Ananya Krishnan

Climate Policy Researcher at Canopy Commons Institute | Urban adaptation, public finance and the occasional bird checklist

I’m a climate policy researcher in Bengaluru, working on how cities plan and pay for adaptation, particularly heat resilience and urban water management. Most days involve reading municipal documents, talking to practitioners and trying to turn a complicated finding into a useful two-page note. My training in botany still shows up in the questions I ask—and in the increasingly crowded vegetable containers on my terrace. Outside work, I’m usually at a lake around sunrise or planning a Himalayan walk with more buffer days than strictly necessary.

Research urban adaptation policy, with a focus on municipal finance, heat preparedness and water resilience. Conduct practitioner interviews, analyse city budgets and develop policy briefs for local-government and civil-society audiences. Based in Bengaluru.

Supported comparative research on urban water governance and climate vulnerability across southern Indian cities. Coordinated field interviews, maintained research datasets and co-authored working papers. Moved to Bengaluru for this role.

Based in New Delhi, supporting research on state climate action plans and adaptation programmes. Reviewed policy documents, tracked implementation indicators and helped prepare stakeholder consultation materials.

Climate Adaptation Policy, Urban Water Governance, Municipal Budget Analysis, Qualitative Research, Policy Writing, Stakeholder Interviews, Climate Vulnerability Assessment, QGIS, R, Research Communication

English, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada (conversational)

Occasionally help first-time birders record sightings during informal weekend walks at Jakkur Lake.

Spent part of this week tracing a heat-preparedness recommendation through a municipal budget. The policy language was clear; finding the corresponding allocation was much less straightforward. A useful reminder for my own research: an action plan, a funded activity and a service someone can actually access are three different things. We need to ask about all three. Also grateful to the practitioner who gently pointed out that my interview question contained four questions. It is now one question.

Back from a few days walking around Sari and Deoria Tal, with muddy shoes and a notebook containing more bird observations than profound mountain thoughts. One thing I appreciated was how much our local guide noticed before I did: a change in cloud, a call from the canopy, a patch of slippery trail. Research trains you to observe, but it can also train you to look only for the thing you came to study. Trying to carry a little more of that wider attention into this week.

A small writing habit that has helped me this year: before drafting a policy brief, I write down who might use it and what decision they are facing. Not 'stakeholders'. An actual person, with limited time and a specific responsibility. It doesn't make the evidence less complicated. It does make me more ruthless about unexplained acronyms, decorative charts and recommendations that quietly assume unlimited staff capacity. Still learning to do this consistently, especially when I am very attached to a chart.