in Canada: a municipal perspective University of Alberta Publication 2025-05-09 Discourse of Military-Assisted Urban Regeneration in Colombo: Political and Elite Influences on Displacing Underserved Communities in Postwar Sri Lanka This study examines the political and elite motives behind Colombo's ‘world-class city’ initiative and its impact on public housing in underserved communities. Informed by interviews with high-ranking government officials, including urban planning experts and military officers, this study examines how President Rajapaksa's elite-driven postwar Sri Lankan government leveraged military capacities within the neoliberal developmental framework to transform Colombo’s urban space for political and economic goals, often at the expense of marginalized and underserved communities. Applying a contextual discourse analysis model, which views discourse as a constellation of arguments within a specific context, we critically analyzed interview discussions to clarify the rationale behind the militarized approach to public housing while highlighting its contradictions, including the displacement of underserved communities and the ethical concerns associated with compulsory relocation. The findings suggest that postwar Colombo’s public housing program failed to achieve its anticipated economic objectives and continued to reinforce socio-spatial inequalities, raising concerns about the sustainability and ethical implications of militarized urban governance. The paper recommends that future urban planning strike a balance between economic objectives and principles of spatial justice, inclusion, and participatory governance, promoting democratic and socially equitable urban development. University of Alberta Publication 2025-04-29 Military-assisted postwar public housing in Sri Lanka: a scoping review University of Alberta Publication 2025-03-24 Formal/informal interactions in climate risk governance: insights from Bhubaneswar, India University of Alberta Publication 2025-01-27 Sensitizing performance of air purifiers for the high-rise commercial buildings in urban core There are thousands of pollution monitoring stations which are recording the data 24×7, the present research question is using this data to solve bring out a relationship between natural ventilation and air conditioning. Recently, WHO reported that 14 out of the top 15 most polluted cities are in India. Every year there is a loss of 6.2% to the global economy due to air pollution. The recent urban PM2.5 smog spread over the whole of north India covering about 50% of the country’s population. This event has been increasing the use of air purifiers and affecting the building energy performance. Most air purifiers (PM 10 and PM 2.5) are energy-intensive but are not always equipped with sensors. In commercial buildings, air purifiers are operated based on publicly relayed pollution information. The air pollutants that infiltrate into buildings are based on leaks, cracks, quality of building construction and pressure differences. Since indoor pollution levels are less than outdoor pollution levels, usage of air purifiers based on outdoor information leads to overperformance and hence energy wastage. Therefore, there is a need for optimization in sensitizing the performance of air purifiers at the building level. This study intends to assess the role of building airtightness and air purifier automation in lessening the air purifiers’ electricity consumption in urban areas. Transient building simulation tools do not account for infiltrated pollution levels directly. Virtually evaluating the energy savings through air purifier automation and the building’s airtightness would not be a straightforward assessment. The following paper uses EnergyPlus Energy Management System Class along with air pollution data monitored to model and simulate the Business-as-usual (BAU) and proposed Automation scenarios. University of Alberta Publication 2025-01-22 Environmental Consequences of Rapid Industrialization: A Case Study of India’s Industrial Clusters and the Urgent Need for Sustainable Policies University of Alberta Publication 2025-01-01 Rural Broadband Architecture For Efficient Service Delivery University of Alberta Publication 2024-10-15 Agrawal, S. , Abhishek Thakur, A. Paventhan, Shruthi Koratagere Anantha Kumar, Kanwar Pal Singh, Phalguni Mathur
Rights and planning: challenges, progress, and approaches University of Alberta Publication 2024-10-13 Framework for Evaluating and Mitigating Industrial Air Pollution in India: Systematic Review of Concepts and Unmet Needs University of Alberta Publication 2024-09-16 Utilising GIS for studying urban entropy, population dynamics, and ventilation disparity: A case study of changing land use, land cover, and socially vulnerable hotspots in Hyderabad, India University of Alberta Publication 2024-09-01 3 Municipal Annexations, Water Scarcity, and Intermunicipal Conflicts in the Calgary Region University of Alberta Publication 2024-08-04 Human rights and municipal land use bylaws in Atlantic Canada Human rights are inalienable rights we each possess by virtue of being human. The Atlantic provinces in Canada are the least studied with respect to understanding how much their cities and towns fulfill constitutional and quasi-constitutional human rights obligations in their land use bylaws. This paper aims to answer this question: what are the critical human rights challenges confronting zoning bylaws of Atlantic Canadian cities? Using a mixed methods approach, the study concludes that despite some potential violations of human rights in the region, Atlantic Canadian municipalities are advancing positively on the human rights front, with a number of encouraging developments. University of Alberta Publication 2024-06-06 Agrawal, S. , Pradeep Sangapala, Elisabeth L Hill, Jill Lang
