Webinar 7 | Assessing Climate Risks for Semi-Arid Regions
The seventh webinar of the series “Climate-resilient Water Management Approaches: Adaptation in an Age of Uncertainty”, hosted by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP), together with the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) and the International Center for Integrated Water Resources Management (ICIWaRM), will highlight the challenges that climate change pose for semi-arid regions. Speakers will bring us examples from India and Iran, focusing on the benefits of participatory system modeling and on the sustainability at the basin level, respectively.
In the first presentation, Shuchi Vora will present her work using participatory strategies to enable systemic changes in water resources management. Through Systems Thinking Workshops, Shuchi and colleagues have helped facilitate collective visioning for resilient groundwater futures at the regional level in India. Focusing on interlinkages and cross-disciplinary thinking, the work has led to the co-production of knowledge and co-owning of solutions for managing water risk in drought-hit areas of India.
In the second presentation, Mojtaba Shafiei will highlight an indicator-based sustainability assessment framework for water management that has been developed and used in the semi-arid Mashhad Basin in Iran. The decision support tool is designed to support policy decision making for sustainable development, while representing diverse stakeholder needs related to water management practices. The framework focuses on technical, environmental, social, and economic components within a basin lens. The research and application of the framework are meant to serve as a bridge between researchers and decision makers.
*The webinar will take place in English. Live French interpretation will be available during the event.
Webinar Agenda (times listed as CEST)
Moderated by: Anil Mishra, Chief of Section, Hydrological Systems and Water Scarcity (HSS), UNESCO
13:00–13:05 | Welcome and Opening Statement by Anil Mishra, Chief of Section, Hydrological Systems and Water Scarcity (HSS), UNESCO
13:05–13:25 | Collective visioning for groundwater futures through participatory modelling, by Shuchi Vora, Global Resilience Partnership and SouthSouthNorth, India
13:25–13:45| Developing a basin sustainability assessment framework: case study from a semi-arid region in Iran, by Mojtaba Shafiei, East Water and Environmental Research institute (EWERI), Iran
13:45–14:25 | Moderated Q&A with Shuchi Vora, Motjaba Shafiei, Pooja Prasad, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, and Kamran Davary, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran
14:25–14:30 | Closing Remarks and Announcements by Will Logan, Director, ICIWaRM
