Durham researchers awarded grant to help improve the resilience of roads in the Indian Himalayas affected by devastating monsoon rainfall

Dr Ellen Robson and Professor David Toll, from our Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience and Department of Engineering, are collaborating with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi, led by Dr Ashutosh Kumar, to assess the damages caused by landslides in Himachal Pradesh, India, triggered by a devastating monsoon last year.

The area was badly affected after the daily rainfall levels reached 436% higher than the normal daily monsoonal average.

The research team is now focusing their attention on how to better protect the area from harm if future monsoon seasons reach similar levels.

Creating resilient infrastructure

The team recognised that a postgraduate module on transportation engineering taught in India could be refined to create a workforce better suited to constructing and maintaining disaster-resilient roads.

The award of the British Council’s £30,000 Industry Academia Collaborative Grant will allow Durham researchers to collaborate with IIT Mandi and Rudra Budhbhatti at Maccaferri Environmental Solutions PVT. Ltd to explore how best to refine the module. The project is also supported by partners, Professor Deepankar Choudhury at IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India, and Dr Milind Patil at AFRY India Pvt. Ltd.

The module will be adapted to make it more holistic by bringing in other disciplines beyond traditional engineering approaches, which often focus on the construction of artificial structures to control natural processes.

This will include introducing skills in geology and geomorphology to better understand the landscape they are working in, in economics to determine the most cost-efficient approaches, and in communication to determine the needs of the communities using the roads.

Supporting future engineers

A workshop is planned with industry partners alongside policymakers in the region to understand what they need from a workforce for preventing future disasters, and shaping a curriculum that meets industry requirements.

The module will first be introduced at IIT Mandi, and will then be offered as a stand-alone online module hosted by the Centre of Continuing Education at IIT Mandi

Ultimately, it is hoped that engineers who take this module will have a refreshed approach to transport engineering and be better equipped for designing roads in disaster-prone areas.

The project will get underway at the end of September 2024 and run to September 2025.

Find out more

• Discover more of the work of Dr Ellen Robson, Professor David Toll, Dr Ashutosh Kumar, and Professor Deepankar Choudhury.
• View the research paper, published in Springer Link, on the preliminary assessment of the landslides.
• Read a piece written by the researchers in The Conversation on how climate change has been linked to the landslides in the area.
• Find out more about the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi.
• Learn more about the British Council’s Industry Academia Collaborative Grant.
• Read more about Durham University’s Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience.
• Our Department of Engineering is ranked fourth in the UK in the Complete University Guide 2025. Visit our Engineering webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.