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Project for Glaciers, Mountains, Rivers and Energy is an independent publication launched in November 2025 by Diva Sinha. If you subscribe today, you'll get full access to the website as well as email newsletters about new content when it's available. Your subscription makes this site possible, and allows Project for Glaciers, Mountains, Rivers and Energy to continue to exist. Thank you!

About the Author

Diva Sinha is a PhD candidate in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS University of London. She joined SOAS in April 2017. She holds a BA and an MSc in Environment, Politics, and Development from SOAS. She has also earned a certification in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) from the University of California, Davis.

Her doctoral research, “From Glaciers to Gridlines: Hydropower, Land Subsidence, Social Displacement, and Biodiversity Loss in Uttarakhand’s Mountain Valleys,” explores the ecological and social consequences of large dam development in India’s disaster-prone northwestern Himalayas. Diva’s research evaluates the implications of both large- and small-scale hydropower expansion across the northwestern Indian Himalayas, with a particular focus on the disaster-prone and ecologically fragile towns of Joshimath and Vishnu Prayag in Uttarakhand. Her project investigates how unregulated dam construction in this geologically fragile region contributes to land subsidence, ecological degradation, biodiversity loss, forced displacement and compounds disaster risks. 

Professionally, Diva served as a Project Administrator (2024-2025) and Project Coordinator (2022-2024) within the Research and Knowledge Exchange Department at SOAS, supporting more than thirty funded projects, including Dr Mayur Suresh’s Leverhulme-funded project, Professor Jieyu Liu’s ERC project, and numerous Research Culture Fund and Impact and Knowledge Exchange initiatives. Her responsibilities ranged from research-grant administration and budget management to the organisation of international academic conferences and workshops. She has also worked as a Research Assistant (2022-2022) on Dr Andrew Newsham’s Seedcorn-funded project examining climate adaptation and livelihoods in the Global South, interned (2024-2024) with wildlife-conservation organisations focused on the Bengal Tiger and Snow Leopard, and served as a Research Analyst (2021-2023).

Diva has contributed to SOAS Spirit and The UCL Tab, writing on environmental and ecological issues. Her recent article for The Conversation UK How India’s unplanned hydropower dams and tunnels are disrupting Himalayan landscapes attracted over 30,000 reads within two months of its publication and was republished by several prominent media platforms, including Factor This, Yahoo News UK, Tolerance.CA, Renewable Energy World, Phys.org, and Scroll India

She is a member of Free Tibet, Himalayan Nature Society, Colossal Biosciences and The Royal Society.