Who is who?

Prof.dr. Jeroen Aerts, VU University IVM, the Netherlands
Prof. Jeroen Aerts has been employed at the Institute for Environmental Studies in Amsterdam since October 2002. He is a professor in the area of Risk management, Climate change, and water resources management. Research and consultancy activities include a vast number of international climate and water resources management projects, including countries as Bangladesh, Kenya, Southern Africa, India, Vietnam and USA. These projects mainly focus on flood risk modelling, flood mitigation and building codes, disaster management, insurance arrangements, vulnerability indicators and decision analyses. Jeroen Aerts is the Principal Investigator of several large research programmes such as: ADAPTS (water adaptation in developing countries), the BSIK Insurance project (flood mitigation measures) and WTP analyses (flood insurance), and the ACER project (adaptations in the Rhine basin).

MSc. Ronald Albers, TNO, the Netherlands 
Ronald Albers is head of the Climate, Air and Sustainability group of TNO since 2007. After graduating as a Master in Electro Technical Engineering he has been working in the field of renewable energy assessments and low CO2 scenario’s at the University of Utrecht and next at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and the predecessor of the Environmental Assessment Agency. Ronald has been project leader of the National Environmental Outlook of the Netherlands in 1997 and of a study on integrating climate and air quality (regional and local) models for scenario studies for the European Environmental Agency. He has been responsible for a number of large research programs on policy effectiveness, on the relation between emissions and air, water and soil quality and the effects on nature and human health and on the relation between environmental policies and economic and spatial planning. Ronald became Master of Public Administration in 2003. At the moment he is consortium leader of the Climate Proof Cities of the research programme Knowledge for Climate.

Dr. Myles Allen, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Dr. Myles Allen graduated in Physics and Philosophy in 1987, and after working for the United Nations Environment Programme in Kenya, returned to complete a D.Phil. in Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics in 1992. Following Research Fellowships in the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he returned as a University Lecturer in 2001 and currently leads the Climate Dynamics Group in the Department of Physics. His research focuses on how human and natural influences on climate contribute to observed climate change and extreme weather risk. He served on successive Assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 (undergraduate training in philosophy proved invaluable in the IPCC process).

Dr. Marloes Bakker, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the Netherlands
Marloes Bakker has got a MSc. in environmental sciences (2000, emphasizing environmental management and renewable energy) from the Vrije Universtiteit (Amsterdam) and a Ph.D. in resource geography (2007) from Oregon State University, Corvallis (USA). Her Ph.D. research has filled important gaps in understanding effective water resource management on a global scale, emphasizing vulnerability to transboundary river flood events and related institutional capacity. Currently, Ms. Bakker now works for the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving) on projects dealing with global adaptation to climate change in developing countries, where she stresses the importance of the transboundary effects climate change has.

Dr. Ger Bergkamp, World Water Council, France
Dr. Ger Bergkamp has served the water community for more than 20 years. During his career he has actively worked to demonstrate how the balancing of water allocation between users can improve health, expand prosperity, and ensure resources for future generations. He has worked in over 40 countries and was Head of Water at IUCN - International Union for the Conservation on Nature before taking up the position of Director General at the Wold Water Council in 2008.

Arjan Berkhuysen, Delta and Estuary Advisor WWF Netherlands and Acting Chair of World Estuary Alliance, the Netherlands
After graduation as Master in Business Administration in 1994, Arjan took various managerial positions at the anglo-dutch multinational P&O Nedlloyd, amongst others in South Africa and Italy. During his business trips he saw the declining state of the environment and decided to contribute in changing that trend. Having finished a postgraduate course in environmental management in 2002 he lobbied in Brussels and bec ame chairman of several NGO networks, deputy member of the SER on Common Agricultural Policy, boardmember of the largest European environmental federation and boardmember ofthe FAO Committee Netherlands. Arjan was appointed head of the Freshwater Programme for WWF Netherlands in 2007. He soon realised that the vulnerability of delta areas and estuaries forms both threats and opportunities for harmony between man and nature. Together with his Chinese and other international collegues he set up the World Estuary Alliance, looking for best practices how human development and nature conservation go together while coping with climate change.

Prof. Thomas S. Bianchi, Texas A&M University, USA
Dr. Bianchi's general areas of expertise are organic geochemistry, biogeochemical dynamics of aquatic food chains, carbon cycling in estuarine and coastal ecosystems, and biochemical markers of colloidal and particulate organic carbon. He has worked in estuarine systems around the world with particular emphasis on the Mississippi River/Louisiana shelf system over the past six years. Some of this work has focused on the fate and transport of organic carbon source inputs to the Louisiana shelf using chemical biomarkers as source indicators, in addition to recent work on the paleo-reconstruction of hypoxia events on the shelf and relationship between carbon cycling in the Mississippi River plume and hypoxia. A recipient of two Fullbright Awards, Bianchi has published over 90 articles in refereed journals and was lead co-editor (Bianchi, Pennock and Twilley) of a 1999 book entitled 'Biogeochemistry of Gulf of Mexico Estuaries'. He also has a new sole-authored book entitled, "Biogeochemistry of Estuaries" published in 2007 by Oxford University Press.

