Ankit Agarwal

Ankit Agarwal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Hydrology at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee), where he has been serving since January 2019. He additionally holds concurrent positions as a Visiting Scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Germany) and as a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Potsdam, both positions starting from August 2020. His academic profile reflects strong international collaboration, particularly with German research institutions.

His educational background includes a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering from Jai Narayan Vyas University Jodhpur (2013), followed by a Master of Technology in Water Resource Engineering from IIT Delhi (2015), and culminating in a PhD in Hydrology from the University of Potsdam, Germany (2018).

Dr. Agarwal's research spans Hydrometeorological Extreme Events, Water and Climate, Big Data & AI/ML applications in hydrology, Hydrological Modelling, and Impact-based Modelling. His work uniquely integrates complexity science, network analysis, and machine learning approaches to understand climate-hydrology interactions, with a specific focus on the Indian monsoon system, extreme events, and water resource management under climate change. He has developed innovative methodologies using complex networks to analyze precipitation patterns and climate teleconnections.

His publication record demonstrates a strong trajectory of high-impact research, with recent work increasingly focusing on compound extremes (particularly dry and hot events), atmospheric moisture transport, flood dynamics in Himalayan river basins, and the application of satellite remote sensing data with hydrological modeling. His research shows a clear progression from theoretical hydro-climatic analysis toward practical applications for water resource management and disaster risk reduction.

Dr. Agarwal leads multiple significant research projects funded by various national and international agencies including the Ministry of Education (STARS scheme), THDCIL, Belmont Forum, SERB, NHPC, ISRO, and Microsoft AI4Earth grants. His projects cover diverse areas including predictive modeling of Indian Summer Monsoon considering Arctic teleconnections, operational inflow forecasting systems for dams, assessing vulnerability to flood and drought hazards using machine learning, and studying compound dry and hot extremes in India.

His collaborative network spans institutions including the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Technical University-Dresden, Research Institute for Development (IRD) France, and Indian institutions like IIT Delhi and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. This international collaboration framework supports his research on hydro-climatic extremes and their societal impacts.