Civil Engineering Department

Suchetana Bihu

Suchetana, Bihu
Assistant Professor
Specialization : Environmental Engineering
Room No : 328-B
bihu[at]ce[dot]iitr[dot]ac[dot]in

Areas of Interest

Water Quality Management
Performance modelling of wastewater treatment systems
Climate impacts on water & wastewater systems
Water & wastewater regulations & policy
Links between water, sanitation and public health
Water quality database development & management

Water Quality Management

Performance modelling of wastewater treatment systems

Climate impacts on water & wastewater systems

Water & wastewater regulations & policy

Links between water, sanitation and public health

Water quality database development & management

Honors and Awards

Award	Awarding Organisation	Year
Editorial Board Member	Journal of Water Process Engineering	2026
Dissertation Completion Assistantship	CEAE, University of Colorado Boulder, US	2017
Best Teaching Assistant	CEAE, University of Colorado Boulder, US	2014
Trainee, Environmental Data Analytics Workshop	National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, US	2015
Best Teaching Assistant	CEAE, University of Colorado Boulder, US	2014
Outstanding Merit Fellowship	University of Colorado Boulder, US	2013
Summer Intern	Queen’s University Belfast, UK	2009

Professional Background

From	To	Designation	Organisation
August, 2020	Continuing	Assistant Professor	Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee
2023	2024	Visiting Associate Research Scientist	Columbia University
2018	2020	Research Associate	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
2017	2018	International Specialist	American Water Works Association (AWWA), US
2014	2017	Research Assistant	University of Colorado Boulder, US
2013	2014	Teaching Assistant	University of Colorado Boulder, US

Educational Details

Degree	Subject	University	Year
Ph.D.	Civil Engineering	University of Colorado Boulder, US	2017
M.Tech.	Water Resources Engineering	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore	2013
B.Tech.	Civil Engineering	Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology, Shibpur (formerly BESU, Shibpur)	2010

Journal Publication

Sort by Year (Ascending)

Suchetana, B., Rajagopalan, B. and Silverstein, J. (2016). Hierarchical modeling approach to evaluate spatial and temporal variability of wastewater treatment compliance with biochemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids and ammonia limits in the US. Environmental Engineering Science. DOI: 10.1089/ees.2016.0116

Suchetana, B., Rajagopalan, B. and Silverstein, J. (2017). Assessment of wastewater treatment facility compliance with decreasing ammonia discharge limits using a regression tree model. Science of the Total Environment. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.03.236

Bhowmik, R. D., Suchetana, B. and Lu, M. (2019). Shower effect of a rainfall onset on the heat accumulated during a preceding dry spell. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-43437-7

Suchetana, B., Rajagopalan, B. and Silverstein, J. (2019). Investigating the regime shifts and controlling factors of Total Inorganic Nitrogen concentration in Treated Wastewater Using Non- Homogeneous Hidden Markov and Multinomial Logistic Regression Models. Science of The Total Environment. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.07.194

Suchetana, B., Rajagopalan, B. and Silverstein, J. (2019). Modeling risk attributes of wastewater treatment plant violations of Ammonia Discharge Limits in the United States. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment. DOI: 10.1007/s00477-019-01654-6

Pande, H., Suchetana B. (2026). Investigating precipitation impacts on separate sewer flows in data-limited systems. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment. DOI: 10.1007/s00477-026-03213-2

Research Projects

Sort by Year (Ascending)

1. Title:- Development of a Hierarchical Hotspot Prediction Tool (HHPT) for Infectious Disease Outbreak in the Himalayan states of India
Sponsor: Faculty Initiation Grant, IIT Roorkee	Sanctioned Year: 2021-22	Amount: ₹ 17.00 Lakhs	Role:

2. Title:- Development of a Satellite Imagery-informed Decision Support System for Climate Resilient Drinking Water Treatment (SiDCReW)
Sponsor: ISRO STC-IITR	Sanctioned Year: 2025-26	Amount: ₹ 30.10 Lakhs	Role: PI

Administrative Background

Designation	Organisation	From Period	To Period
Member	Department Safety Committee (DSC)	18.06.2021	31.07.2022
Member	International Student Affairs Committee (ISAC)	01.08.2020	31.07.2022
Member	Departmental faculty Search Committee (DFSC)	01.01.2022	31.12.2022