Dr. Leendert van Bree, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), the Netherlands
Leendert van Bree has studied medicinal chemistry and environmental toxicology at the Free University in Amsterdam. His PhD thesis has revealed structure-toxicity relationships of persistent environmental pollutants. At the National Institute of Public Health and the Environmental (RIVM) he has headed the inhalation toxicology group focusing on the health effects of air pollutants. Later on he has headed the health risk assessment group of the environment department and developed large experience in toxicology and risk assessment of environmental pollution, and science-policy interface activities and risk management strategies. He has coordinated a large number of environmental health studies, funded by Dutch scientific organizations and the Dutch ministry of Environment. He has been a contractor in the EU funded HEPMEAP study linking and hybridizing exposure, toxicology, and epidemiology data to assess the contribution of traffic emissions to health effects associated with ambient particulate matter. In addition, he has been the co-initiator and coordinator of AIRNET, the Thematic Network on Air Pollution and Health in the European Union. He is currently involved in environmental policy evaluations for national and international bodies and agencies (Dutch Government, European Commission, EEA, and WHO) and also functions as a liaison officer for collaboration between PBL and universities. Currently he holds a senior researcher position at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) and the focus of his work is on environmental health governance, dealing sensibly with risks strategies, climate change and health, climate proof cities, and development and use of environmental assessment tools in the field of health, well-being, and quality of life.

Virna Bussadory, Autonomous Province of Bolzano, Italy
Virna graduated in Urban & Territorial Planning from the University of Venice. At present she is director of the office for Spatial Planning of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (Italy). Since 1993 she has been a member of the board of the Italian Association of Planners (AssUrb) which she represents within the ECTP-CEU (the European Council of Spatial Planners). She was elected President of the ECTP-CEU for the period 2008-9. She co-edited 'The New Charter of Athens 2003 – The ECTP’s Vision for Cities in the 21 st Century' and 'Try It This Way', a guide to sustainable urban development. She now coordinates a working group on climate change and spatial planning. She also collaborated as advisor in various Interreg programmes and has been a consultant for the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

Dr. John Church, Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO, Australia
John Church is an oceanographer with the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and has published across a broad range of topics in oceanography. His area of particular expertise is the role of the ocean in climate, particularly anthropogenic climate change. He is co-editor of a book 'Ocean Circulation and Climate' published by Academic Press. He has been a Principal Investigator on NASA/CNES Topex/Poseidon and Jason Science Working Teams since 1987. He was co-convening lead author for the Chapter on Sea Level in the IPCC Third Assessment Report. He was Co-Chair of the international Scientific Steering Group for the World Ocean Circulation Experiment from 1994 to 1998, Chaired the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme from 2006 to 2008 and CoChaired the 2006 WCRP Understanding Sea-level Rise and Variability Workshop. 

Dr. Rien Dam, Deltares, the Netherlands
Rien Dam is an international project expert with a solid basis in geosciences. He has experience in multiple countries in Asia and Africa, working in international institutional strengthening and knowledge transfer in natural resources, geohazards and environmental management. His affinity with knowledge transfer and training derives from a long involvement in international capacity building projects for Utrecht University, Nuffic, TUDelft and the University of Groningen. Besides his capabilities as a capacity building expert, his technical skills cover general natural resources management, Integrated Water Resources Management, Coastal Zone Management and institutional management. In the field of institutional strengthening and Disaster Risk Reduction he has worked for TNO-Deltares since early 2007 with international organisations, the national Government of Indonesia and the regional authorities in Aceh to develop and start-up a programme in Disaster Risk Reduction concerning multiple natural hazards, risk assessments and capacity building. His technical expertise derives from a solid basis in applied geosciences and environmental sciences: integrated analysis of land and water management issues, analysis and application (with GIS) of geosciences data, covering geology, geomorphology, soils, ground- and surface water resources, coastal zone management and natural hazards, with accent on tropical regions, education/training and institutional development. 

Prof. Simin Davoudi, Newcastle University, United Kingdom
Simin Davoudi is Professor of Environment Policy and Planning at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University. She is the Past President of the Association of European Schools of Planning, and has held the Wibout Visiting Professorship at Amsterdam University. Simin has coordinated a Planning Research Network for the UK Government and is currently a member of the UK Economic and Social Research Council Grant Assessment Panel, and the Academy of Social Sciences. She has a.o. served as a member of:  the Expert Panel on UK Government’s Housing Markets and Planning Analysis and the Research and Knowledge Committee of the Royal Town Planning Institute. She is a member of the Advisory Boards of the UK ESPON Contact Point; the Irish Social Science Platform and the BTH Swedish School of Planning. Her most recent books include: Conceptions of Space and Place in Strategic Spatial Planning (Routledge 2009) and Planning for Climate Change (Earthscan 2009).

Dr. Suraje Dessai, University of Exeter, United Kingdom
Suraje Dessai is trained as an interdisciplinary environmental scientist at the University of East Anglia (UEA) with a year at the University of Colorado. He completed his PhD entitled ‘Robust decisions amid climate change uncertainties’ at UEA and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in 2006. He was a Tyndall Research Fellow at UEA from 2006-08, working on climate change uncertainty and adaptive decision-making. He is now Lecturer in Climate Science at the Department of Geography, University of Exeter. Suraje has worked on climate change research in the UK, US, Portugal, Australia, East Timor and The Netherlands. He has over 30 peer-reviewed publications published since 1999, including a co-edited special issue of Global Environmental Change on 'Uncertainty and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation'. He has served as a reviewer for peer-reviewed journals, governmental (DEFRA) and intergovernmental organisations (IPCC TAR and AR4) and is the recipient of several awards.

