PhD Dissertation Defense: Mohsin Khan
Date/Time: Mon, Sep 29th, 2025 at 12:00 pm (EST)
Location: Zoom
https://northeastern.zoom.us/j/98813064747
Meeting ID: 988 1306 4747
Title: “Spatial Equity, Climate Change, and Community Resilience”
Abstract:
In many developing nations, rapid urbanization, population growth, and climate risks have intensified spatial inequities, deepening gaps in infrastructure access and resilience. Pakistan exemplifies these challenges; with over 200 million people, it faces rapid urban growth, entrenched poverty, institutional bias, and severe climate impacts, resulting in stark spatial disparities. Besides repeated catastrophic disasters, including major floods in 2010 and 2020, country confronts chronic infrastructure deficits with over 60% of the population lacks access to safe drinking water, 22 million children remain out of school, and 37% of the population lives in extreme poverty. These overlapping crises disproportionately impact marginalized groups. Despite policy efforts since the 1990s, spatial inequalities persist and, in some cases, have worsened. These disparities are rooted in historical legacies of uneven development, colonial-era urban bias, and a widening rural-urban divide, all of which have been further exacerbated by contemporary forces such as globalization and neoliberal economic reforms. As a result, development patterns continue to favor urban centers and select regions, leading to uneven access to public services, particularly in marginalized communities. The increasing impacts of climate change further compound these challenges, including food insecurity, disproportionately affecting marginalized populations who already face limited access to essential services, capacity, and adaptation resources, and resilient infrastructure. This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing cycle in which climate change and spatial inequities perpetuate vulnerability, undermining both sustainable development and climate resilience efforts. While there is growing recognition of these interlinked issues, there remains a lack of comprehensive understanding regarding measuring and analyzing these inequalities and challenges, their relationship to socioeconomic variability, and their implications for climate resilience, particularly within Pakistan.
To explore these challenges, the dissertation includes three interlinked studies, each examining a different aspect of spatial inequity, climate change, and resilience. These studies collectively investigate spatial equity through the development of a novel Spatial Infrastructure Accessibility Index (SIAI), analyze access to urban green spaces (Parks) in relation to socio-economic status, and examine typologies of climate adaptation and resilience across multiple scales and contexts. Rooted in the principles of spatial and environmental justice, the dissertation employs an integrated methodology that combines quantitative spatial analysis with qualitative research. This mixed-methods approach offers a holistic understanding of how spatial inequalities are produced, sustained, and potentially mitigated in the context of climate change, food insecurity, and rapid urbanization in Pakistan.
The first paper develops a comprehensive framework for measuring and understanding spatial infrastructure accessibility across Pakistan through the creation of a novel Spatial Infrastructure Accessibility Index (SIAI). Employing Principal Component Analysis, advanced geospatial and multivariate unsupervised machine learning techniques, this study conducts a spatiotemporal analysis of infrastructure accessibility across Pakistan’s districts from 2010 to 2020, examining four critical dimensions: utility, telecommunication, transportation, and social infrastructure. The analysis reveals deeply entrenched spatial disparities and divergent developmental trajectories across provinces, with Punjab maintaining the highest accessibility levels while Balochistan remains consistently underserved. Machine learning-based spatial clustering identifies a persistent spatial dichotomy in Pakistan’s infrastructure landscape, with above-average accessibility concentrated in Punjab and urban centers, and below-average accessibility predominating in Balochistan, interior Sindh, and peripheral regions. Significantly, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa demonstrates improvements following post-conflict reconstruction investments, and urban districts across all provinces benefit from infrastructure gains, rural and peripheral areas remain locked in infrastructural underdevelopment. The Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA) analysis reveals significant spatial clustering of both high- and low-access districts, with persistent cold-spots of higher accessibility in major urban centers and hot-spots of inaccessibility concentrated in historically marginalized regions. This foundational analysis establishes the empirical basis for understanding how spatial inequalities in infrastructure access perpetuate broader patterns of social, environmental and economic disadvantage across Pakistan’s diverse geographical landscape.
To understand these broader patterns of how spatial inequalities intersect with socio-economic and demography, the second article presents a spatial analysis of urban parks in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), examining green parks distribution, accessibility, and their relationship with the socio-economic status of the communities. Using administrative and geocoded data alongside geospatial methods (Accessible Natural Greenspace Standards approach), the study reveals significant disparities in park access, with underserved zones and poorer communities experiencing pronounced deficits. Although Zone I contains a higher concentration of parks, especially in affluent neighborhoods, it still faces shortages relative to population density, highlighting the importance of considering both park quantity and accessibility in urban planning. The research identifies specific locations with critical park shortages and proposes targeted interventions to enhance green space provision. By integrating the Relative Wealth Index and Multidimensional Poverty Index, the study demonstrates a strong correlation between park availability and socio-economic status, underscoring the need for inclusive planning, equitable resource allocation, and community engagement to create a more sustainable and just urban environment in Islamabad.
The third paper examines how access to food and other essential resources has shaped the impacts of climate change and differentially affected food security and adaptation strategies among marginalized groups in the conflict-affected and infrastructure-deprived districts of Bannu and D.I. Khan. These fragile districts are characterized by limited state capacity, high vulnerability to climate shocks, and persistent development deficits. Using an intersectional and social justice lens, the study draws on grounded theory and rich field narratives from internally displaced people, women, smallholders, landless tenants, daily wage laborers, and community leaders. The findings revealed that climate-induced food insecurity is shaped by a complex interplay of socio-religious, cultural, gendered, behavioral, environmental, and institutional factors. Moreover, households employ a range of adaptation strategies, including livelihood diversification, reliance on social networks, and informal credit, while also facing significant socio-psychological stresses and stigmas. The research emphasized the importance of integrating community narratives and intersectional perspectives into policy and adaptation programs to foster more sustainable and equitable responses to escalating climate threats.
Collectively, the three studies suggest that addressing spatial inequity and climate-induced food insecurity necessitates multiscale, community-informed policy interventions grounded in spatial justice. While the first two chapters employ quantitative spatial analysis to map disparities in infrastructure and urban park accessibility, the third chapter complements this by using qualitative methods to examine how these inequalities are experienced and navigated, particularly in relation to food security and climate adaptation. This mixed-methods approach reveals that communities lacking infrastructure and public services are also the most vulnerable to climate risks and food insecurity. The dissertation offers targeted policy recommendations and practical strategies to support more equitable, resilient, and sustainable development in Pakistan.
Committee Members:
Prof. Daniel P. Aldrich, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University (Chair)
Prof. Mark Henderson, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University
Prof. Kaitlyn S. Alvarez Noli, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University
