Aliyu Salisu Barau

Aliyu Salisu Barau is a Nigerian academic and a full professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Bayero University Kano. He is the Dean of the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Bayero University Kano and the West Africa Hub Director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN), affiliated with the Earth Institute, Columbia University. He is also a Chartered Town Planner of the UK's Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).

Early life
Aliyu Salisu Barau obtained BSc Geography (1996–1999) with a research project on Urban Climate Change and MSc Land Resources (2006–2008) with specialization on Landscape assessment for tourism potentials both from Bayero University Kano. For his doctorate degree, Aliyu moved to the University of Technology Malaysia (UTM) (2010–2015) where he obtained PhD in Urban and Regional Planning with a research that focused on landscape fragmentation in a Special economic zone namely Iskandar Malaysia.

Career

 * Dean, Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences/ Member of the University Management Committee/Member of the Senate. Bayero University Kano (Since March, 2023).
 * Team Leader, Environment and Livelihoods Theme (ELITE), Centre for Dryland Agriculture (World Bank African Centre of Excellence), Bayero University Kano.
 * Director West Africa Hub, Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) affiliated with Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York appointed 2020.
 * Founder and head of the Millennials and Resilience: City, Innovation and Transformation of Youths Laboratory, or the MR CITY Lab. An SDG Lab initially funded by Future Earth, Stockholm Resilience Centre and The University of Tokyo Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3s). MR CITY Lab aims to generate prototype solutions to complex sustainability problems.
 * Alternate Member, Multidisciplinary Experts Panel: Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Science and Policy (IPBES) IPBES Secretariat Bonn Germany (https://ipbes.net/multidisciplinary-expert-panel).
 * Co-author of the Global Research and Action Agenda on Cities and Climate Change Science (GRAA). The Agenda aims to generate greater knowledge in support of practice and decision-making in urban areas, through collaborative research efforts. GRAA was supported by the IPCC, UN Habitat, WCRP, WMO, UNEP, ICLEI, C40, UCLG, Cities Alliance.
 * Member, Science and Innovation Steering Committee for Innovate4Cities 2021 UN-Habitat and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) held October 11–15, 2021.
 * Member of the IPCC Scientific Steering Committee for the Cities and Climate Change International Scientific Conference. This is the first IPCC meeting on cities and climate change held in 2018 in Edmonton, Canada. The conference aims to feed into IPCC AR7 Special Report on Cities and Climate Change.
 * Commission Member: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN's) World Commission on Protected Areas (with concurrent role in Climate change, Governance of Protected and Conserved Areas, Urban Conservation Strategies networks) – 2018–2021 reappointed 2021–2025.
 * Environmental Advocacy for fostering conservation of culturally and historically important heritage sites such as the Kano City walls, open and green spaces including campaign against removing of old trees on Abuja-Kano Dual Carriage Way Rehabilitation project sites of Julius Berger Nigeria Plc for which the construction giant obliges positively.
 * 2015–2018 – Expert/Lead Author – Intergovernmental Platform for Science and Policy for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services – IPBES Africa Assessment Report.
 * Chartered Town Planner (No. 107197), Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), London, United Kingdom. This is the UK's planning profession gold standard. I was appointed by the RTPI based on satisfactorily demonstrating and meeting three criteria: Practical Experience, Professional Competence and Professional Development Plan.
 * 2018 – 2019– Contributor/Co-Author, the UN Habitat Guiding Principles for Urban-Rural Linkages to Advance Integrated Territorial Development. This framework is designed to support countries implement 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA)
 * 2014 – World Social Science Fellow (Sustainable Urbanisation), appointed by the International Social Science Council (ISSC) of UNESCO as potential future leader in sustainable urbanisation research.
 * 2013—Research Fellow, Earth System Governance Project (Future Earth). This is the world's largest social science research network in the area of governance and global environmental change.
 * Member of the Editorial Team, Climate change and cities: Third Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (ARC 3.3). Cambridge University Press. (This comprises twelve book elements published by the Cambridge University Press Edited by: William Solecki, Martha Barata, Aliyu Salisu Barau, Minal Pathak, Cynthia Rosenzweig.
 * City Contact Person for PhD Class on Cities and Climate Change for the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Boston, United States served March–May 2020.
 * Focal point Bayero University Kano Department of Urban and Regional Planning/UNI, the partnership between UN-Habitat and universities
 * Nigeria Project Lead: ‘Improving access to clean and modern energy for cooking while reducing land degradation and biodiversity loss in Nigeria (Bayero University, University of York and University College London) with Lindsay Stringer.
 * Co-Investigator – Gender-just landscapes: Gender based violence and community protection in land, natural resource and climate conflicts. (Nigeria, Colombia and the Philippines). Creating Safer Space Grant 2022– 2023
 * Chapter Scientist, (Chapter 4: Land Degradation) IPCC Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.
 * Lead Author, Special Report on SDG 11 and Land Restoration Chapter. Commissioned by International Resource Panel of the UN Environment,.
 * Executive Producer/Script writer – three Hausa short films featuring top Kannywood actors highlighting climate change mitigation through indigenous trees restoration (a UK PACT project 2021–2022)
 * Executive Producer/Script writer – three Hausa short cartoons on public education on flood risk management (PASET/ICIPE Do-it-For Commons research project 2020–2023).
 * Principal Investigator/Lead Researcher – development of the research framework for the development and planning of metropolitan fringe area driven by industrial parks in Abuja. A joint study between Professor Barau's team and International Cooperation of Belt & Road Scientific Research (China-Nigeria) under South East University China, Nanjing, P.R. China.
 * Aliyu led development of some Apps available on Play Store namely BUKTrees.

