Taraknath Mazumder

Bio: Taraknath Mazumder is an academic researcher from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. The author has contributed to research in topics: Population & Hazardous waste. The author has an hindex of 6, co-authored 12 publications receiving 209 citations.

Transport infrastructure, economic development and urbanization in India (1990–2011): Is there any causal relationship?

Abstract: Development of transport infrastructure has long been taken as a major tool in promoting economic development and urbanization of a region. However, it is quite debatable whether transport infrastructure promotes economic development and urbanization, or economic development and urbanization create demand first which leads to investment in transport infrastructure. Each of the views has theoretical support. Therefore, apart from theory, empirical evidence is required to establish direction of causality, which bears serious policy implications. This study looks into different sub-sectors of transport infrastructure to find its long-run relationship and direction of causality with economic development and urbanization. It first finds the order of integration of the variables and then tries to find their causal relationship using cointegration and Granger causality test approach for India between 1990 and 2011. It uses Vector Auto-Regression and Vector Error Correction model to find short-run and long-run causality. Results showed existence of long-run relationship between transport infrastructure and economic development, and the direction of causality is from economic development to transport infrastructure in most of the cases, thus drawing support in favor of Wagner’s law.

A comprehensive risk assessment framework for offsite transportation of inflammable hazardous waste

Abstract: A framework for risk assessment due to offsite transportation of hazardous wastes is designed based on the type of event that can be triggered from an accident of a hazardous waste carrier. The objective of this study is to design a framework for computing the risk to population associated with offsite transportation of inflammable and volatile wastes. The framework is based on traditional definition of risk and is designed for conditions where accident databases are not available. The probability based variable in risk assessment framework is substituted by a composite accident index proposed in this study. The framework computes the impacts due to a volatile cloud explosion based on TNO Multi-energy model. The methodology also estimates the vulnerable population in terms of disability adjusted life years (DALY) which takes into consideration the demographic profile of the population and the degree of injury on mortality and morbidity sustained. The methodology is illustrated using a case study of a pharmaceutical industry in the Kolkata metropolitan area.

Pareto frontier analyses based decision making tool for transportation of hazardous waste.

Abstract: Transportation of hazardous wastes through a region poses immense threat on the development along its road network. The risk to the population, exposed to such activities, has been documented in the past. However, a comprehensive framework for routing hazardous wastes has often been overlooked. A regional Hazardous Waste Management scheme should incorporate a comprehensive framework for hazardous waste transportation. This framework would incorporate the various stakeholders involved in decision making. Hence, a multi-objective approach is required to safeguard the interest of all the concerned stakeholders. The objective of this study is to design a methodology for routing of hazardous wastes between the generating units and the disposal facilities through a capacity constrained network. The proposed methodology uses posteriori method with multi-objective approach to find non-dominated solutions for the system consisting of multiple origins and destinations. A case study of transportation of hazardous wastes in Kolkata Metropolitan Area has also been provided to elucidate the methodology.

Vulnerability assessment using hazard potency for regions generating industrial hazardous waste.

Abstract: This study proposes a methodology that would measure the hazardous characteristics of industrial waste based on its physical and chemical properties. A composite hazardous waste index (HWI) is framed using a new aggregation operator proposed in this study. However, HWI alone cannot be used to compare the hazardous characteristics of different wastes. The concept of hazard potency (HP) is introduced in this study in order to address this problem. HP can be calculated not only for a single waste stream but also for multiple industrial processes in an industry. Thus the hazardous wastes generated from two industries can be directly compared using this methodology. The vulnerability arising out of an industrial unit has been evaluated using HP values of the unit and the population residing within its impact area. The industries in a region are prioritized based on the vulnerability of the adjoining population using the non-dominated sorting algorithm. Solutions are ordered into various levels of domination depending on their HP and population values. A case study of Kolkata Metropolitan Area is provided to substantiate the methodology.

Spatio-temporal dynamics of water resources of Hyderabad Metropolitan Area and its relationship with urbanization

Abstract: Urbanization brings about changes in land use and land cover (LULC), and intensity of development. Most anthropogenic activity in urban areas are dependent on its water resources. Hence, an investigation of the relationship between urbanization and water resources of an urban area needs to be conducted. As the catchment area of the water resources in an urban area often extends beyond its administrative boundaries, a regional approach is needed for such studies. This study develops a methodology to assess the impact of change in LULC on the water resources of a metropolitan region with Hyderabad as a case example. The image processing and GIS based analyses reveal substantial decrease in the surface water area due to transformation of LULC from waterbodies to other uses. It also exhibits a positive correlation between existing land use mix and change in groundwater level. Spatial clustering analyses revealed that areas with commercial land use exhibit maximum deterioration of groundwater level. Whereas, analyses of the intensity of growth show that areas with midrise and low rise development (peri urban regions) displayed an improvement in groundwater level, but areas within the study area having high rise development (commercial/HIG residential region) show maximum attenuation of groundwater resources.

Economic growth, electricity consumption, urbanization and environmental degradation relationship in United Arab Emirates

Abstract: The present study explores the relationship between economic growth, electricity consumption, urbanization and environmental degradation in case of United Arab Emirates (UAE). The study covers the quarter frequency data over the period of 1975–2011. We have applied the ARDL bounds testing approach to examine the long run relationship between the variables in the presence of structural breaks. The VECM Granger causality is applied to investigate the direction of causal relationship between the variables. Our empirical exercise reported the existence of cointegration among the series. Further, we found an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth and CO 2 emissions i.e. economic growth raises energy emissions initially and declines it after a threshold point of income per capita (EKC exists). Electricity consumption declines CO 2 emissions. The relationship between urbanization and CO 2 emissions is positive. Exports seem to improve the environmental quality by lowering CO 2 emissions. The causality analysis validates the feedback effect between CO 2 emissions and electricity consumption. Economic growth and urbanization Granger cause CO 2 emissions.

