Preparing for hotter, colder, wetter and drier

Written by

Jeremy Cherfas

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Solutions

Productivity

Topics

Stockholm World Water Week saw scientists from the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) share their thoughts on topics ranging from wetlands and food security to the forgotten role of water in large-scale investments in agricultural land. Hovering over almost all of the discussions was the question of climate change, and one of the few aspects of climate change we can be absolutely certain about is that things are going to become more variable. Hotter and colder, wetter and drier, more extremes, more often. For water, that means more floods and more droughts.

Two speakers in Stockholm tackled the topic of water variability head on. Claudia Ringler, a team leader with WLE, co-organised a session devoted to water variability and resilience. And Jeremy Bird, Director General of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), which hosts WLE , spoke on the multiple dimensions of managing water variability.

In the first of two reports, Claudia Ringler and Jeremy Bird spoke to the Thrive Podcast about the challenges of preparing for even more variability in water supplies.