CLIMACT Seminar Series - Bettina Schaefli & Nadav Peleg

The CLIMACT seminar series “How to move forward and act on climate change” is an interactive online event. It takes place twice a month, every second Monday during your lunch break, with two new speakers. Each episode aims to strengthen the dialogue and collaboration between key UNIL and EPFL scientists, swiss politicians, entrepreneurs and various actors from the civil society, through collective reflection. A wide range of climate change-related topics will be discussed, integrating perspectives from all sectors and academic disciplines in order to generate new leads and initiatives towards systemic solutions. Participants are welcome to take part in the discussion in English or French.

Water resources in Switzerland: what is at stake?
Presented by Bettina Schaefli, Professor and Head of the hydrology unit at the Institute of Geography, University of Bern

With recent climate change impact scenarios, the question regularly arises whether we are going to lack water in the near future. This question has to be analyzed in the wider context of the ongoing energy turn-around but also in the context of evolving land use for agriculture, industry and tourism. Prof. Bettina Schaefli will shed light on some of the key challenges for water use in Switzerland, thereby highlighting questions that arise on a wider scale in Europe.

How climate change and urbanization will affect floods in future cities?
Presented by Nadav Peleg, Eccellenza Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Geosciences and Environment I, UNIL

Currently, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and this proportion is projected to rise to 66% by 2050. Rainfall is the primary cause of urban flooding, which causes devastation in many cities around the world. Consequently, it is critical to study how changes in climate and urban forms will affect rainfall properties. Through our research, we aim to improve our ability to predict the magnitude and frequency of floods in future cities. We investigate how the urban area affects rainfall properties and what climate-dynamic processes are involved.