How does energy consumption affect China's urbanization? New evidence from dynamic threshold panel models

Abstract: Energy consumption may play different roles at different stages of urbanization and economic growth. Given China's rapid economic development and urbanization process, this study tries to explore the possible nonlinear relationship between energy consumption and urbanization in China. Against the background of promoting new-type urbanization, the level of China's urbanization is evaluated comprehensively using the entropy method. A newly-developed dynamic threshold panel model is employed to examine the nexus of energy consumption and comprehensive urbanization with full consideration of heterogeneous characteristics. The Panel Data Vector Autoregression, or PVAR, model is also used to estimate the direct effects of various energy consumption patterns on the urbanization. The empirical results indicate that the nexus of energy consumption and urbanization is indeed nonlinear and that energy consumption is conducive to promote China's urbanization at the current stage of development. However, the positive effect decreases when there is an increase in energy consumption intensity and energy consumption scale, whereas the effect increases with the promotion of energy consumption structure.

A Bilevel flow model for HazMat transportation network design

Abstract: In this work we consider the following hazmat transportation network design problem. A given set of hazmat shipments has to be shipped over a road transportation network in order to transport a given amount of hazardous materials from specific origin points to specific destination points, and we assume there are regional and local government authorities that want to regulate the hazmat transportations by imposing restrictions on the amount of hazmat traffic over the network links. In particular, the regional authority aims to minimize the total transport risk induced over the entire region in which the transportation network is embedded, while local authorities want the risk over their local jurisdictions to be the lowest possible, forcing the regional authority to assure also risk equity. We provide a linear bilevel programming formulation for this hazmat transportation network design problem that takes into account both total risk minimization and risk equity. We transform the bilevel model into a single-level mixed integer linear program by replacing the second level (follower) problem by its KKT conditions and by linearizing the complementary constraints, and then we solve the MIP problem with a commercial optimization solver. The optimal solution may not be stable, and we provide an approach for testing its stability and for evaluating the range of the its solution values when it is not stable. Moreover, since the bilevel model is difficult to be solved optimally and its optimal solution may not be stable, we provide a heuristic algorithm for the bilevel model able to always find a stable solution. The proposed bilevel model and heuristic algorithm are experimented on real scenarios of an Italian regional network.

Sustainable fuzzy multi-trip location-routing problem for medical waste management during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Abstract: The performance of waste management system has been recently interrupted and encountered a very serious situation due to the epidemic outbreak of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). To this end, the handling of infectious medical waste has been particularly more vital than ever. Therefore, in this study, a novel mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed to formulate the sustainable multi-trip location-routing problem with time windows (MTLRP-TW) for medical waste management in the COVID-19 pandemic. The objectives are to concurrently minimize the total traveling time, total violation from time windows/service priorities and total infection/environmental risk imposed on the population around disposal sites. Here, the time windows play a key role to define the priority of services for hospitals with a different range of risks. To deal with the uncertainty, a fuzzy chance-constrained programming approach is applied to the proposed model. A real case study is investigated in Sari city of Iran to test the performance and applicability of the proposed model. Accordingly, the optimal planning of vehicles is determined to be implemented by the municipality, which takes 19.733 h to complete the processes of collection, transportation and disposal. Finally, several sensitivity analyses are performed to examine the behavior of the objective functions against the changes of controllable parameters and evaluate optimal policies and suggest useful managerial insights under different conditions.

Railway and road infrastructure in the Belt and Road Initiative countries: Estimating the impact of transport infrastructure on economic growth

Abstract: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is one of the most ambitious infrastructure investment efforts in history, representing great potential for stimulating regional economic growth in Asia, Europe and Africa. This study collects cross-country panel data from 2007 to 2016 and investigates the impact of transport infrastructure (railway and road) on the economic growth in the BRI countries. First, a spatial-temporal characteristics analysis of transport infrastructure and economic growth is presented. Then, the global Moran’s I and the local Moran scatterplot are employed to test for possible spatial autocorrelations. Finally, both static and dynamic spatial models are utilized to empirically examine the impact of transport infrastructure on economic growth from the national and regional perspectives. The estimation results at the national level reveal that the transport infrastructure in the BRI countries plays an essential role in facilitating economic growth. Moreover, this study finds significantly positive spatial spillover effects of economic growth in the categories of geographical distance, economic distance, cultural distance, and institutional distance spatial weight matrices, i.e., shorter geographical distances and economic, cultural and institutional similarities among the BRI countries lead to mutual economic growth. The estimation results at the regional level indicate that the spatial spillover effects of transport infrastructure are significantly negative in East Asia-Central Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States and in South Asia. On the contrary, the positive spatial spillover effect of transport infrastructure on economic growth is most pronounced in Central and Eastern Europe. This indicates the polarization effect in the initial stage of the lagging transport infrastructure and the diffusion effects after the transport infrastructure is mature. This study is valuable because it examines the impact of transport infrastructure on economic growth in the BRI countries. In addition, two policy suggestions for driving the regional economy in the BRI countries are given.