Join Professor Wouter Buytaert, online or in person, for his Imperial Inaugural.
Abstract:
Water security represents one of humankind’s major development challenges. Water scarcity affects around 3 billion people, and around 1.5 billion face flood risk. These numbers will likely increase as environmental issues such as land degradation, contamination, and climate change pressurise global resources.
Local water management under such conditions is hard. Conventional, “grey” infrastructure solutions such as dams, canals, and levees, are often expensive and intrusive, and lack the flexibility to adapt to an uncertain future. We need a fresh look at how people interact with the hydrological cycle, and new approaches to global water security that support local livelihoods and build long-term resilience.
Wouter Buytaert is Professor in Hydrology and Water Resources at Imperial College London whose research focuses on understanding hydrological processes, human impacts, and the implications for sustainable management of water resources and water-related risks. In his inaugural lecture, he will journey through our planet’s river basins to explore the complex interactions between people and water, and how new insights can help design locally relevant, tailored, and flexible solutions.
Biography:
Professor Wouter Buytaert is an expert on the impact of environmental change on the water cycle, and its consequences for water resources and flood and drought risk. His research crosses over between hydrological process understanding, monitoring and data collection, and computer simulation. He has specific interests in managing water to support sustainable development, and in strengthening the science-policy interface. He works extensively in the Global South, with a particular interest in the Andes and the Himalaya regions.
Wouter joined Imperial in 2009, after research positions at the universities of Leuven, Lancaster, and Bristol. He received the 2022 Darcy Medal of the European Geophysics Union for outstanding scientific contributions in water resources research and water resources engineering and management.
