Coastal Cities at Risk: Building Adaptive Capacity for Managing Climate Change in Coastal Megacities

 

	Photographer: Tony Fouhse
Gordon McBean

Anond Snidvongs (Photo forthcoming)
Anond Snidvongs is assistant professor in the Department of Marine Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, as well as director of Southeast Asia’s START Regional Research Center, a non-governmental organization that supports the production and sharing of scientific knowledge on developing regions facing environmental change. Snidvongs is also director of the Climate Change Knowledge Center, part of Thailand’s National Science and Technology Development Agency.

Snidvongs is one of the first scientists to study the impact of climate change in Thailand and he is a frequently cited climate change expert. He is member of the technical subcommittee for Thailand’s National Committee on Climate Change Policy. In 2007, he drafted Bangkok’s global warming action plan. He also produced climate change models and assessed vulnerable systems and sectors for the Thai government’s 11th National Economic and Social Development Plan.

In addition to his climate change modelling work, Snidvongs’ research has focused on community-based climate adaptation strategies in the Lower Mekong countries and he has evaluated the vulnerability of Asian coastal cities to climate change. He is a lead author of the chapter on coastal and lowland areas, part of Working Group II’s contribution to the 5th Assessment Report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He holds a PhD in oceanography from the University of Hawaii and a BSc in marine sciences from Chulalongkorn University.

Gordon McBean
Gordon McBean is a professor in the departments of geography and political science and director of policy studies at the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He is president of the board of START International; board chair of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences; Science Committee Chair of the ICSU-ISSC-UNISDR Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Program; and steering committee member of the International Year of Global Understanding. Formerly, McBean was a member of the board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development and of the Ontario Ministry of Environment’s Expert Panel on Climate Change Adaptation, among other international and national committees. He served as assistant deputy minister responsible for the Meteorological Service of Environment Canada (1994–2000).

As a lead author and review editor for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), McBean shared the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC in 2007. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and Order of Ontario, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, and the American Meteorological Society. In 1989 he received Environment Canada’s Patterson Distinguished Service Medal.

His research focuses on climate and hazards sciences, ranging from the natural sciences to government policies and public responses to them.  He holds a PhD in physics and oceanography and an MSc in meteorology from McGill University. He received his BSc in physics from the University of British Columbia.

	Photographer: Tony Fouhse
Taha Ouarda and Driss Ouazar

Driss Ouazar
Driss Ouazar is professor of civil engineering and computational methods at l’École Mohammadia d’Ingénieurs, Université Mohamed V-Agdal, Morocco. He leads the Hydro-Systems Analysis Laboratory, formerly associated with Morocco’s National Research Council. Ouazar is a member of Morocco’s High Water and Climate Council and sits on a scientific board of that country’s National Research Council. Since 2008, he has served as national representative to the International Association of Hydrological Science and was nominated as resident member of the Hassan II Academy of Science and Technology in 2006.

Ouazar is also an adjunct professor at the University of Delaware’s water resources program.  He has been a visiting professor in France, the UK, Italy, Japan, and the USA. His research interests include computational techniques for engineering as well as scientific design and analysis focused on water resource issues.

Co-founder of a series of international conferences hosted by l’École Mohammadia d'Ingénieurs as well as a number of others, Ouazar also co-founded the International Conference on Saltwater Intrusion and Coastal Aquifers. He has been published in numerous scientific journals, edited 13 books, and is a co-editor-in-chief of the Moroccan international journal, Frontiers in Science and Engineering.

Ouazar holds a PhD from the University of Luick, Belgium. He received his master’s in hydraulic engineering from l’École Mohammadia d'Ingénieurs.

Taha B.M.J. Ouarda
A Canada Research Chair in Hydrological Variable Assessment, Taha B.M.J. Ouarda is a professor and researcher at l’Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), a research university affiliated with l’Université du Québec, Canada, dedicated to training graduate students and advancing scientific knowledge. Ouarda was recently co-chair of statistical hydrology at INRS’ water sciences centre. He specializes in statistical hydrometeorology, risk, and water resources systems analysis.

