Professor Zahra Kalantari's work advances the understanding of interactions between urban socio-economic, socio-physical, and biophysical systems, which is essential for developing effective and efficient strategies and transition pathways for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and monitoring.
As the Nature-Based Solutions and Resilient Cities Lead at UNU-INWEH, her research focuses on complex urban systems and their relationship to climate change and its impacts. She works on initiatives that can be translated into innovative, practical applications of nature-based solutions (NBS) to help the built environment sector reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Her work explores how NBS can be integrated into climate policy, urban planning, public health, and socio-economic development.
Prof. Kalantari employs cutting-edge tools such as artificial intelligence, geospatial analysis, and digital twins to enhance design and monitoring processes, enabling precise mapping, simulation, and performance forecasting. These tools make NBS more actionable and compelling for policymakers and investors. Her research emphasizes cross-disciplinary collaboration across climate science, urban planning, and economics, with the goal of transforming scientific insights into scalable, real-world solutions that can attract investment and public support.
She has led multiple research projects and has published widely in high-impact journals, contributing to critical work on climate change, human-induced environmental impacts, risk, sustainability, and urban resilience.
In addition to her role at UNU-INWEH, she is a Professor of Environmental Engineering for Sustainability in the Anthropocene and Director of the Water Centre at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. She has a Ph.D. in Land and Water Resources Engineering (KTH) and M.Sc. in Water Resources and Environment (Lund University).