Claudia Pahl-Wostl

We are very fortunate to have Claudia Pahl-Wostl joining us as a speaker at our conference.

Claudia is full professor for Resources Management at the Institute for Environmental Systems Research (USF) in Osnabrück, Germany. This interdisciplinary institute is associated with the department of mathematics and computer science. Its goal is to promote research and teaching in systems science at the interface between the natural and socio-economic sciences. Claudia is also a visiting professor at the University of Saskatchewan.

Since October 2001, USF’s activities in socio-economics and integrated modelling and analysis are extended by the chair of resources management. Over the past decade, an internationally leading interdisciplinary research programme on governance and adaptive and integrated resources management of water resources, and the role of social and societal learning, has been established. The research programme builds on foundations in systems science, which explicitly acknowledge the complex and often unpredictable dynamics of the systems to be managed.

In 2012, Claudia was awarded the Bode Foundation Water Management Prize for the pioneering interdisciplinary work on “Governance in times of change” and comparative analyses of water governance in large river basins.

Claudia was Co-Chair of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Water System Project and is now a member of the planning committee of the solution-oriented “Sustainable Water Future Programme,” a core project of Future Earth. She has participated in and coordinated several European projects, including the Integrated Project NeWater (New methods for adaptive water management) that focused on the transition to more integrated, adaptive approaches to water management in a river basin. The project had case studies in Europe, Africa and Central Asia, where new methods were developed and tested in participatory settings.

Claudia Pahl-Wostl is co-author of numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals, chapters in edited books, policy briefs and popular reports. Her emphasis on interdisciplinary and community-building work is reflected in her role as editor of three books and fifteen special issues in peer reviewed journals.

Presentation Title:
EFNs and water governance: managing sustainable water uses