KN2 | Co-production of data and knowledge for decision making with socio-technical approaches
Session Details
| Speaker: | Mariele Evers |
| Moderator: | Mukand Babel |
| Date/Time: | 10.10.2024, 09:00 – 10:00 |
| Location: | Aula |
Description
Water security in times of climate change means challenges in terms of enough water, water at the right time and place, too much water, water quality, water supply and much more. There are many challenges in the field of water management for decision-making. Three significant challenges are (1) the need for a sound knowledge base to build robust decisions, (2) developing strategies and measures as well as making robust decisions that address both existing risks and consider inherent uncertainties of knowledge and (3) the implementation of management strategies and action plans on different (spatial and institutional) levels with various stakeholder.
Transdisciplinary research, specifically the co-production of knowledge, is often considered to help to overcome or at least to tackle these challenges. Transdisciplinarity is regarded as a research approach that involves inter-scientific cooperation between various disciplines and cooperation between science and society by including practitioners and non-scientific actors in the research project. In doing so, transdisciplinary research is expected to address complex societal problems by enabling processes of mutual learning in which knowledge is co-produced between science and society to solve societal or real-world problems. The lecture will present various regional examples on the subject of flood risk and water management, in which a central element was the co-production of knowledge and generation of databases for modelling and the use of socio-technical tools to understand the complexity of the respective system, visualise interconnectedness and the effects of certain interventions. In particular, the methods for knowledge production, social learning and competence building will be presented.
About the Speaker
Mariele Evers is Professor for Geography with a focus on Ecohydrology and Water Resources Management at the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms University Bonn, Germany. She also holds the UNESCO Chair on Human-Water-Systems since 2021. She studied Geography at the Universities of Münster, Bonn and Montpellier and obtained her doctoral degree at Hannover University in 2008 and was guest professor in Sweden and Thailand.
Evers research concentrates on water resources management and ecohydrology in general and focuses particularly on hydrological extremes (droughts and floods), disaster risk management as well as on climate, water and food systems’ interactions. In the context of the UNESCO Chair on Human-Water-Systems, Mariele Evers and her colleagues explore intersectoral integration approaches for river basin management and study collaborative, informed decision-making processes. This also includes the development of web-based tools to foster participatory decision-making. Her research regions are mainly Germany, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
Moreover, Evers has published widely in numerous papers and is Specialty Chief Editor for water and human systems of the journal Frontiers in Water. She also serves as peer reviewer of various journals, amongst others of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, and Water Resources Management. In addition, she chaired the German Scientific Advisory Board for the water research programs of UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for eight years and is member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Natural Climate Protection (WBNK) since 2023.