Piet Dircke is director Global Knowledge Network Water Management at ARCADIS and professor in Urban Water Management, at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. He is responsible for business development of water-related activities of ARCADIS and for the transfer of Dutch flood protection expertise to New Orleans, to the contracts of ARCADIS with the US Army Corps of Engineers. Mr. Dircke is one of the leading Dutch experts in the knowledge exchange on water& delta management and climate change adaptation between the Netherlands and the USA, in particular in New Orleans, San Francisco and New York.
In Rotterdam he is one of the leading forces behind the city’s ambitious climate change adaptation program. For Rotterdam he is the co-author and editor of the book “Connecting Delta Cities”. He is also the President of the Dutch Flood Control 2015 Program, a Dutch 21.6 M€, public-private initiative to develop smart flood control systems.
Piet worked for Wageningen University (where he received his MSc in Water Management & Civil Engineering in 1985), the Municipality of Amsterdam, a water board, a Dutch consultant and the Province of Limburg before joining ARCADIS in 1993. He was appointed as a Professor for Urban water Management at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences on January 1st 2007.

Prof.dr. Peter Driessen, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Peter Driessen holds a MA in Urban and Regional Planning and a PhD in Policy Sciences. Currently he is Professor of Environmental Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands and chair of the research group ‘Environmental Studies and Policy’. Furthermore, he is scientific director of the national research programme ‘Knowledge for Climate’. Most of his research is related to the analysis and evaluation of environmental policy and planning at the national and regional level. He is especially engaged in research on of environmental governance. His research covers topics like environmental planning, spatial planning, water management, infrastructure policy, climate policy and environmental impact assessment. Furthermore, his research interests include interactive policy-making, policy analysis, policy evaluation, and science-policy interactions.

Prof.dr. Jurian Edelenbos, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Jurian Edelenbos is a professor of Public Administration, in the field of Water Governance, at the Department of Public Administration (Faculty of Social Sciences) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He focuses on processes of water governance through the lens of complexity (self-organization, coevolution, and complexity management). In his research he pays special attention to citizen participation (self-governance), the role and meaning of trust and control in inter-organizational cooperation, processes of joint-fact finding, and institutional evolution in democracy.

Dr. Vicky Elmer, University of California-Berkeley, USA
Vicki Elmer teaches sustainable communities, infrastructure planning and policy and research methods in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California-Berkeley.  Dr. Elmer was a City Manager in Eugene, Oregon as well as the Planning Director and the Public Works Director for the City of Berkeley.  She also served as the director of research at the Department of Housing and Urban Development in San Francisco. Her current research interests include the institutional and land use implications of an integrated urban water management approach to infrastructure.  Dr. Elmer is active with IWA’s Cities of the Future and is on the American Planning Association’s Water Infrastructure Task Force.  She received a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1964, a MSUP from Columbia University in 1970, and a PhD from the University of California in 1991. She taught science as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal from 1965 to 1967. Her book Infrastructure Planning and Finance: A Smart and Sustainable Guide for Local Practitioners is forthcoming.

Prof. Harrison S. Fraker, University College Berkeley, USA
Harrison Fraker, professor of Architecture and Urban Design, was educated as an architect and urban designer at Princeton and Cambridge Universities and is recognized as a pioneer in passive solar, daylighting and sustainable design research and teaching.  He was the Dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota before becoming Dean of the College of Environmental Design at Berkeley. He stepped down in 2008 to return to teaching and practice for which he received the AIA Fellow designation.  His design studios embody his belief in integrating pragmatic and theoretical analysis to create new knowledge about critical environmental design challenges facing society. Currently Fraker is pursuing research on best practices of sustainable neighborhoods globally and working on a whole systems design, closed loop approach for zero carbon in neighborhoods in the Bay Area and China. He has published seminal articles on urban design principles for transit oriented neighborhoods. He is also a visiting Professor at Lund University in Sweden and Tongji University in Shanghai. He is the President of the Design History Foundation.

Prof.dr. Fu Congbin, Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Study, International Program Office, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Educated at the Department of Meteorology in Nanjing University (1957-1962), the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences (1962-1967) and the Cooperative Institute for Research of Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado (CIRES) (1981-1983), Professor Fu has long been engaged in the study of climate variability and dynamics, including air-sea interaction, air-land interaction, and climate–ecosystem interaction on global and regional scales, in particular the modeling and diagnosis of the variations of the monsoon system and its response and feedback to earth system dynamics. He has served as the chief scientist of several research projects at the national level, such as the “Study of Aridization of Northern China and Human Adaptation”. He has published about 130 scientific papers, 6 books and more than 10 chapters in co-authored books and received several scientific prizes.

Prof.dr. Gerald Galloway, University of Maryland, USA
Gerry Galloway is a Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering and affiliate professor of public policy at the University of Maryland. He recently chaired an Interagency Levee Policy Review Committee for FEMA and a study of deep flooding potential in the Central Valley for California. In 1994, he led a White House study of the 1993 Mississippi River flood. Dr. Galloway served in the military for 38 years, retiring as a Brigadier General. He is a professional engineer, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Dr. Andrew K. Githeko, Climate and Human Health Research Unit, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kenya
Andrew Githeko is the Chief Research Officer with the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kisumu which is a division of the Ministry of Health in Kenya.  Dr. Githeko is a widely published author and expert about vector-borne disease and climate change.  He sits on the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change and was part of the Millennium Ecosystem, Assessment and Review programme.  Andrew is also a member of the International Council of Science Union (Africa Region).  Dr. Githeko has received funding for his projects from NOAA, WHO, NIH, the NGO plus others and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Liverpool in Medical Entomology. 