Ouarda has developed several approaches for predicting extreme hydro-meteorological events, methodologies for modelling hydro-meteorological variables under changing environments, and several computer software programs to deal with a variety of problems in the fields of water resources and environmental engineering. He has led a number of international projects on hydro-meteorological modelling, environmental analysis, and the links between climate evolution, the environment, and public health. Ouarda has won many prestigious awards and is on the editorial board of such international scientific publications as the Journal of Hydrology and the Hydrological Sciences Journal.

Ouarda holds a PhD in civil engineering from Colorado State University, USA. He received his master’s degree from the National Engineering School of Tunis, Tunisia.

	Photographer: Tony Fouhse
Daniel Scott and Murray Simpson

Murray C. Simpson
Murray C. Simpson is a senior research associate at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, associate professor at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, treasurer and committee member of the UK National Committee for the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, and a private consultant. He has extensive experience in sustainable development, tourism, climate change, and the environment. His research interests are sustainable tourism development; climate change adaptation and mitigation, especially in small island states; and bridging the gap between research, policy, and implementation.

Simpson is lead author and director of the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in the Tourism Sector: Frameworks, Tools and Practices publication and capacity-building seminar. He has also authored numerous other publications.

Murray has worked with several UN agencies, the Association of Caribbean States, the European Union, European Travel Commission, and European Development Fund. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; a founding member of the UK Committee International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change and of Experts in Climate Change and Tourism (eCLAT); and a member of the UN World Tourism Organization Panel of Tourism Experts.

He has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Oxford, a MSc from the University of Greenwich, UK, and, a BA from the University of Leeds, UK.

Daniel Scott
A Canada Research Chair in Global Change and Tourism, Daniel Scott is based at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His research interests are in the social, economic, and environmental processes of global change and their implications for the international tourism industry. He focuses on reducing the vulnerability of tourism-dependent communities to risks associated with global change, most notably climate change.

Scott was chair of the joint World Meteorological Organization–World Tourism Organization Expert Team on Climate and Tourism (2006–2010) and has been a contributing author/expert reviewer for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Working Group II) Third and Fourth Assessment Reports. He is also a lead author of the 2007 Climate Change and Tourism: Responding to Global Challenges report published by the United Nations World Tourism Organization.  In addition to his extensive publications, Scott has testified before a US Senate committee on climate change and outdoor recreation/tourism. He is currently on the Advisory Committee to the United Nations-coordinated Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism.

Scott holds a PhD, MA, and a BSc in geography from York University, the University of Waterloo, and Brandon University, Canada, respectively.

	Photographer: Tony Fouhse
Shuaib Lwasa, James Ford, Lea Berrang Ford, and Alejandro Llanos

Alejandro Llanos
A physician, Alejandro Llanos is professor of public health and medicine at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPHC), Peru. He is specialized in infectious and tropical diseases, particularly the prevention and control of malaria and leishmaniasis. Over his 20–year research career, he has conducted more than 30 clinical trials and almost as many research studies on these diseases.

Llanos led and conducted the first phase of a successful control program that reduced the incidence of malaria by more than 50% in the border areas of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. He was also instrumental in developing the Faculty of Public Health and Administration at UPHC, in addition to launching a number of public health projects and educational programs focused on the poorest regions of Peru. He is a member of several scientific societies, including Peru’s National Academy of Medicine and National Academy of Science, the UK’s Royal Society and Tropical Medicine, and the Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical, Brazil. He has served as an advisor to national and international agencies, including FONCYT (Argentina), Colciencias (Colombia), and the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee of Parasitic Diseases.

Llanos holds a PhD in epidemiology from London University, UK, as well as two master’s degrees − the first in tropical medicine from the University of Brasilia, Brazil, the second in internal medicine from UPCH.

Shuaib Lwasa
Shuaib Lwasa is a lecturer in the Department of Environmental Management at the School of Forestry, Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda. A geographer by training, he has more than 12 years of research experience focused primarily on environmental management, livelihood systems, property rights, and vulnerability assessments in rural and urban areas.

