Drought risk in the Anthropocene

Ian Holman is Professor of Integrated Land and Water Management at Cranfield University where he leads the Catchment Management Community of Practice within the Cranfield Water Science Institute. He takes an interdisciplinary perspective to sustainable land and water resource management, drought risk management and climate change impacts and adaptation research in the UK, Europe and internationally. Working closely with stakeholders, his recent research spans understanding historical drought impacts in the UK and Thailand (HistoricDroughts, STAR), modelling current and future drought risks to irrigated agriculture (MaRIUS), developing innovative decision-support tool for improving drought risk and abstraction management (DRisk, DRisk2) and the agricultural knowledge exchange component (ENDOWS) of the UKRI Drought and Water Scarcity programme.  

Amandine Pastor is a researcher at INRAE working on the integration of ecosystem services and spatial dimensions of water and carbon to life cycle analysis. Before, she has spent some time at the Faculty of Science in Lisbon working for the H2020 LOCOMOTION project to integrate of water and land dynamics into an Integrated Assessment Models based on the use of renewable energy. She is an agriculture engineer with a PhD in hydrology from Wageningen University (the Netherlands). She worked on the impact of global change on water resources and the different trade-off between environmental flows and food security. She is specialised in earth system modelling, climate change and ecosystem services. She also has fieldwork experiences in sustainable agriculture and soil and water conservation projects in Europe and overseas. 

Quentin Grafton is Professor of Economics and Chairholder UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance at the Australian National University (ANU) and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University. He is an Australian Laureate Fellow, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a former President (2017-18) of the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES) and a Distinguished Fellow of AARES. He is currently the Convenor of the Water Justice Hub, the Editor in Chief of the Global Water Forum and Policy Forum, and is the Director of the Food, Energy, Environment and Water (FE2W) Network. 

Peter has been Chief Executive of Anglian Water Group since October 2013. He is a founding member, and now Co-chair, of the UK Corporate Leaders Group in the UK, run by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, which provides a strong voice to support UK leadership nationally and internationally on the transition to a climate neutral, resource efficient, socially inclusive economy by 2050. He works with Business in the Community and is Chair of the East of England Leadership Team. He also sits on the Board of Trustees of WaterAid. Peter is a Chartered Water and Environmental Manager, a Chartered Scientist and a Chartered Environmentalist. In 2016 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Society of the Environment and an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management. He holds an MBA from Warwick Business School. Peter was Chairman of Water UK from April 2012 to October 2013 and is a past President of the Institute of Water.

Dave Tickner is Chief Freshwater Adviser at WWF, based near London. He advises international river and water management programmes, leads a research portfolio, and engages governments, international organisations and companies on sustainability issues. Dave previously worked in the UK’s environment ministry before completing a PhD in freshwater sciences and then directing WWF’s Danube River programme. He has held non-executive and advisory roles in the private sector and is currently also a Visiting Researcher at the University of East Anglia, an Associate Editor of the academic journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, and a member of the UK government’s Darwin Expert Committee.

Xavier Leflaive leads the work on Resilience, Adaptation to climate change and Water in the OECD Environment Directorate. The programme of work aims to support governments for the design, implementation and financing of policies that contribute to water security and adaptation to a changing climate. On-going projects cover measuring adaptation, adaptation finance, wildfires management, nature-based solutions and climate-resilient infrastructure, financing water, and water & health. Xavier joined the OECD in 2004. He coordinated the Recommendation of the OECD Council on water, which captures OECD policy guidance on the management of water resources, water supply and sanitation services, and water-related risks. He has facilitated policy reforms in Brazil, Korea, Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Xavier Leflaive studied business administration and social theory in France, Canada and the UK. He holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Jonson has been Chairman of Ofwat since November 2012. He has played a strong part in the work to bring the water sector back to a core customer and public service focus, while retaining an attractive proposition for investors. He has a background as CEO and Chairman in regulated and commercial infrastructure, with a focus on turnarounds and restructuring. After an early career with Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Jonson served as Managing Director of Yorkshire Water (1996-2000) to lead the company out of a significant crisis with its customers and restore YW’s top-ranking status in the industry. After other infrastructure roles, he returned to the water sector for over six years, 2004 – 2010, as Group CEO at troubled AWG plc. He led the successful turnarounds of underperforming Anglian Water Services, Morrison plc and Anglian Water International, recovering from the multiple business difficulties the Group faced. Jonson led the restructuring of UK Coal plc as Executive Chairman, (2010 to 2012) to bring a managed 'soft close' to coalmining in the UK. He secured the value in UKC’s property development business for investors and the PPF, which was listed as Harworth plc. He served as inaugural Chairman from 2012 to 2018. He joined Cory Group, owner of the UKs largest waste-to-energy plant, as Chairman when lenders took control in 2015 and led the board though the recovery and successful sale to infrastructure funds in 2018. He serves on the global policy council of I Squared Capital and is an NED at Energia, the Irish energy group, and Ovo, the UK energy retailer. 