Rutger de Graaf, DeltaSync, the Netherlands
Rutger de Graaf is founding partner and research director of DeltaSync. This company develops knowledge and creative solutions for sustainable flood proof urbanisation in delta areas. DeltaSync is the initiator of the floating pavilion Rotterdam. In November 2009, Rutger completed his PhD cum laude at TU Delft, the Netherlands. His thesis describes both technical and governance innovations in urban water management to reduce the vulnerability of cities. He is (co) author of seven  international journal articles and two international books. Currently, Rutger is involved in sustainable floating urbanization projects in the Netherlands and he continues to work to realize the first floating self-supporting city.

Dr. Jonathan Gregory, Hadley Centre and University of Reading, United Kingdom
Jonathan M. Gregory is a climate modeller working on mechanisms of global and large-scale change in climate and sea level on multidecadal and longer timescales. He is currently a senior scientist in the Climate Divison of NERC's National Centre for Atmospheic Science (NCAS-Climate), located in the Department of Meteorology at the Univeristy of Reading; and a Met Office Fellow in the climate-change group at the Hadley Centre. He was a co-ordinating Lead Author of the IPCC TAR chapter 11 Changes in Sea Level, and a contributing author to the SAR chapter.

Dr. Koos Groen, Accacia Water, the Netherlands 
Koos Groen has been associate professor at the Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences of the VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands, since 1994. Since 2003 he is also a senior hydrogeologist at Acacia Water in the Netherlands. Until 1994 Koos served as hydrogeologist at IWACO, Consultants for Water and Environment, the Netherlands. In 2002, he received a PhD in hydrogeology at VU University in Amsterdam, where he graduated in 1980.

MSc. Marjolijn Haasnoot, Deltares, the Netherlands
MSc. Marjolijn Haasnoot is a senior researcher/consultant water management and environmental modelling at Deltares / Delft Hydraulics. The central theme in her 12 years’ experience is exploring effects of scenarios, such as climate and land use changes, on the water system in order to develop water management strategies. For this purpose she is using environmental computer models. She has been working on several water resources management projects in i.e. Indonesia, Cyprus, Croatia, Romania and the Netherlands. She set up the Habitat spatial analysis tool for environmental impact analysis, including an ecological knowledge base on wiki. Since June 2008 she is also working on her PhD research at Utrecht University and Twente University. Her PhD research is part of a project, in which social and natural sciences are integrated by an interdisciplinary team. For her PhD she is developing a method to identify sustainable adaptation strategies in river deltas under uncertainty. For this purpose she will be analyzing many transient scenarios with an integrated assessment meta model.

Dr. Raimond Hafkenscheid, Co-operative Programme on Water and Climate (CPWC), the Netherlands
Since 2008, Mr. Hafkenscheid is director of the Co-operative Programme on Water and Climate (CWPC), working on the architecture of climate change and climate adaptation programmes, and on the development of intersectoral strategic relationships regarding water and climate within the Netherlands and abroad (Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam). He obtained his PhD at the VU University in Amsterdam. Before 2008 he was founder and director of the WASH secretariat, worked in Indonesia and for NWP.

Bruno Haghebaert, Red Cross, the Netherlands
Bruno Haghebaert studied International Politics and Development Studies at Ghent University in Belgium. In 2002 he obtained a Ph.D. in disaster risk reduction (DRR) with a dissertation 'Perspectives on pro-active management of natural disasters. An enquiry into technocratic, behaviouristic, structural and neo-populist approaches'. He has worked as a research assistant and assistant professor at the Centre for Third World Studies (Ghent University), worked for UNESCO as an expert in disaster risk reduction  and for Belgian Red Cross as Coordinator for Development and Disaster Risk Reduction Projects. Recently he worked for ProVention Consortium in Geneva as Senior Officer and as DRR/climate change adaptation adviser for the Netherlands Red Cross. He has been closely involved in the setting up of the MFS II 'Partners for Resilience Alliance', which explores the interlinkages between disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and ecosystem management and restoration.

Prof.dr. Jim Hall, Newcastle University, Tyndall Centre for Climate change Research, United Kingdom
Prof. Jim Hall is Director of the Centre for Earth Systems Engineering Research in Newcastle University and Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He is a civil engineer who began his research career working on risk analysis in flood and coastal engineering and has in recent years worked extensively on problems of adapting to climate change. Professor Hall is Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and also a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He has published over 50 articles in international refereed journals on the subjects of flood and coastal risk analysis, infrastructure systems, climate change and decision making under uncertainty. He is the engineer on the UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change Adaptation which was brought into being by the 2008 Climate Change Act.

Stéphane Hallegatte, CIRED and Météo-France, France
Stéphane Hallegatte is a researcher in environmental economics and climate sciences for Météo-France and the Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement (CIRED). He is lead author of the IPCC Special Report on managing the risks of extreme events to advance climate change adaptation and of the AR5 chapter on the economics of adaptation. He helped design the methodological framework of the French inter-ministerial working group on the assessment of climate change impacts, and has been consultant for the OECD, the World Bank, and private companies on risk analysis and climate change. His research interests include the analysis of economic crises and the economic consequences of natural disasters, the assessment of economic impacts due to climate change, the development and assessment of public or private strategies to adapt to climate change, and the analysis of urban dynamics.

Prof.dr. John Handley (with dr. Iain White), University of Manchester, United Kingdom
John Handley and Iain White work together in the Centre for Urban and Regional Ecology (CURE) at the University of Manchester. CURE brings together researchers from various disciplines to explore ways of improving the sustainability and liveability of city-regions. CURE is an external research partner of the Dutch ‘Climate Proof Cities’ programme.
John Handley is an environmental scientist who has worked in Universities, Local Government and the NGO sector. His current work is focused on the development of adaptive strategies for climate change. He is a member of the UK UNESCO Urban Forum and a laureate of the UNEP, Global 500.
Iain White is a spatial planner with a special interest in the management of environmental risk in urban areas. His new book ‘Water and the City’ addresses challenging questions of risk, resilience and planning for a sustainable future.

