Dr. Pritam Chand is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, School of Environment and Earth Sciences, at Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, India. He leads the Geo-Human-Environment Analysis Laboratory (Ge🌏-HEAL), devoted to advancing geography’s central pursuit of unravelling the complex interconnections among Climate, Landscapes, and Societies. As a geographer, Dr. Chand emphasizes the discipline’s unique integrative nature, bridging the natural and social sciences, to address one fundamental question: “How do humans (or societies) adapt to, modify, and become influenced by their environment?” through exploring the following interlinked themes.
Climate Change Dynamics and Societal Resilience: Deciphering how glacial dynamics, climate variability, and extreme events across varying temporal scales shape landscapes and livelihoods, and how societies adapt with resilience.
Disaster Risk, Vulnerability, and Adaptation: Assessing climate-driven hazards, compounded by human interventions in the Anthropocene, to develop risk-informed adaptation strategies for vulnerable communities, particularly in mountains and their downstream regions.
Human-Environmental Sustainability in Emerging Landscapes: Investigating how societies and environment (or ecosystem) co-evolve in rapidly transforming landscapes, promoting sustainable use, environmental conservation, and adaptive governance.
To achieve these goals, his lab employs a transdisciplinary approach, integrating Geo-informatics (RS/GIS, UAV Photogrammetry/LiDAR and GeoAI), Geo-statistics (numerical modelling using R & Python), Geo-chronology (OSL, CRN, tree-ring dating), and field-based geophysical (GPR, GNSS, etc.) & participatory survey techniques.
"Ge🌏-HEAL fosters a transdisciplinary approach to address the pressing challenges posed by climate change in high-mountain environments and their downstream regions, and accordingly promotes sustainable practices."
The development of terrestrial ecosystems emerging after glacier retreat. Nature
The importance of species addition ‘versus’ replacement varies over succession in plant communities after glacier retreat. Nature Plants
Local climate modulates the development of soil nematode communities after glacier retreat, Global Change Biology
Heterogeneity in glacier thinning and slowdown of ice movement in the Garhwal Himalaya, India. Science of the Total Environment
Late Holocene (LIA) glacial fluctuation: SERB-CRG, New Delhi, India.
CUP University Research Seed Project on Debris covered glacier evolution
SAS System: Collaborative research project on coastal morpho-dynamics.
Oil spillage in Maguri Motapung Beel wetland: Collaborative community research project.
HRVC Analysis for the selected villages in state of Himachal Pradesh (India).
July, 2025. A new publication from our lab has been published in the Hydrological Processes Journal.
May, 2025. A new publication as a corresponding author has been published in the Results of Earth Science Journal.
April, 2025. Mr. Rinku, a research scholar from our lab, is visiting the University of Geneva, Switzerland, to attend an advanced course on geohazards.