Giriraj Amarnath is a Principal Research – Disaster Risk Management and Climate Resilience and Research Group Leader: Water Risks to Development and Resilience of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). His role focuses on climate risk assessment, monitoring and early warning tools using earth observation data and modeling tools, and the development of disaster risk insurance solutions. Dr Giriraj began his career as a remote sensing expert at the University of Bayreuth, Germany and was a disaster risk specialist for the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development at Kathmandu. He recently won the World Geospatial Excellence Award and 2020 GEO SDG Award in promoting innovative solutions in managing floods and drought using digital tools. Dr Giriraj holds a PhD in Applied remote sensing from the National Remote Sensing Centre, India, and an MSc in Geoinformatics and Botany from the University of Madras.

Davide Minotti is Deputy Director for Water Services in Defra, responsible for relationship with water industry and water regulators as well as water efficiency. Prior to this, Davide has led work across Government on developing and introducing to Parliament the Environment Bill, on environment regulations and EU Exit and on leading Defra’s work in response to COVID-19. He has worked in Defra on a number of policy areas from air quality to waste and resource efficiency, climate change, forestry and international sustainable development. Outside Defra, Davide has worked for the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit on Civil Service reform, at the European Commission on energy and resource efficiency and as consultant in the private sector.

Jim Hall FREng is Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks in the University of Oxford and is Director of Research in the School of Geography and the Environment. Before joining the University of Oxford in 2011 to become Director of the University's Environmental Change Institute, Jim held academic positions in Newcastle University and the University of Bristol. He is internationally recognised for his research on risk analysis and decision making under uncertainty for water resource systems, flood and coastal risk management, infrastructure systems and adaptation to climate change.

Jim is a member of the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, Commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission and Vice President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was a member of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the UK Climate Change Committee from 2009 to 2019 and was Chair of the Science Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) from 2020-2022.

Amongst various distinctions, Jim was awarded the George Stephenson Medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2001 and the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water in 2018. Jim was a Contributing Author to the Nobel Prize-winning Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Edward B Barbier is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics, Colorado State University and a Senior Scholar in the School of Global Environmental Sustainability. His main expertise is environmental and resource economics as well as international environmental policy. He has consulted for a variety of national, international and non-governmental agencies, including many UN organizations, the World Bank and the OECD. He has authored over 300 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, written or edited 26 books, and published in popular journals and social media. Barbier is a Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and is a highly cited scholar on global environmental and sustainability issues. He is the author of The Water Paradox: Overcoming the Global Crisis in Water Management. Yale University Press, New Haven and London.

Dr Marvel uses climate models, observations, paleoclimate reconstructions, and basic theory to study climate change. Her work has identified human influences on present-day cloud cover, rainfall patterns, and drought risk. She is also interested in future climate changes, particularly climate feedback processes and the planet's sensitivity to increased carbon dioxide. Dr Marvel teaches in Columbia's MA in Climate and Society Program and writes the Hot Planet column for Scientific American. Named one of "15 Women Who Will Save the World" by Time Magazine, she has been profiled by the New York Times and Rolling Stone, and her 2017 TED talk has been viewed over one million times. Before becoming a climate scientist, she received a PhD in theoretical particle physics from Cambridge University, where she was a Gates scholar.  

Paul Hickey is the Managing Director of RAPID (Regulators Alliance Progressing Infrastructure Development) - a regulatory partnership between Ofwat, the Environment Agency and the Drinking Water Inspectorate. RAPID’s goal is facilitate the coordinated delivery of a programme of strategic water resource schemes required to meet the needs of people, the economy and our environment as set out in the National Water Resource Framework. RAPID will also test the regulatory and commercial arrangements for water resource infrastructure to ensure it is fit for future needs. Paul is seconded to RAPID from the Environment Agency where he was Deputy Director with oversight of Water Resources for England. Prior to the Environment Agency, Paul worked in the water industry in a variety of regulation and asset management roles. Paul is a Fellow of the Institute of Water and sits on its Board as well as the South West Area Committee.

