Current Thrust Areas of the Department

Elaborating on the Department's thrust areas, special mention needs to be made of the following. The Physical Geography School, established more than 25 years ago, is truly the crowning glory of the Department. It is widely known in national and international forums as an important center for fluvial studies, flood hydrology, coastal geomorphology and environmental impact assessment. Climatology is another area where research on the Indian monsoon, agro-climatology, watershed management and planning, droughts and pollution studies are being conducted.

In Human Geography, research focusing on urban area, particularly the dilemmas of the million plus related to their explosive pace of population growth is being examined alongside the emasculation processes operating in the mid-sized towns in India. Research projects dealing with problems of cities, circulation/transportation in a large city like Pune are being carried out with technical collaboration and financial support from the department of Geography, University of Bremen, Germany. The above projects relate to

• Travel behaviour and journey to work patterns in Pune city and

• Social areas of Pune city, using the factorial ecology approach.

These projects have relevance in the context of large Indian cities where there is serious concern for the quality of urban life. The other issue of national concern - rapid population growth in India - is being researched extensively in a number of M. Phil. and Ph. D. dissertations. In addition, the inter-state and intra-state disparities in population growth, which have led to differential spatial patterns of demographic transition in the Indian context is another important issue being studied.