Climate adaptation in focus: Future-proofing our waters and coasts
This event is free and open to all.
How can we build climate resilience in the face of profound change to our waters and coasts?
Join us for a webinar and panel discussion bringing together members across the Foundation for Water Research (FWR) and Marine & Coastal Science Community to explore the risks posed by climate change for our waters and coasts and how we can manage them. You will have the opportunity to hear from expert speakers on related topics, including flood and drought resilience, the impact of wetter winters on agricultural pollution, and coastal change.
Presentations include (more tba!):
- Wetter winters: the size of the adaptation challenge for the resilience of soil loss regulation on farmland - The increased frequency of wet weather extremes under a changing climate, is driving a growing focus on understanding the resilience of agroecosystems and the critical goods and services they deliver. In this talk, Prof Adie Collins will introduce the risks climate change poses for increased water pollution from agriculture and new research quantifying the magnitude of the management challenge. Against this context, the world’s most instrumented and monitored farm (the North Wyke Farm Platform - a UK National Bioscience Research Infrastructure) has been used to explore the resilience of winter soil loss regulation delivered by lowland grazing livestock and arable farm systems under conventional best management.
This event is part of a series of online events on climate adaptation being held to coincide with the UNFCCC's COP31, taking place in Türkiye. Adapting to climate change is a social imperative and must be done in tandem with effective climate mitigation measures to increase resilience across all aspects of our environmental, social, and economic systems. These events aim to bring together environmental professionals to discuss the importance of climate adaptation and consider how it relates to their areas of work and professional practice. The events have been supported by the Climate Action Community.
Our speakers
Professor Adie Smith is Science Director at Rothamsted Research with overall responsibility for the IFP. His research interests broadly encompass the sustainability and resilience of agriculture. They specifically include a number of themes: 1) characterising pollutant emissions to water; 2) the development and application of pollutant source tracing procedures; 3) understanding cross-sector water pollution at different scales and the development of screening tools for contextualising the role of agriculture in water quality problems; 4) the impacts of agricultural pollution on aquatic ecology; 5) measuring and modelling the efficacy of on-farm interventions for managing agricultural sustainability and resilience, and; 6) scenario-based evaluation for policy support. He has >330 scientific publications.
More tba!
About the FWR
The Foundation for Water Research (FWR) is an independent community of professionals from across the water sector and related scientific specialisms. The community comes together for deliberative discussion to support the development of interdisciplinary solutions to water challenges.
The FWR Community provides guidance and strategic thought leadership for the IES’s water activities, and collaborates with the wider IES family on issues related to land, air and policy implementation.
About the Marine & Coastal Science Community
The IES has a dedicated Marine & Coastal Science Community with members from a wide range of backgrounds and sectors. Through UN Ocean Decade endorsement of its inaugural project, Turning the Tide, the Community has explored topics such as the land-sea interface; blue carbon; the blue economy; and conservation and restoration.
About the Climate Action Community
Our interdisciplinary Climate Action Community (CAC) champions transformative approaches to reshaping unsustainable systems. We recognise that climate change cannot be addressed in isolation but requires solutions that address the interlinked challenges of biodiversity loss and pollution.
The Community holds regular events, discussions, and biannual community meetings covering adaptation, mitigation and resilience. It also engages with key organisations and initiatives across the sector, including UNFCCC, ISO and the Professional Bodies Climate Action Network.
Header image credit (c) whitcomberd via Adobe Stock