Anne Van Loon is an Associate Professor in Drought Risk within the Water & Climate Risk group at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is a hydrologist and interdisciplinary drought (& flood) risk scientist, interested in the relationship between water, people and the environment. She uses mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative data analysis, modelling, workshops) to understand hydrological processes and their interaction with human activities, especially in relation to drought propagation, water management and changes in (ground)water use and vulnerability. Anne is currently leads the interdisciplinary ERC project on drought-to-flood disasters (PerfectSTORM) and is involved in projects related to drought and flood management in southern Africa (Connect 4 WR), groundwater drought in Europe (GDI), drought risk modelling in eastern Africa (DOWN2EARTH), and the EU-funded project RECEIPT on climate risk storylines. 

Gabriele Hegerl is professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to coming to Edinburgh, she has been at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany, and the University of Washington, Texas A&M and Duke University in the US. Her research focuses on understanding the causes of climate change and using observations to constrain predictions of future climate change. Her work has determined causes of change in temperature, rainfall, and extreme events and she had key roles in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments of climate change. Gabriele is a fellow of the Royal Society.  

Len Shaffrey is a Professor of Climate Science in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading and the Theme Leader for Climate and High Impact Weather in the UK's National Centre for Atmospheric Science. His personal research focuses on the impact of climate variability and change on weather extremes such as storms, floods, and droughts, including improving seasonal to decadal climate forecasts. Len was the Lead Principal Investigator for the UK NERC IMPETUS project on the seasonal forecasting of UK droughts.

Amir AghaKouchak is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on natural hazards and climate extremes and crosses the boundaries between hydrology, climatology, and remote sensing. One of his main research areas is studying and understanding the interactions between different types of climatic and non-climatic hazards including compound and cascading events and their societal impacts. He has received several honors and awards including the American Geophysical Union’s James B. Macelwane Medal, Fellow of AGU, and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Huber Research Prize. Amir is currently serving as the Editor-in-Chief of Earth’s Future. He has served as the principal investigator of several interdisciplinary research grants funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Science Foundation (NSF), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Jamie is a hydrologist with over 20 years’ experience in hydrological research. He leads the Hydrological Status and Outlooks Group at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and is a visiting Associate Professor at the Irish Climate And Research Units (ICARUS) at Maynooth University in Ireland. His specialisation is in the analysis of hydrological extremes (floods and droughts) and he has published over 80 peer-reviewed publications in this area. He is the scientific lead for the water monitoring component of UKCEH’s National Capability funded research programme (which includes the National River Flow Archive, the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme and Hydrological Outlook). He has led a number of major UK drought research projects including the NERC-funded Historic Droughts (2014 – 2018), ENDOWS (2017-2019) and DrIVER (2014-2017) projects aimed at drought characterisation, monitoring, management and adaptation. He has also led international droughts research projects, including in China, India and Thailand. Much of his work has been focused on practical applications and in this regard he has worked with diverse stakeholders and end-users across many sectors (water supply, regulation, agriculture, conservation, power generation and so on). 

Jim Hall FREng is Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks in the University of Oxford and is Director of Research in the School of Geography and the Environment. Before joining the University of Oxford in 2011 to become Director of the University's Environmental Change Institute, Jim held academic positions in Newcastle University and the University of Bristol. He is internationally recognised for his research on risk analysis and decision making under uncertainty for water resource systems, flood and coastal risk management, infrastructure systems and adaptation to climate change.

Jim is a member of the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, Commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission and Vice President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was a member of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the UK Climate Change Committee from 2009 to 2019 and was Chair of the Science Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) from 2020-2022.

Amongst various distinctions, Jim was awarded the George Stephenson Medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2001 and the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water in 2018. Jim was a Contributing Author to the Nobel Prize-winning Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Gabriele Hegerl is professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to coming to Edinburgh, she has been at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany, and the University of Washington, Texas A&M and Duke University in the US. Her research focuses on understanding the causes of climate change and using observations to constrain predictions of future climate change. Her work has determined causes of change in temperature, rainfall, and extreme events and she had key roles in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments of climate change. Gabriele is a fellow of the Royal Society.