Dr. Wilco Hazeleger, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, KNMI, the Netherlands
Wilco Hazeleger leads the Global Climate Division of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). He studied meteorology at Wageningen University (NL) and Reading University (UK). He received his PhD in 1999 in physical oceanography from Utrecht University, after which he went to Columbia University (USA) to conduct research on decadal climate variability region as a visiting scientist. Since 2002 he is working at KNMI on climate dynamics, development of climate and sea level scenario's and development of global earth system models. His climate and sea level scenario work is directed toward climate adaptation issues. He initiated and leads the EC-Earth project, a European consortium of around 20 research institutes that develops a state-of-the-art earth system model based on numerical weather prediction model of ECMWF. He serves on a number of international and national science committees. Since June 2010 he has a chair in Climate Dynamics at Wageningen University.

Prof.dr. Peter Herman, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, NIOO, the Netherlands
Prof. Peter Herman is head of department (Spatial Ecology) at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Yerseke, The Netherlands. He is a part-time professor at Radboud University Nijmegen (Estuarine Ecology). He graduated in 1982 at the University of Gent (Belgium) with a thesis about energy flow in meiobenthic populations. After a post-doc at the same University, he joined NIOO in 1987 as a mathematical ecologist. In 1992 he became a senior researcher in the department of ecosystem studies, focusing on the role of macrobenthos in estuarine dynamics. He studied exchange of food, nutrients and sediment particles between water and sediment, amongst others in several European research programmes. In particular during the ECOFLAT project, he became interested in how physical-biological interactions determine the spatial organization of landscapes. In 2008 he became a board member of the Wadden Academy; he concentrates on how ecological research can serve the management of the Wadden Sea.

Dr. Fritz Holzwarth, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany
In 1991, Mr Holzwarth was appointed Deputy Director General for Water Management in the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. His professional responsibilities are, a.o., head of the German Delegation in the Baltic Marine Environment Commission, for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR), and for the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR). He was president of the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR) is is president of the International Commission for the Protection of the River Elbe since 2008. Mr Holzwarth has been actively involved in transboundary cooperation in international river basins. Mr Holzwarth studied Economics, Law and Political Science at the University of Freiburg/Breisgau and holds a diploma (1977) and PhD (1984) in Economics and a diploma in Business Administration (1973) from the College of Economics, Pforzheim.

Dr. Saleemul Huq, International Institute for Environment and Development, United Kingdom
Saleemul Huq is Head of the Climate Change Group in the International institute for Environment and Development. He is specialist in relations between climate change and sustainable development, particularly from the perspective of developing countries. He works on research into vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in the least developed countries.  He is lead author of the chapter on Adaptation and Sustainable Development in the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and coordinating Lead Author of chapter on Adaptation and Mitigation in the IPCC's fourth assessment report (2007). He was Executive Director of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies.

Prof.dr. Ekko van Ierland, Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands 
Ekko van Ierland is full Professor Wageningen University and head of the Environmental Economics and Natural Resources group. He acted as chairman of the board of Wageningen Institute for Environment and Climate Research (WIMEK). Van Ierland has been an advisor to the Scientific council for Government Policy (WRR) and the National Budget Office (Algemene Rekenkamer),  and performed research in commission of the Ministry of Agriculture (LNV), the Ministry of Physical Planning and the Environment (VROM) and the National Foundation for Scientific Research (NWO). He is author and editor of 6 books on environmental economics and policy with international scientific publishers and contributed to a large number of books and international journals.  Other activities: visiting Professor at Xiamen University, China and Chairman of the Interdepartmental Working Group on Post -Kyoto policies, Ministry of Finance, the Netherlands.

John Jacobs, City of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
John Jacobs graduated in Watermanagement in 1992 and has since then worked at Delft University of Technology, opMAAT (design and advice), waterboards, and the City of Rotterdam. Here he was responsible for the Water Plan II Rotterdam, which eventually led to the innovative adaptation programme Rotterdam Climate Proof (RCP). Within this programme, John is part of the steering group and focussing mainly on the urban water system and strategic projects as e.g. floating building, Connecting Delta Cities, World Expo Shanghai 2010 etc.

Prof.dr. Pavel Kabat, Wageningen University and Research Centre, the Netherlands
Pavel Kabat graduated in Hydrology and Water Resources and got his PhD in Hydrology, Water Resources and Amelioration. In 1988 he joined the Winand Staring Centre for Integrated Land, Soil and Water Management Research in Wageningen as Head and Senior Researcher. In 2003 he became professor/endowed chair of Climate Hydrology at the Wageningen UR, in 2006 Full professor and Chair Holder of the newly established Earth System Science and Climate Change research group of the Wageningen UR.
His research focuses on Climate Hydrology and Watercycle, Climate system and climate change, Land-atmosphere interactions and biochemical feedbacks. He is Science director and Council Chair of the Dutch National Research Programme Climate changes Spatial Planning and involved in the programme Knowledge for Climate. As Chair and Director of the Waddenacademie of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences he leads the integrated research on the Wadden Sea region.
He is chair of several international scientific committees and lead author of IPCC being one of the winners of the Nobel price for Peace in 2007.

