Climate change and climate variability pose many challenges worldwide, as well as affecting the environment in which we live. Strategies to cope with climate change, risk assessment and the willingness of states and societies to bear the risks and consequences are heterogeneous and divergent. However, these solutions and strategies are often not adapted to the respective political economic and social requirements and are more reactive than preventative. Ideally, all decisions and interventions should be based on an integrated, well-considered and rational way of acting, with the aim of sustainable protection of nature and its resources.
Conference Themes
Theme 1 – Water and Climate: Challenges, Opportunities, and Innovative Solutions
Water and climate change are inextricably and intricately linked. Rising sea levels and shrinking ice fields are a growing threat. Floods, wildfires, heat waves, and droughts have become more frequent and intense in recent decades. These impacts throughout the water cycle threaten sustainable development, biodiversity, hydropower generation, and people’s access to water and sanitation. In other words, climate change is primarily a water crisis. Sustainable water management is central to building the resilience of societies and ecosystems and to reducing carbon emissions. Rainwater harvesting, nature-based solutions, flood control, and climate regulation in urban areas through so-called evaporation surfaces and evaporation facades are just some examples where further research is needed.
This theme will address SDG6 and SDG13 synergistically for building resilience in the present climate and adapting to future climate with focus on five broad subject areas: (a) Understanding water and climate risks and linkages, (b) Risk-informed decision and action planning, (c) Sustainable, affordable, and scalable water solutions for climate-resilient development, (d) Inclusive, participatory and without-border approaches for adaptation and (e) Innovative water management to achieve water and climate goals.
Theme 2 – Water & Climate Resilience in Agri-Food Systems
Agri-food systems encompass agricultural production systems from cultivation, harvesting, transport, storage, and processing to the marketing of agricultural products and their consumption or use. This includes value chains of food or non-food agricultural products originating from crop, livestock, forestry, fisheries, or aquaculture. Agri-food systems are diverse and include, for instance single-crop, large scale systems (such as banana plantations) to multi-crop small scale systems (such as indigenous mountain irrigation systems). They are exposed to various crises and shocks that threaten food security and nutrition as well as the environment and natural resources. Among the most impacting threats are certainly effects of climate change in combination with water scarcity and the trend to increasing extreme events. In view of this various challenges several innovations, concepts and approaches have been discussed to improve and accelerate a sustainable transformation of agri-food systems thereby directly addressing SDG 1, 2, 6, 12, 13, and 15. We welcome cross-sectoral contributions from basic and applied science, education, extension, society, and economy that address agri-food systems or their components towards an improved resilience and adaptation capacity.
Theme 3 – Water Security: Science-Policy-Society Dialogue (Priorities & Implementation)
In the 2030 Agenda, water is a crucial link for achieving various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Failure to adapt to climate change will jeopardize the achievement of SGD 6, as well as most of the other SDGs. Given its part in climate change, water plays a central role in the SDG network as well as in other policy frameworks such as the Paris Agreement.
The water issue is an integrative part of a chain of responsibility that links science, politics, and society. Unfortunately, this chain of responsibility has still too many gaps (mostly at political level), which hinder a real implementation of the goals in reality. Water security requires incorporating water sector development priorities into national strategies worldwide to adapt to climate change. Science and policy makers need to work closely with civil society to adapt and implement measures, which effectively solve the majority of water and climate-related problems.
According to UN Water, more than 3/4 of the world’s population will live in urban areas and megacities by 2050. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have the potential to support the management of water resources, water distribution, water management in urban areas more effectively, but their application in this field is relatively little studied.
This core theme focusses on the following broad subject areas: (a) from scientific knowledge and knowledge transformation to solution-oriented implementation, (b) inclusive and participatory approaches for adaptation, (c) cross-sectoral implementation of SDG 6, and (d) AI and the design of future water supply and resilience infrastructure in urban areas and agriculture.