Dresden, Saxony, Germany
The concept of planetary boundaries highlights critical ecological thresholds, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental limits, posing significant challenges to ecology, economy, and society. Effective management of human-biosphere interactions is essential to avoid crossing these thresholds. Integrating participatory methods, expert knowledge, and reliable ex-ante evaluation techniques for local adaptation strategies is crucial for addressing these challenges. Such interdisciplinary approaches align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and doughnut economics, promoting sustainable development while respecting ecological limits ensuring social foundations, and providing vital insights into the impacts of global change on both local and global scales. It emphasizes the need for systemic solutions that encompass environmental, social, and economic dimensions to foster a sustainable future.
Appointed as Series Editor for the international academic book series "Disaster Resilience and Green Growth", published by Springer. The role involves defining the editorial direction and academic scope of the series, selecting and reviewing book proposals, managing peer review, and ensuring the overall quality and coherence of volumes addressing societal resilience and sustainability in the face of global change.
UNU-FLORES’ core mission to address global challenges through the Resource Nexus - a holistic framework addressing interconnections and trade-offs among environmental resources such as water, soil, material, biota, climate, and space, as well as food, waste, and energy, on land and on sea, that are of concern to the United Nations and its Member States, particularly in developing and emerging economies. As Senior Adjunct Researcher my role is closely linked to the institutionalization of the established collaboration between TU Dresden and UNU-FLORES via the UNU Hub “Climate Resilience and Sustainable Technologies" (CREST) and includes the duties of the Deputy Director of this hub.
The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering formed up by the Faculties of Architecture, Civil Engineering Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Transportation and Traffic Sciences and Business and Economics to strengthen their interdisciplinary cooperation and coordination in teaching, research and administration. The school administration is headed by the managing director, working in close cooperation with members of the board, who represent all aforementioned faculties of the school.
The environmental management course program is realized at TU Dresden through CIPSEM since 1977. Target group of the program are experts and managers from developing countries. The program is organized in collaboration with UNEP, UNESCO, BMU and UBA.
For people living in the tropical Andes, climatic change is not a problem of the future - it's already there. Countries like Peru and Bolivia are bearing the consequences of climate change, such as retreat of glaciers and extreme weather events, which are directly affecting crops, livestock, biodiversity, and, last but not least, increasing levels of poverty. Almost the entire agricultural sector is suffering from increasing water stress due to melting glaciers and changing precipitation patterns. The productivity, especially of small-scale agriculture production systems is threatened, and thus the income of smallholder families is at risk. As traditional inhabitants of the tropical Andean Region, these farmers historically have had to cope with extreme daily temperatures, unpredictable weather events from one year to the next, and a diversity of environmental conditions scattered across the elevations. This has made locals aware of the recurrent diversity of climate related impacts and its consequences. Understanding these adaptations has become one of the most important focuses of research into climate change impacts and vulnerability, since it provides essential knowledge for developing and transferring strategies towards a sustainable management in agriculture and agroforestry.