Karthikeyan currently works as a researcher – Water productivity in IWMI. He has 11 years of research and working experience in applying remote sensing and hydrological modeling tools for sustainable water resources management in Asia and Africa. Current interests include monitoring crop water use from remote sensing, assessing water productivity gaps in irrigation schemes across Asia and Africa, designing capacity-building programs on water productivity, and co-developing demand driven tools using WaPOR data for improving productivity in Africa and Middle east.
Karthikeyan has a wide range of experience in applying modeling tools and remote sensing based datasets for improved decision making which includes from developing participatory web-based tools for supporting long term water resources management, remote sensing-based data assimilation for estimating crop water use in data scarce environment, developing Gender Equality Monitoring (GEM) platform for Lower Mekong region, and developing a web-based seasonal river course change monitoring platform for Myanmar using Google Earth Engine.
Past work experience includes flood hazard modelling for Index Based Flood Insurance in South Asia, remote sensing based flood hazard mapping and modelling, salinity monitoring and modelling in Aral Sea basin, groundwater-surface water interactions, application of stable isotopes for sustaining springs in Nepal, stream temperature monitoring and modelling, and urban wastewater network modelling. Prior to joining IWMI, Karthikeyan worked with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) as a research fellow in the water cluster and before that as a postdoctoral fellow in IWMI. Karthikeyan has a Ph.D. in Physical geography from Roskilde University, Denmark.