Dr. Eric Koomen, VU University, FEWEB, the Netherlands
Eric Koomen is assistant professor at the Department of Spatial Economics of VU University Amsterdam. His research interests include land-use change analysis and climate adaptation. Eric works part-time at the Geodan Next Company where he informs regional authorities about likely spatial developments, their potential impacts and possible policy alternatives.

Prof.dr. S. Kuks, University of Twente, the Netherlands
Stefan Kuks is president (dijkgraaf) of the water board Regge and Dinkel, one of the 25 regional water authorities in the Netherlands. In that position he takes responsibility for  integrated water management (including waste water treatment) and climate adaptation in his district. He is also executive board member at the Union of Water Boards in The Hague, dealing with climate adaptation and water management innovation in his portfolio. At the University of Twente he is affiliated as part-time professor on water governance. During his academic career he has been involved in various international comparative research projects on water policy. He published on the evolution of national water regimes in Europe, focusing on transitions in water rights and water policies. He also published on the institutional evolution of the Dutch water board model and on the privatisation debate on water services in the Netherlands.

Marijn Kuitert, City of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Marijn Kuitert graduated in Communications in 2003 and has since worked for the City of Leiden, Environmental Agency West Holland and a Dutch publishing house. In 2006 and 2007 she lived in Italy, where she was Communication and Marketing Manager Benelux for a large internet and social media company. In january 2009 she joined the ambitious Rotterdam Climate Proof programme of the City of Rotterdam. She is the press officer for the Deltas in Times of Climate Change conference, communication consultant for the international network Connecting Delta Cities and the design competition Delta City of the Future.

MSc. Willem Ligtvoet, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the Netherlands
Willem Ligtvoet is Deputy head of the Sector Water, Agriculture and Food for the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) in the Netherlands and a.o. responsible for the PBL research programme on Water, Climate change and Adaptation. He holds a university degree in biology (1983) and has a wide experience in integrated assessments and policy evaluations in the field of water, spatial planning and adaptation to climate change. In his career, working at the Netherlands Nature Conservation Institute, Leiden University, consulting engineer company Witteveen+Bos and PBL, he gained experience on a wide variety of subjects in various parts of the world, covering both the functioning of fresh-water and marine ecosystems in relation to human use. The last decade the work focuses on the interaction between climate change-water-landuse on different scales (national, European, global). On global level the adaptation challenges in the developing countries are the main topic. He has been leading many projects and is author of important assessments and policy evaluations.

Dr. Thomas Loster, Munich Re, Germany
Thomas Loster, born in 1957, was a member of the Munich Re's Geo Risks Research Department from 1988 to 2004. He started off with digital cartography, headed the "Flood Risk Research" section and was in charge of the "NatCatSERVICE" natural hazard loss statistics. As a climate expert, he represented Munich Re at numerous international climate negotiations (including COPs). Mr. Loster headed the climate change working group (CCWG) of the UNEP-Finance Initiative (2003-2005). Before taking up the post of Chairman of the Munich Re Foundation in July 2004, he was Head of Weather and Climate Risks Research in the Geo Risks Research Department of Munich Re (1997–2004).

Prof.dr. Pim Martens, Maastricht University, the Netherlands
Prof. Pim Martens, Director of the International Centre for Integrated assessment and Sustainable development (ICIS) holds the chair  'Sustainable Development' at Maastricht University, is a guest-professor at Leuphana University Lüneburg, and is a Leverhulme honorary professor at Aberystwyth University, Wales.  Prof. Martens is project-leader and principal investigator of several projects related to sustainable development, globalisation, environmental change and society.  Pim Martens is co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal Ecohealth. Dr. Martens is a Fulbright New Century Scholar within the programme 'Health in a Borderless World' and winner of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel-Forschungspreis. Furthermore, he has been a visiting scholar at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK), Harvard University (USA), Heidelberg University (Germany), and ETH Zurich (Switzerland). 

Prof.dr. Helmut Mayer, University of Freiburg, Germany
Helmut Mayer is professor and heads the Meteorological Institute at the University of Freiburg (Germany).His fields of expertise include: Forest meteorology, forest hydrology, urban climatology, urban air pollution, human-biometeorology and regional climatology. He graduated at the faculty of Physics at the University of Karlsruhe and has been a scientific member of the Chair for Bioclimatology and Applied Meteorology, University of Munich. He is field editor of the International Journal of Biometeorology.  

MSc. Hugo von Meijenfeldt, Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, the Netherlands
Hugo von Meijenfeldt is deputy Director-General Environment at the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, the Netherlands. In this position he is the Dutch Special Envoy for Climate Change and lead negotiator at the UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties (COPs). Before his current position, he was director and head of several other departments in the ministry. Hugo von Meijenfeldt graduated in Law at VU University Amsterdam.

Prof.dr. Han Meyer, Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, the Netherlands
Han Meyer graduated as an engineer, specialised in urbanism at the TU-Delft Faculty of Architecture in 1979. After his study he worked as an urban planner for the City of Rotterdam, where he was involved with the urban renewal of obsolete dockland-areas.  In 1990 he changed to the TU-Delft and used his experience in the transformations of docklands for his PhD thesis ‘City and Port’ (1997).  In 2001 he became full-professor in Urban Design, and was head of the Department Urbanism 2001 - 2007. He is a member of several national and international scientific advisory boards and lectured at many universities in Europe, USA and Asia. He was visiting professor at the National University of Singapore in 2007 - 2008.  He has published many articles and books concerning the transformations of port-cities, the fundamentals of the discipline of urbanism, the development of the Dutch urban block, the spatial construction of Dutch Water-cities and the present state-of-the-art of Dutch urbanism.

