Dr. Ridhi Saluja joined SEI as a Research Fellow in July 2021.
Ridhi has spent the last nine years working on wetlands conservation and management. Her research has led her to design integrated management and adaptation planning frameworks for wetland ecosystems using remote sensing and GIS, as well as climate science.
Prior to joining SEI, she worked as a Technical Officer-Wetlands Ecology for Wetlands International South Asia (WISA). She has managed different initiatives at WISA over the last three years to mainstream wise-use of wetlands and strengthen their role in integrated water resource management, disaster risk reduction, climate vulnerability, and WASH using novel tools and methodologies.
She led the development of Wetlands International South Asia’s High-Altitude Wetlands (HAWs) programme and co-authored Management of High-Altitude Himalayan Wetlands – A Guidebook for Wetland Managers, along with the development of a management planning framework for high altitude wetlands in Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh, India. She has also worked to shape a climate change adaptation framework for Indian wetlands. She was also responsible for formulating a Hydrogeomorphic (HGM) classification system for wetlands in the Ganga River Basin using a Remote Sensing-based wetlands inventory and functional assessment of wetlands. She was also a member of a multidisciplinary expert team that developed a framework for Wetlands Inventory, Assessment, and Monitoring (WIAMS) for Indian Ramsar sites.
Ridhi holds a PhD in wetland condition assessment using in-situ hyperspectral and orbital multispectral remote sensing data. She was awarded the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) Fellowship, from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India during 2012-2017 to support her research. She is the author of ten peer-reviewed journal articles and several chapters.