Workshop on “Water Demand Under Extreme Events: Implications for Cities”

The Institute of Water Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and the International Journal of Water Resources Development are organising a workshop on “Water demand under extreme hydrological events: Implications for cities”, 23-24 March 2020 in Singapore.

Impacts of extreme hydrological events, including floods, droughts, typhoons and hurricanes, are increasing all over the world. They are affecting human security and welfare and impacting upon the functional integrity of cities in terms of their increasing unpredictability. Flooding and related events are short-lived and difficult to predict both temporally and in terms of their spatial focus, whereas droughts may be multi-year events that intensify through time. They are also testing our ability to reliably forecast and manage them.

Extreme hydrological events are multifaceted phenomena and are challenging the current planning, management and adaptive capacities of cities in both the developed and developing world. The numerous interconnected issues for managing such events in cost-effective and socially-acceptable forms are impacting not only upon water institutions, but also upon city planning ones. This has made the process to understand, predict and manage them exceedingly complex. Furthermore, effective communication with the general public to reach a common social understanding of how much risk may be socially acceptable so that implementable policy decisions are taken has become extremely complex as well.

The focus of this 2-day workshop will include, but will not be limited to, discussions on the following topics, especially in terms of planning, policy, management, governance implications, implementation constraints and lessons learnt, both positive and negative:

• Urban water governance practices and processes for managing current and future extreme hydrological events.
• Vulnerability of current water supply, wastewater and stormwater management under extreme conditions and preparedness and disaster warning systems for such systems.
• Case studies of cities affected by extreme hydrological events as to what have been their short- and long-term water-management strategies, including what has worked, what has not worked and the reasons thereof.
• Social, economic, institutional, political and environmental implications of the policy and management decisions taken.
• Communication practices with stakeholders and policymakers, how they worked and reasons thereof.

The workshop will include a special discussion session on future research agendas to inform policymaking.

Extended abstracts (1-2 pages) for possible presentation at the workshop should be sent by 20 November to Dr. Cecilia Tortajada, emails: Cecilia.tortajada@nus.edu.sg and Cecilia.tortajada@gmail.com

Authors will be informed on whether their abstract is considered suitable for presentation at the workshop by 10 December. Draft papers (minimum 5000 words) should be submitted by 15 February 2020 for discussion during the workshop.

Authors should finalise their papers in light of the discussions by 30 June 2020. These will be peer-reviewed for possible publication in the International Journal of Water Resources Development, www.tandfonline.com/loi/cijw20

Travel and hotel expenses of selected participants will be covered by the workshop organisers.