Climate Change and Water

This short course aims to provide the fundamental notions of climate change and its impacts on the water cycles and the human systems that depend on it. In three parts, the course explains the mechanisms, observations and projections of climate change, and the consequences of changes in climate for each component of the water cycle. Further, it encourages the student to reflect on the implications for human systems that rely on freshwater and that interface with coastal water.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The learning objectives are:

• Students will understand key mechanisms of ongoing and future changes in climate.
• Students will be able to discuss the effects of changes in climate for water systems on which humans rely.
• Students will understand the uncertainties involved in these phenomena and are capable to reflect on the implications of these uncertainties for adaptation to climate change and for water management.

ABOUT INSTRUCTOR

Dr Paolo Scussolini is a researcher and Assistant Professor at the Water and Climate Risk department of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) of VU Amsterdam. He works at the intersection of climatic changes, hydrology, natural hazards and climate adaptation. Presently, his efforts are geared towards improving understanding of climate impacts by learning from past climates. Further, he focuses on the climate and socio-economic drivers of changes in flood risk, from the local to the global scale, and on the potential of climate adaptation measures. His background is in the environmental disciplines, and he specialized in climatology. Paolo wrote his Ph.D. dissertation at the VU Amsterdam in the field of paleoclimatology and paleoceanography. He lectures at VU Amsterdam, where he coordinates the MSc course in Water and Climate Systems and the BSc Honours’ course in Climate Challenge, and he teaches in the BSc course Natural Hazards and in BSc Honour’s course New Energy for a New Era of Earth History. He is also the Ph.D. coordinator of IVM.

Dr. Pwint Phyu Aye, a groundwater expert will cover climate change issues as a case study area, in Myanmar. Her research goes into climate change threats to groundwater in Ayeyarwady Delta and Coastal Region and the framework and concepts in addressing climate change issues.

Certification

This course is a part of the certificate program named ‘WE are Water Eduction (Myanmar)’. Learn more about the program here.