Public engagement
Aliyu Salisu Barau engages with the public through regular writing on multiple environmental issues in Nigeria and beyond especially in English and Hausa languages. He has featured several enlightenment programs monitored by the BBC, DW, VOA, and local and regional radio and TV stations such as Freedom Radio, Arewa24 among others. He has co-produced short films for public environmental education and engagement science-policy-science community. Aliyu is also widely reported by the top Nigerian newspapers on environment, climate, energy, SDGs, biodiversity conservation and land degradation. Barau has a keen interest in using short films for public education and engagement for positive land climate action. He has co-produced three short films on drylands landscape restoration.

Selected publications

 * Barau, A.S.; Ludin, A.N.M (2012) Intersection of Landscape, Anthropocene and Fourth Paradigm. Living Reviews in Landscape Research, vol.6 no.1, 2012 (published by Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany.
 * Kafi, K.M.; Barau, A.S.; Aliyu, A. (2021) The effects of windstorm in African medium-sized cities: An analysis of the degree of damage using KDE hotspots and EF-scale matrix. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102070. (Elsevier).
 * Barau, A.S.; Ludin, A.N.M (2012) Intersection of Landscape, Anthropocene and Fourth Paradigm. Living Reviews in Landscape Research, vol.6 no.1, 2012 (published by Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany.
 * Kafi, K.M.; Barau, A.S.; Aliyu, A. (2021) The effects of windstorm in African medium-sized cities: An analysis of the degree of damage using KDE hotspots and EF-scale matrix. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102070. (Elsevier).
 * Barau, A.S.; Ludin, A.N.M (2012) Intersection of Landscape, Anthropocene and Fourth Paradigm. Living Reviews in Landscape Research, vol.6 no.1, 2012 (published by Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany.
 * Kafi, K.M.; Barau, A.S.; Aliyu, A. (2021) The effects of windstorm in African medium-sized cities: An analysis of the degree of damage using KDE hotspots and EF-scale matrix. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102070. (Elsevier).
 * Barau, A.S.; Ludin, A.N.M (2012) Intersection of Landscape, Anthropocene and Fourth Paradigm. Living Reviews in Landscape Research, vol.6 no.1, 2012 (published by Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany.
 * Kafi, K.M.; Barau, A.S.; Aliyu, A. (2021) The effects of windstorm in African medium-sized cities: An analysis of the degree of damage using KDE hotspots and EF-scale matrix. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102070. (Elsevier).
 * Barau, A.S.; Ludin, A.N.M (2012) Intersection of Landscape, Anthropocene and Fourth Paradigm. Living Reviews in Landscape Research, vol.6 no.1, 2012 (published by Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany.
 * Kafi, K.M.; Barau, A.S.; Aliyu, A. (2021) The effects of windstorm in African medium-sized cities: An analysis of the degree of damage using KDE hotspots and EF-scale matrix. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102070. (Elsevier).
 * Barau, A.S.; Ludin, A.N.M (2012) Intersection of Landscape, Anthropocene and Fourth Paradigm. Living Reviews in Landscape Research, vol.6 no.1, 2012 (published by Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany.
 * Kafi, K.M.; Barau, A.S.; Aliyu, A. (2021) The effects of windstorm in African medium-sized cities: An analysis of the degree of damage using KDE hotspots and EF-scale matrix. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102070. (Elsevier).
 * Barau, A.S.; Ludin, A.N.M (2012) Intersection of Landscape, Anthropocene and Fourth Paradigm. Living Reviews in Landscape Research, vol.6 no.1, 2012 (published by Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Germany.
 * Kafi, K.M.; Barau, A.S.; Aliyu, A. (2021) The effects of windstorm in African medium-sized cities: An analysis of the degree of damage using KDE hotspots and EF-scale matrix. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102070. (Elsevier).

Selected books

 * Barau, Aliyu Salisu(2004). "Environment and Sustainable Development in the Qur’an." International Institute of Islamic Thought(IIIT), Kano-Nigeria (2004).
 * Barau, Aliyu Salisu(2004). "Environment and Sustainable Development in the Qur’an." International Institute of Islamic Thought(IIIT), Kano-Nigeria (2004).
 * Barau, Aliyu Salisu(2004). "Environment and Sustainable Development in the Qur’an." International Institute of Islamic Thought(IIIT), Kano-Nigeria (2004).

Awards

 * Recipient of the 2023 Africa Ecologist Award by the British Ecological Society.
 * World Social Science Fellow (Sustainable Urbanisation) of the International Social Science Council, Research Fellow – Earth System Governance Project. World Social Science Fellow (Sustainable Urbanisation), appointed by the International Social Science Council (ISSC) of UNESCO as The ISSC is now renamed International Science Council.
 * 2018 Top reviewer (top 1%) cross-field Clarivate/Web of Science.
 * Honourable Mention Award for Unique Landscapes and Places – International photographic competition organised by Association of American Geographers, awarded at the 56th Annual General Meeting of the April 2011 Seattle, Washington State, United States.
 * Honourable Mention Award in International Environmental Essay Contest Third Edition, 1998 organised by Francis Marion University, Florence, South Carolina, United States.
 * Recipient of the 2011 Chinese Academy of Sciences Travel Grant for International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE) Congress in Beijing.