Arnoud Molenaar MA, City of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
After completing his secondary education, he attended the State University of Utrecht, graduating in Physical Geography. Arnoud started his career with several ambitious trainee posts in France (Centre National de la Recherché Scientifique), New Zealand (Ministry of Works and Development, Water Quality Centre) and the Netherlands (Association of Nature Reservation). In 1988 he moved on to excel as a researcher Transboundary Rivers and water pollution aspects at the State University of Utrecht. From 1993 to 2001 he was a senior advisor Environmental Policy at the City of Rotterdam, where he played a crucial role in the Rotterdam Environmental Policy Plan and the Water Plan of Rotterdam. In 2001 he became the Deputy Head of the Water Management Department of the City of Rotterdam. In 2008 he was appointed Manager of the ambitious Rotterdam Climate Proof programme of the City of Rotterdam. His main objective in his current role is the realisation of the Rotterdam ambition to invest in climate adaptation through innovative solutions to ensure safety of the city and enhance its’ economic stability by making climate change an opportunity for the city of Rotterdam. 

Dale Morris, Royal Netherlands Embassy, USA
Dale Morris is Senior Economist at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, DC.  He provides economic and political analyses of US macroeconomic, fiscal and monetary policy, as well as US federal budget, tax and appropriations developments.  Morris covers federal authorization and appropriation policy on water resources, energy, climate and financial markets regulation/oversight.  Morris coordinates the Dutch Government's Water Management network in Louisiana, Florida and California regarding flood protection, flood risk mitigation, coastal restoration, water supply/conveyance, ecosystem sustainability, climate change adaptation and urban planning/design for risk reduction.  Morris is a co-director of Dutch Dialogues and editor of various books and pamphlets.
Morris previously served as Legislave Director and Press Secretary to two Members of the U.S. Congress.  In those positions, he was reponsible for budget, tax, trade, appropriations, entitlements and energy issues.  Morris served five-plus years in the US Air Force, and holds a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh and an M.A. from the University of Virginia.

Dr. Robert Muir-Wood, Chief Research Officer, Science and Technology Research, United Kingdom
Robert heads the branch of RMS responsible for enhancing approaches to natural catastrophe modelling and developing models for new areas of risk such as liability. Based in London, he has more than 20 years’ experience in developing probabilistic catastrophe models and has most recently focused on the clustering of catastrophic events, insurance loss amplification, and “mega” catastrophes. Robert was lead author on Insurance, Finance, and Climate Change for the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report, and is the author of six books, as well as numerous papers and articles in scientific and industry publications. He holds a first class degree in natural sciences and a PhD in Earth sciences, both from Cambridge University, and was a junior research fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Prof.dr. Robert Nicholls, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
Robert Nicholls is professor of Coastal Engineering and author of 200 publications in international journals, books and conferences.  His research concerns impacts and adaptation to climate change in coastal areas, including assessment methods and has been involved in projects at local, national and international scales, up to global assessments. He was Convening Lead Author for the 'Coastal Systems and Low-Lying Areas' Chapter in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and author on four earlier IPCC Reports since 1996 and will be Review  Editor of the Coastal Chapter in the Fifth Assessment Report. He participated in the DEFRA-funded 'Fast Track' assessments as the coastal expert, led the SURVAS Project which reviewed vulnerability of coastal zones around the world from 1999 to 2001, was an originator of the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment (DIVA) model of sea-level rise impacts on the world’s coasts, and is leading the coastal and cities research theme of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research which is developing integrated assessment methods for coastal management which are encapsulated in the “Coastal Simulator” concept. He contributed to the Foresight study of Flood and Coastal Defence and its update for the Pitt Review and participated in international missions to Russia and the USA. He provided coastal and flooding inputs into the Stern Review, the EU Green Paper on Adaptation and the UNFCCC paper on adaptation costs, the World Bank Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change, and has lead two recent OECD papers on climate change.

Lissy Nijhuis, MBA, City of Rotterdam, Engineering Department Public Works, The Netherlands
Lissy has studied Business Administration at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Since her graduation in 1996, she has worked in the field of sustainable development. First at TNO, researching the non-technical barriers of innovations and later on for Storrm CS, giving advice about large societal transitions, e.g. concerning the creation of an entirely new, people-planet-profit-sound, village in a rural area in the north of the Netherlands. Nowadays she has specialized in climate adaptation issues  and works, together with a team of colleagues, on designing and implementing the Rotterdam Adaptation Strategy. She is also project leader of the project 'Heat stress in Rotterdam'. 

Dr. Ainun Nishat, International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, Bangladesh
Dr. Ainun Nishat, has been working as a catalyst, advocate, educator and facilitator, championing the wise use of natural resources and sustainable development in Bangladesh for decades, while his arena of work and interests include water resource development and management, environment management, biodiversity conservation, coastal zone and wetland conservation and management, disaster management, adaptation to climate change and climate variability and related policy advocacy. Before joining IUCN, Dr. Nishat was a Professor of Water Resources Engineering of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). He has been a member of the Bangladesh National Water Council, Indo-Bangladesh Joint River Commission, Bangladesh National Agricultural Commission and the National Council on Science and Technology. Dr. Nishat had played an important role in the Ganges Water Treaty negotiations, water sector policy formulation, agriculture sector policy revision and strategy formulation.

