Events

• 26 October 2022: Drivers and trajectories of vulnerability to drought in Mozambique, 1500-present - Dr Matthew Hannaford (University of Lincoln)
• 16 November 2022: Natural Hazards: Learning Under Uncertainty - Professor Oliver Korup (University of Potsdam, Germany)
• 7 December 2022: What’s smart about climate-smart agriculture? Case studies and transformative proposals from rural India - Professor Marcus Taylor (Queen's University, Canada)
• 25 January 2023: Disasters are not natural-but don't blame climate change - Professor Ilan Kelman (University College London)
• 3 May 2023: Climate Change Adaptations and Capacity Building for Sustainable Livelihood in High Altitude Cold Desert of Leh-Ladakh, India - Professor Bindhy Wasini Pandey (University of Delhi, India)

• 20 October 2021: Resilience, resistance and recovery: Responding to landslide risk in post-earthquake Nepal - Dr Katie Oven (Northumbria University)
• 27 October 2021: Political stability after disasters: Lessons from earthquake management in colonial South Asia - Dr Daniel Haines (University of Bristol)
• 8 December 2021: Himalayan Cryosphere Changes and Local Adaptation Strategies: Towards a socio-hydrological framework for the Upper Indus Basin - Prof Dr Marcus Nüsser (Heidelberg University, Germany)
• 19 January 2022: The evolution of an urban hydro-hazardscape: The Ravi River Floodplain in Lahore, Pakistan - Prof James Wescoat (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
• 16 February 2022: Faulty Communications – towards a people-centred approach to seismic risk reduction - Prof Iain Stewart (Royal Scientific Society- Jordan & University of Plymouth)
• 2 March 2022: A Framework for Understanding Cascading Disasters (and Compound, Interconnected and Interacting Risks) - Prof David Alexander (University College London)
• 16 March 2022: Investigating climate change impacts on coastal heritage in Ireland and Wales – palaeoenvironmental perspectives from the CHERISH project - Prof Sarah Davies (Aberystwyth University)
• 11 May 2022: Rock avalanches and risk in the high mountains - Dr Stuart Dunning (Newcastle University). Please note this event was cancelled due to emergent circumstances.
• 18 May 2022: Living and working in a 'hotter' city - Prof Nausheen Anwar (Karachi Urban Lab, Pakistan)
• 25 May 2022: Modelling multi-hazard risk - Dr Annie Winson (British Geological Survey)

• 7 October 2020: Reconstructing climate from Late Glacial subfossil trees – Dr Maren Pauly (Bath Spa University)
• 21 October 2020: The political ecology of drip irrigation infrastructure: efficiency and gendered labour dynamics in India – Prof Trevor Birkenholtz (Pennsylvania State University, USA)
• 28 October 2020: Reconstructing and re-evaluating historical droughts and impacts in the British and Irish Isles – Prof Conor Murphy (Maynooth University, Ireland)
• 4 November 2020: Engineering a season of floods – colonial and postcolonial politics of embankments in North Bihar, India – Amitangshu Acharya (University of Edinburgh)
• 11 November 2020: Environment mobility in the digital age: the case of Bangladesh – Dr Ingrid Boas (Wageningen University)
• 18 November 2020: Water related adaptation responses: do they reduce climate-related impacts and risks? – Dr Aditi Mukherji (IWMI New Delhi)
• 18 November 2020: Evolving disaster risk in the Kullu-Manali region, Himachal Pradesh, India – Prof James Gardner (University of Manitoba & University of Victoria, Canada)
• 2 December 2020: Deciphering past flood disaster in high mountain regions based on tree-ring records – Dr Juan Antonio Ballesteros- Canovas (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
• 13 January 2021: In search of incredible India - Spiti Valley – Pushpam Singh (Kraft Films) and Dr Kesar Chand (GBP NIHE, India)
• 20 January 2021: Radon, health and natural hazards – Prof Gavin Gillmore (Bath Spa University)
• 17 February 2021: The governance of disaster risks in megacities: Before and After Covid-19 - Prof James K. Mitchell (Rutgers University, USA) - postponed until further notice
• 24 February 2021: A journey with Delhi’s urban poor – words and images - Patralekha Chatterjee (Independent journalist-columnist and visiting fellow at Yale University, USA)
• 17 March 2021: Bordering, Outsiding and Other(world)ing in the Anthropocene - Dr Gaia Giuliani (University of Coimbra, Portugal)
• 14 April 2021: Enablers and barriers to building resilience: a coastal community perspective - Dr Eugene Farrell (National University of Ireland Galway)
• 28 April 2021: Disasters as betrayal - Dr Omer Aijazi (Brunel University, London)
• 12 May 2021: Déjà vu or jamais vu? How history and memory shapes responses to tropical cyclones in the longue durée in Mauritius - Dr Rory Walshe (University of Cambridge)
• 26 May 2021: Disasters, Climate Extremes and Human Predicament in Himalayan Mountain State of Himachal Pradesh With Special Reference to Kullu Valley, India - Dr Vishwa Chandel (Panjab University, India)