Lwasa was formerly the regional research scientist with Urban Harvest, an initiative of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which aims to increase agricultural productivity and enhance food security for poor urban families while ensuring environmental sustainability. At CGIAR, Lwasa led a major international research project, partly supported by IDRC, which studied the linkages between urban poverty and the environment and sought practical solutions to address them. More recently, he has worked with UN-Habitat on its Cities and Climate Change Initiative focusing his efforts on Kampala. In 2009, he chaired AfricaGIS, an international conference on geo-information technologies. Lwasa has published work on the adaptation of cities to climate change as well as land and property rights. He is the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Assessment Report Number 5 in Working Group III.

Lwasa holds a PhD in urban land management, Makerere University, as well as two master’s degrees − in land use and regional development planning, Makerere University, and in geographic information systems for urban management applications from the International Institute of Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences, the Netherlands. He also has a BA in geography from Makerere University.

James D. Ford
James D. Ford is an assistant professor in geography at McGill University, Montréal, Canada. He works with Aboriginal communities on climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning. In 2007 Ford received a Networks of Centres of Excellence Young Innovator Award for his work on climate change and his efforts to share the results of that work with a wider audience. He shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize as a contributing author to UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report. His research team is currently developing novel approaches to track climate change adaptation at global and regional levels, and exploring ways to effectively communicate research to stakeholders and the public.

Before joining McGill, Ford completed a PhD in geography at the University of Guelph, Canada. He holds an MSc in environmental change and BA in geography from Oxford University, UK.

Lea Berrang Ford
Lea Berrang Ford is an assistant professor of health geography in the Department of Geography at McGill University, Canada. A geographer and epidemiologist, she specializes in spatial health analysis of infectious disease and environmental change. Her research interests include spatial and epidemiologic analysis of infectious disease, particularly zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, sleeping sickness control in Uganda, epidemiologic analysis of climate impacts on health, and innovative approaches for tracking global adaptation. Before coming to McGill, she worked with the Public Health Agency of Canada as an environmental epidemiologist and health geographer. She has published extensively.

Berrang Ford has a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Guelph, Canada, an MSc in environmental change and management from the University of Oxford, UK, and a BSc in environmental studies from the Department of Geography, University of Guelph. She received an IDRC Doctoral Research Award in 2004 to carry out field work in Kenya and Uganda.

	Photographer: Tony Fouhse
David Sauchyn and Fernando Santibañez

Fernando Santibañez
Fernando Santibañez is Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Chile, as well as a professor. He is also director of the university’s Centre for Agriculture and Environment, member of the Group of Experts to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and an expert consultant on projects supported by UNCCD, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture.

Santibañez was instrumental in launching several academic initiatives, including the Department on Environmental Sciences at the University of Chile. He also established a professional training program in sustainable development within the Department of Natural Resources Engineering at the University of Chile. An agronomist, Santibañez’ research interests include the effects of climate change on agriculture and on living organisms; bioclimatic zone, crop, and grassland modelling; and land degradation and desertification.  He has led several international research projects funded by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Global Environment Facility, the European Union, and IBM’s Environmental Research Program Grant. He has published widely.

Santibañez holds a doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Paris VII. He also has an engineering doctorate in bioclimatology from the University of Paris, and a BSc in agronomy from the University of Chile.

David J. Sauchyn
David J. Sauchyn is professor of geography at the University of Regina, Canada, and a senior research scientist at the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative. He is past president of the Canadian Quaternary Association and the Canadian Geomorphological Research Group and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. His main research interests are the climate and hydrology of the past millennium in Canada’s western interior and how knowledge of the past can inform future climate and water supply scenarios.
 
Sauchyn was a co-investigator in a series of interdisciplinary research projects in the area of adaptation to climate change in Chile and Western Canada. He has been an expert witness on climate change before the Canadian Senate and House of Commons and at forums hosted by provincial premiers and environment ministers. He is senior editor and co-author of The New Normal: The Canadian Plains in a Changing Climate.

Sauchyn received the John Warkentin Award for Scholarly Contributions of the Geography of the Western Interior, and has been the Wiley/Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s Distinguished Guest Lecturer and the Kansas Academy of Science Distinguished Guest Speaker. He holds a PhD in geography from the University of Waterloo, Canada, a MA in geography from the University of Colorado, and a BSc in geography from the University of Alberta.