Timothy Randhir, associate professor of Environmental Conservation, was a keynote speaker at a national seminar on climate change held Aug. 16 at Bharathiar University in Coimbatore, India.
Inaugurated by the vice-chancellor of the university, the one-day event included several presentations from experts and researchers in India on climatic change issues.
In his remarks, Randhir highlighted the need for actions that increase adaptation to climatic change, which can have wide-ranging effects on South Asian countries. According to Randhir, monsoon onsets can be delayed by climatic change with serious effects on rain-fed agriculture. Also, coastal communities are vulnerable with potential loss of mangrove ecosystems and a decrease in snowmelt can affect river flows resulting in serious consequences on water supplies, water quality and aquatic ecosystems. He said that management of socio-ecological systems to increase their resilience to climatic change is a major need for Southeast Asia. Randhir added that an adaptation mechanism requires a transdisciplinary approach that brings information from multiple disciplines to tackle climatic impacts.
While in India, Randhir also led a symposium on climatic change at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, that highlighted the vulnerability of agricultural systems and proposed a climate adaptation fund to deal with disasters.
During his visit, Randhir led a regional seminar at the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Chennai on the need for a multi-scale approach to increasing resilience of socio-ecological systems to climatic change.