Developing international guidance for strategic drought risk management

Paul Sayers, Senior Visiting Fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment, is leading a project to identify best practice in drought risk management, in collaboration with WWF and the Chinese Government.

The Chinese Government has committed significant resources to address water resource management issues across the country. One challenge that the country faces is drought, which occurs regularly in China, often with very significant social, economic and environmental consequences. As climate change leads to increased uncertainty about future rainfall patterns, and potentially also leads to an increase in the frequency and severity of droughts, it is important that sophisticated drought planning and management is mainstreamed in China.

As part of an on-going collaboration, WWF and the Chinese Government’s General Institute of Water Resources & Hydropower Planning (GIWP) aim to collate and synthesise lessons from international experiences in this field, identify world best practice guidelines and influence the upcoming revision of Chinese water policy.

Paul Sayers will be attending a workshop in Suzhou, China, October 2013 to discuss strategic approaches to drought planning as part of this ongoing collaborative WWF/GIWP research project.