Dr. Ishfaq Hussain Malik

Profile

I am an interdisciplinary researcher and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK. My research examines climate change, adaptation and resilience at the intersection of political ecology, Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge, and climate and environmental modelling. I combine qualitative, participatory and quantitative methods, including ethnography, participatory mapping, GIS, climate and cryosphere data analysis, and modelling of climate risks and mobility. Through community-based research in the Arctic and the Himalayas, I explore how climate change is experienced, understood and responded to, and how these lived experiences can be linked with observed and projected environmental change. My work in the Arctic involves collaboration with Inuit communities to co-produce knowledge on changing climate, ice conditions, travel, and adaptation, including modelling how environmental change affects access and mobility. In the Himalayas, particularly Kashmir, I examine climate impacts, disasters and adaptation alongside structural conditions that shape vulnerability and resilience. Across this work, I use knowledge co-production and decolonial approaches to connect different ways of knowing while critically examining how power, inequality, and environmental governance shape climate risk and adaptation.

Research interests

• Climate Change, vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience
• Climate risk and environmental modelling
• Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge systems
• Political ecology and environmental justice
• Community-based and participatory research
• GIS, climate, and cryosphere data analysis
• Disaster risk and resilience

Primary investigator (PI)

• ARCWISE: Arctic Resilience, Climate Adaptation, and Indigenous Wisdom for Sustainable Ecosystems

Co-investigator (Co-I)

• Impacts of cryosphere-hydrosphere change on ecosystems and livelihoods in northern Nunatsiavut, Canada (IMAGINE)

Qualifications

• PhD Geography, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh, India

Professional memberships

• Priestley Centre for Climate Futures