Urban planning and group and collective rights in Québec, Canada Group and collective rights are human rights, but such rights emerge when the members of a group are discriminated against in order to protect the group temporarily or in perpetuity, depending on how long the discrimination lasts. Studies investigating urban issues from the lens of a group right or collective right are almost non-existent. Using Kymlicka's rights framework and relying on empirical work in the French-speaking Quebec province in Canada, the research concludes that Québec municipalities are fraught with tensions between individual and group rights and collective rights, resulting in issues related to places of worship, land development and commercial signage. University of Alberta Publication 2024-05-16 Advancing neighbourhood climate action: opportunities, challenges and way ahead Abstract Cities are emerging as key sites for action on climate change. Within cities, urban neighbourhoods are increasingly taking leadership in addressing local effects of climate change through mitigation and adaptation programs. Bottom-up action on climate change through neighbourhood scale programs presents opportunities in terms of getting the community to partner and participate in climate action. However, neighbourhood scale programs often run into challenges in terms of limited participation, impact and resources to keep the programs running. In this paper, we advance the literature on the opportunities and challenges of neighbourhood scale climate action. We do so by analysing three neighbourhood scale programs that address climate action in Canada and in Australia. We adopt online workshops as a research methodology where volunteers from the three programs share their experiences of opportunities and ways of overcoming challenges of neighbourhood climate action. Our findings illustrate that collaborative governance between the city and the neighbourhoods, incremental community building and consolidating local resources are important for advancing neighbourhood climate action. This paper adds to the thin body of knowledge on neighbourhood scale climate action and presents ways of overcoming the challenges of bottom-up climate action. University of Alberta Publication 2024-02-07 Neelakshi Joshi,
Agrawal, S. , Hana Ambury, Debadutta Parida
Migration of CUDA Based Seismic Application to Cross-Platform SYCL Implementation Here, we present the migration of a CUDA based seismic application, named SeisAcoMod2D, to SYCL codebase using Intel® oneAPI. SYCL programming enables developers to have single source codebase across different computing architectures and vendors of CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs. SeisAcoMod2D performs acoustic wave propagation using finite difference time domain modelling, which is useful in oil exploration applications. The migrated SYCL code has been optimized for GPUs and the output data is validated. The migrated unified SYCL code is executed on GPUs from Intel and Nvidia and on CPUs from Intel. The performance of the SYCL code is found similar to that of the CUDA code on Nvidia® A100 GPU. A speed up of 1.75x is obtained on Intel® Data Center GPU Max 1550 GPU (Ponte Vecchio) over Nvidia® A100 (80GB) GPU. University of Alberta Publication 2023-12-18 Om Jadhav,
Agrawal, S. , Abhishek Srivastava, Richa Rastogi, Sanjay Wandhekar, Vinutha SV, Jyotsna Khemka
Smart Helmet System Using IoT for Alcohol Detection and Accident Identification System with Location Tracking Road accidents happen in developing countries like India as transportation technology improves and the number of vehicles on the road rises rapidly. The traffic hazards have also increased as a result of this technological innovation. Two-wheelers account for 25% of all fatalities in traffic accidents. Due to inadequate emergency facilities, the frequency of road accidents that result in significant loss of life increases. This study offers a smart system for the identification and prevention of two-wheeler accidents for the protection of human life. The Smart Helmet monitors if someone is driving while sober and wearing a helmet automatically as part of the preventative component. If these two requirements are not met, the relay does not turn on the engine. The relay's operation is managed by the microcontroller. the live location is also offered by system on Smart Helmet Application with immediate response to the accident by sending text message to the owner. University of Alberta Publication 2023-08-03 Vaibhav R Khule, Prajwal S Nalkar, Dhiraj R Chandar, Abhishek R Thete,
Agrawal, S. , D B Pardeshi
Just transition in the northwest territories: Insights and values from indigenous and non-indigenous northerners Just transition means that society shares both tangible and intangible costs and benefits of transitioning to a low-carbon economy in a socially just way. Across Canada, Indigenous peoples are shouldering a disproportionate social and economic burden on non-renewable sources as well as transitioning to renewable sources of energy due to high costs, lack of appropriate technology to store excess power, and remoteness of the region. This study aims to promote the significance of Northern energy transition through Indigenous perspectives (technological-social) in advancing a low carbon future as an act of truth and reconciliation (2015) in the Northwest Territories (NWT). In the NWT successful progress for climate change issues have been made pre-Covid with a plurality of perspectives but there is room for an improved post-Covid process that requires an emphasis on the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives (technological-social) as equal to non-Indigenous perspectives (technological). Results identify three themes, which are Indigenous land ethos (Mother Earth relationality), community energy autonomy (informed leadership), and capacity training (humanizing outreach) as key drivers to future just transition in the Northwest Territories. University of Alberta Publication 2023-08-01
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