The columns in OOSKAnews Voices provide a global platform for organizations and individuals to promulgate their views and messages. This article from AGWA's Coordinator proposes that cities are the landscape where most climate adaptation occurs, and that water is at the heart of these plans of action. Dr. Matthews takes the long view on resilience, comparing the lengthy but necessary courses of actions taken by cities to improve resilience to the historic processes of cathedral building. Both are "messy affairs, achieving perfection and persistence through adaptive management, patience, and clear vision." Specific attention is given to two parallel initiatives taking place in and around Mexico City to increase resilience.

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"Listening to speakers, I wondered if CDMX is effectively building a new cathedral — this one to water and climate change..."
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Tags: OOSKAnews, resilience, Mexico City, World Bank, the Resilience Shift, Lloyd's Register Foundation, Arup, SIWI

The journal Regional Environmental Change has released a Special Issue on "Resilience in the rural Andes: critical dynamics, constraints and emerging opportunities," which presents current advances in resilience science and practice.

Abstract
The Andes present an ideal learning space to draw lessons on existing and emerging resilience challenges and opportunities. Andean people and societies have co-evolved with the unique high-mountain contexts in which they live, sometimes in altitudes of more than 3800 m. Although historical achievements including irrigation systems, domestication of cameloids (llama and alpaca) and crop preservation techniques facilitated the development of ancient civilisations in the Andes, modern Andean people face serious challenges in achieving food security and wellbeing. This Special Issue aims to improve our understanding of the key dynamics of socio-ecological systems that constrain or foster resilience in the rural Andes. It comprises six papers that investigate three core features of resilience in a variety of socio-ecological systems: diversity, connectivity and development models. The novel insights into resilience dynamics include specific features related to the high-mountain contexts and socio-political tensions in the Andes. Future research can build on this knowledge to further not only resilience theory but also methodological approaches which reflect both case-specific and generic complexity.
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Tags: Regional Environmental Change, Andes, resilience, Journal

OOSKAnews Voices is a new series of guest “opinion columns” on water, written by senior participants in different parts of the international water community. The columns provide a global platform for organizations and individuals to promulgate their views and messages. In this piece John H. Matthews, co-founder and secretariat coordinator for AGWA, discusses the challenges in clearly defining "resilience" as it relates to climate change.

Much of the work of addressing climate impacts from water threats is difficult to communicate. It is no easy feat to come up with a clear and consistent definition for "resilience," even though it is one of the more often-used terms in the field. In this article resilience takes on some interesting forms - Godzilla vs The Blob. Read More...

Tags: OOSKAnews, resilience

As part of the global #ClimateIsWater Initiative and the unofficial “Water Day” at COP21, AGWA organized an event to promote the value and understanding of water considerations within the climate change debate.

During this half-day event, Dr. John Matthews, Secretariat Coordinator for AGWA, gave a presentation on freshwater resilience entitled "Resilience & Water: Towards a New Vision for Sustainability." This video provides insight into the threats, vulnerabilities, and uncertainties facing freshwater and how the global water community can respond resiliently.

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Tags: #ClimateIsWater, AGWA, CoP21, resilience

Is "resilience" the same for the natural and social sciences? Should it be?

How do we best define "resilience" across disciplines in light of the large perceived differences in both meaning and application? And better yet, is resilience the best rallying point for collaborative work, or might there be a better motivation for bringing together disciplines from social and environmental sciences? In the third installment of “Cresting Research” (AGWA’s research spotlight), we will focus on how to reconcile the term "resilience" between social and environmental sciences and how we can get past any perceived differences to accomplish meaningful collaborative work. Read More...

Tags: resilience, Collaboration

At the Seventh World Water Forum in South Korea, AGWA coordinated a thematic session on "Mainstreaming Climate Adaptation into Water Management, Planning, and Policy." It was co-convened by UNESCO-IHP. This video highlights Dr. Christine Chan of AGWA as she speaks during the panel discussion. In her talk she addresses some of the lessons learned from her experiences in Pacific Island Nations. Dr. Chan outlines some of the challenges facing local populations as climate change affects their lands and offers her thoughts on ways to enhance resilience in these areas.
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Tags: World Water Forum, Christine Chan, resilience, Pacific Islands, Sea level rise, Climate refugees