Category: Research

Urban Resilience 2: Coastal and River Management, Vulnerability and Sustainability
October 20-23, 2019 at IIT Madras in Chennai

Continuing discussions from 2017 on the influence of climate change on flooding at rivers and coastal areas Indian and German researchers met for the round table Urban Resilience 2. 15 German scientists from Geoverbund ABC/J, under lead of RWTH Aachen University, met a again delegation of Indian researchers at IIT Madras to continue discussions on the influence of climate change on flooding at rivers and coastal areas. Many Indian scientists from different parts of the country were invited, e.g. from IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur in Golgata; Anna University in Chennai, NIOT & NCCR in Chennai, and Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu.

The presentations covered many highly relevant topics, such as the establishment of the coastal flood forecasting system for Chennai ‘CFLOWS’ after the devastating floods of 2015 and coastal vulnerability and socio-economic effects in large cities after extreme events. This was also discussed in light of distribution patterns and toxicity of various pollutants, e.g. pesticides from agricultural areas in river catchments and coastal areas after flooding events. Other presentations covered the following topics

• Urban and Coastal Resilience
• Climate Change and Coastal/Riverine Flood Hazards
• Bio- and Ecohazards
• Social and Environmental Impacts, Adaption and Governance and its Dynamics

In October 2017, IGCS started a discussion on Urban Resilience on coastal and river floods or extreme events affecting megacities and settlements in coastal low lands. More than 1.5 billion people are currently living within 100 km of the coastal zones of the Earth, especially in tropical and subtropical regions. And the number is still growing, due to economic and social attractiveness as large-scale urbanization and mega-city development within the coastal zone is expected to be more rapid than in other areas in the near future.

Almost all future scenarios of climate change and sea level rise point to a higher frequency of extreme weather and climate events in near future, and that this will reveal significant vulnerability and exposure of coastal cities to the current climate variability. Climate change also affects monsoonal patterns, which seem to cause an intensification of the seasonal rainfall that fortifies inundation/floodings/droughts in India regularly during the last years (e.g. 2015 Chennai, 2018 Kochi).

Besides the Indian coast is prone to tsunamis, as the Makran subduction zone may cause earthquakes and tsunamis affecting the Indian west coast, as e.g. in 1945. In 2004, the east coast has been affected by the Sumatra tsunami inducing landfall in the Tamil Nadu coast. Besides the primary destructive effects, the widespread contamination of coastal areas due to the pulsed transport of immense pollutant loads during the floodings may seriously affect the coastal ecosystems. This clearly affects increasing population and urbanization in particular along coastlines and urban or even critical infrastructure, as a consequence adaptation, decision analysis and governance of manifold administrational levels.

At the roundtable, many new collaborations for prospective research projects between Indian and German researchers evolved.

Venue

IIT Madras, Chennai, India

Date

October 20 – 22 2019 (until October 25 incl. excursion to Pichavaran )

Alumni Meeting | November 6 and 7, 2018 | Heidelberg

For the very first time, an Alumni meeting of the Indo-German Centre for Sustainability (IGCS) at the IIT Madras, Chennai, will be hosted at the Heidelberg University of Education on Nov. 6^th and 7^th 2018. For this purpose, the following call is meant for anybody who can consider himself or herself to be an alumnus of the IGCS, because he or she participated in an IGCS summer or winter school or stayed at the IIT Madras, Chennai, or a German University due to an IGCS research stay funding. The objective of the meeting is the initiation of a debate among the alumni on ways of sustaining their IGCS research experience by networking, combining research efforts, sharing experiences and field work know-how etc.

Program outline

In the course of the workshop, inputs will be provided on selected current issues and methodology of sustainability research, with a specific focus on transdisciplinary approaches and living labs. A guided design thinking workshop will support the participants in structuring ideas, options and approaches for establishing a longer term alumni network and alumni projects.

Indo-German Dialogue on Green Urban Practices | November 8-10, 2018 | Freiburg

The Indo-German Dialogue is conceived as a continuous series of an annual interaction of academics, civil society activists, government officials, and social business/ entrepreneurs. Its key objective is to provide a platform of sharing and exchange of experiences of social urban innovative change in Europe/Germany and India in order to leverage action towards new transdisciplinary research and practice projects.

Based on the experience and activities of participants/initiatives present at the first dialogue and supplemented by a further review of activities carried out across academia and practice we identified “Education, Learning, Training and Awareness” as a crucial area.

These activities connect to global policy frameworks and campaigns such as the UNESCO’s decade 2005-2014 Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and the Global Agenda 2030 on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Social transformations towards sustainable lifestyles will only succeed in practice when people reflect on and learn about the implications of their daily life activities, combined with widely communicating and spreading successful practices, skills, knowledge, values and behaviours. While the local conditions and context are essential dimensions that influence teaching and learning on the ground, transnational exchange is inevitable to generate global awareness and action. This importance is evident in Target 4.7 of SDG 4 on education that addresses ESD and related approaches such as Global Citizenship Education.

Objectives of this dialogue

• good practices: role of learning, awareness, trainings for changing patterns towards sustainable living and consumption especially in urban contexts
• knowledge sharing about methods of and approaches to ESD (education for sustainable development)
• potentially, experiences of knowledge transfer implemented in projects
• explore opportunities for collaborative projects in ESD
• explore and document potential funding sources

Target groups and participants

The symposium seeks to bring together people from academia, grassroots activists and policy makers from Germany and India for a dialogue about the role and potentials that socially innovative individuals and citizens initiatives have in the sustainability transition of cities on the cross-cutting themes of education, learning, training and awareness.

Programme

The first two days will provide opportunities for participants to share and discuss their work and experiences including generating projects. Field visits in Freiburg on the third day will allow exposure to practical applications.