Membership

S. No.	Membership
1.	Institute of Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI)
2.	American Geophysical Union (AGU)
3.	Water Works Association (AWWA)

M. Tech. Dissertations

Sort by Year (Ascending)

S. No.	Project Title	Student Name	Co-Supervisor	Degree	Year
1.	Comparison of an ANN-based and a regression tree-based model to predict effluent pollutants concentrations based on commonly measured influent pollutants concentrations	Sachin Bharti	Prof. B.P. Vellanki	PG	2021
2.	Development of an Artificial Neural Network-based application for prediction of effluent wastewater quality	Swapnil Meena	Prof. B.P. Vellanki	PG	2021
3.	Resilience analysis of decentralized wastewater treatment systems	Maj. Anil I. Karwal	NA	PG	2022
4.	Machine Learning-based approaches for modelling variability in influent and effluent quality at wastewater treatment plants	Gaurav Rajan	NA	PG	2023
5.	Impact of Climatic variables on Inflow volumes to Wastewater Treatment Plants using Machine Learning Techniques	Hitesh Pande	NA	PG	2023
6.	Data-driven approach for assessing and predicting impact of meteorological variables on air quality	Anugrah G Pillai	NA	PG	2024
7.	Development of Composite Index (CI) for Multi-Parameter, Multi-Plant Statistical Performance Assessment of Sequencing Batch Reactors (SBRs) in India	Pranshu Soni	Prof. A.A. Kazmi	PG	2025

Research Scholars

Sort by Year (Ascending)

S. No.	Topic	Scholar Name	Registration Year	Co-Supervisor
1.	Spatio-temporal patterns in wastewater treatment variability in India	Ilham Maqsood	2025	NA
2.	Spatio-temporal patterns in water quality variability in India	Sumit Baraskar	2025	NA

Teaching Engagements

S. No.	Course Name	Course Code	Class Name	Semester & Year
1.	Wastewater Engineering	CEN 202	UG	Spring 2021-2022
2.	A/B: B. Tech Project	CEN 400	UG	Autumn and Spring 2022
3.	Introduction to Environmental Studies	CEN-105	B.Tech.	Autumn Semester 2020-21
4.	Statistics and Instrumentation for Environmental Engineers	CEN-505	M.Tech.	Autumn Semester 2020-21

Visits To Outside Institutions

S. No.	Visiting Institute	Purpose of Visit	Start Date	End Date
1.	Columbia University	Visiting Associate Research Scientist	14/Sep/2023	30/Jun/2024

Special Lectures Delivered

S. No.	Title	Organisation	Date
1.	Application of Remote Sensing & GIS in Water Quality Assessment	National Institute of Hydrology (NIH), Roorkee	09-Sep-2025
2.	Understanding influent shock loading in wastewater treatment systems: Training programme on DPR Preparation, Execution and Monitoring of Projects under NMCG	IIT Roorkee	26-May-2022
3.	Re-evaluating environmental system performance under extreme climate stress	University of Colorado Boulder	11-Jun-2024

Conference Publication

Sort by Year (Ascending)

Suchetana, B., Rajan, G., Pande, H., Rajagopalan, B. (2023). A Machine Learning-based Approach for Assessing Extreme Precipitation Responses of Separate Sewer Systems: A Cross-Country Perspective. AGU Fall Meeting 2023. Place: USA Page No: GC24A-03

Suchetana, B., Anand, V., Porwal, K.,Srivastava, B. (2023). Understanding and Working With Large Language Models (LLMs) for Water Decision Support in India. AGU Fall Meeting. Place: USA Page No: IN31E-0701

Suchetana, B., Srivastava, B., Gupta, H.P., Saharia, M. (2023). Promoting sustainable water usage and management with water data, AI and Policy. Proceedings of the 6th Joint International Conference on Data Science & Management of Data (10th ACM IKDD CODS and 28th COMAD). Place: India Page No: 308-311

Sharma, R., Suchetana, B. (2025). Identifying and overcoming limitations of open-source surface water quality datasets of India). XIIth Scientific Assembly of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences.

Bihu Suchetana, Sohan Nag (2026). Development of a Satellite-based Monitoring Approach for Augmenting Open-source Indian Lake Water Quality Datasets with Seasonal Information. European Geophysical Union. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-17803

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