Talk by Professor Mark G Macklin (University of Lincoln UK, Massey University NZ, La Trobe University, Australia)

Part of the Hazard, Risk and Disaster (HRD) Research Seminar Series 2020.

Wednesday 11 March 2020
Newton NE.101
4.00pm–6.00pm

Professor Mark G Macklin is an authority on river systems and global environmental change, and a multi-award-winning physical geographer.

In this presentation the concept of unhealthy rivers was considered from catchment science and hydromorphology perspectives in the context of ecosystem and human health.

More information and abstract.

Lecture by Emeritus Professor Chris Caseldine

Presented by the Geography Society

Wednesday 24 February 2020
CM.223, Newton Park, 5.00pm

Free for all to attend. Join us at the SU after.  

Speaker biography

Chris Caseldine is Emeritus Professor of Quaternary Environmental Change at the University of Exeter.

Chris first visited Iceland in 1975 to carry out research on glacial changes around southern Vatnajökull and since then has undertaken research on Holocene climatic change using both glacial data and analysis of lake cores, especially from sites in northern and western Iceland. Results from these have appeared in over 30 research papers and two edited books.

Chris is currently completing an interdisciplinary-based book on understanding the physical landscape of Iceland, which is due out in 2021.

Abstract

Geologists may be lukewarm about the reality of an Anthropocene but Iceland provides an opportunity to look at Anthropocene change in action.

After briefly showing how it may be possible to identify the shift to this proposed new epoch in Iceland, the idea of the Anthropocene is used to examine three key environmental challenges that Iceland is currently facing:

• The future for its glaciers and ice caps
• Demands for clean energy
• How it deals with alien species (plants and animals).

In considering these issues, an opportunity will be taken to look more widely at what is traditionally known as the Land of Ice and Fire, and there will be passing reference to Sigur Rós and some idiosyncratic Icelandic cinema.

Please see our project page for further details. 

Please see our project page for further details. 

Please see our project page for more details.

March 2019

The El Niño Southern Oscillation is often described as the most important source of natural climatic variability on decadal timescales. Yet the phenomenon can be somewhat of a contradiction. Apparently successful forecasts of the event up to 6 months in advance have been hailed as a key success of long-range forecasts, yet every El Niño (and La Niña) event produces surprising characteristics and it is apparently become more difficult – not easier – to understand what the phenomenon is. Research over the last decade has suggested that there may be several El Niños, not just one.

This presentation will trace the historical developments that led to the construction of the phenomenon that we now call the El Niño Southern Oscillation. It will argue that our current understanding of the phenomenon is related as much to historical accident as it is to ‘objective’ science. As such it will explore the concept of ‘path dependency’ in earth system science.

George Adamson is a Lecturer in Geography at King’s College London. His research explores the production and use of climate knowledge in a number of different historical and contemporary contexts. Particular foci are the El Niño Southern Oscillation, hazard early warning, and how adaptation options are constrained by historical processes and path dependencies.