MSc. Astrid Offermans, ICIS, International Centre for Integrated assessment and Sustainable development, Maastricht, the Netherlands
Astrid Offermans studied General Social Sciences at Utrecht University. In June 2006 she completed the Master 'Social interventions and policy' cum laude and with clear pass. In December 2006, Astrid started as a junior-researcher at ICIS in Maastricht. She worked on the BSIK project 'Perspectives in Integrated Water Management' on the integration of research results from different academic disciplines and the development of integrated scenarios for water management in the Netherlands. In 2008 Astrid started her PhD on integrating dynamic social perspectives into a methodology to analyze the sustainability of different water management strategies (social robustness). Her PhD is part of the Deltares project 'Perspectives in Integrated Water Resources Management in River Deltas'. She was involved in the EU- MATISSE project where she worked on the integration of social and cultural values in (agent based) models for integrated sustainability assessments. Besides research, she teaches the bachelor courses 'Sustainable development, an introduction’ and teaches and coordinates the course ‘Globalization, environmental change and society' at University College Maastricht.

Prof.dr. Paul Opdam, Wageningen UR, Alterra, the Netherlands
Educated as ecologist, Prof. Opdam developed an approach to built in population ecology into the spatial approach of landscape ecology. Metapopulation theory was used as a theoretical basis. From 1986 to 1998, he built a group of 25 researchers and technical staff dealing with the relationship between biodiversity and spatial landscape pattern. In this group experimental, theoretical and modelling approaches were integrated to develop methodology and guidelines to apply landscape ecology in nature policy. In 1999 he was appointed professor and started heading the department of landscape ecology of the DLO-Institute of Forestry and Nature Research, later part of Alterra/Wageningen University Research Centre. From 2002 onwards Prof. Opdam concentrated on bridging the gap between ecology and planning and design, working on an approach based on ecological networks and on the combination of nature and other functions in ecological networks. He is leading a WUR-strategic research programme on sustainable development of landscapes, adapting the landscape to effects of climate change. 

Bouke Ottow, Deltares, the Netherlands
Bouke Ottow is Senior Specialist Water management & Participation at Deltares. Previously he worked at FAO and ILRI and had several positions at the Netherlands Ministry of Transport, Public Works & Water Management. He is a water management engineer by training and a cross-cultural communication and education specialist. He was involved in participation process design and facilitation in the Netherlands, Indonesia, Kenya, Egypt, Armenia, Romania and Russia.

Chantal Oudkerk Pool MA, City of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Chantal Oudkerk Pool graduated in Urban Planning in 2000 and spent an extra year at the University of Amsterdam studying International Development Studies. From 2001-2005 she was an advisor for the City of Rotterdam. In 2005 she moved to Bangladesh, where she worked on various projects related to water supply, sanitation and housing for two years. In 2008 she joined the ambitious Rotterdam Climate Proof programme of the City of Rotterdam. She is among other things coordinator of the international network Connecting Delta Cities.

Dr. Hans Paerl, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Hans W. Paerl is Kenan Professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences, at the UNC-Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences, Morehead City.  His research includes; microbially-mediated nutrient cycling and primary production dynamics of aquatic ecosystems, environmental controls of harmful algal blooms, and assessing the causes and consequences of man-made and climatic (storms, floods) nutrient enrichment and hydrologic alterations of inland, estuarine and coastal waters.  His studies have identified the importance and ecological impacts of atmospheric nitrogen deposition as a new nitrogen source supporting estuarine and coastal eutrophication. He is involved in the development and application of microbial and biogeochemical indicators of aquatic ecosystem condition and change in response to human and climatic perturbations. He heads up the Neuse River Estuary Modeling and Monitoring Program, and ferry-based water quality monitoring program, FerryMon.  In 2003 he was awarded the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award by the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography.

Prof. Martin Parry, University of London, United Kingdom
Professor Parry is visiting professor at Imperial College, University of London.  He was Co-Chair of Working of Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) during its 2007 Assessment, and was and a coordinating lead author in the IPCC first, second and third assessments.  .  He has held positions as Professor of Geography at the Universities of Oxford, University College London, University of Birmingham and University of East Anglia.  He has published 5 books and about 150 scientific papers on climate change impacts, including 'Assessing the Costs of Adaptation to Climate Change' (2009) and 'Climate Change and Hunger' (2009).

Antonio Paruzzolo, Venice Municipality/Thetis, Italy
Antonio Pauzzolo has been General Manager of Thetis since 1992. He has been Managing Director of Thetis S.p.A until April 2010. He is now Member of the Board of Thetis S.p.A.. Since April 2010 he is Vice Major for Economic Development of the Venice Municipality. He has over a decade of experience as a naval-structural designer, technical expert and project manager in the field of research and engineering projects in the marine sector.

MSc. Florrie de Pater, VU University, the Netherlands
After her study in land and water management at Wageningen University, Florrie started working in development cooperation in Mozambique. Subsequently, she held positions as project officer, programme coordinator in Zimbabwe and, back in the Netherlands, as senior consultant at OXFAM/Novib.
After twelve years of work for developing countries Florrie followed a MSc. course in environmental studies and started working for the province of Noord-Holland. Her main task was to lead teams to produce strategic policy plans and to implement projects on water management. Subsequently she managed a team in the province of Utrecht involved in strategic planning.
In 2005 Florrie started working in ‘Climate changes Spatial Planning’, a research programme on climate change. Her main task was to involve local and regional authorities and the business community in the program by awareness raising about climate change and by setting up projects with those groups. Presently, she manages a team of five people engaged in communication activities in two research programmes Climate changes Spatial Planning and Knowledge for Climate.

Dr. Christopher Pettit, Department of Primary Industries Victoria, Australia
Christopher Pettit is the Research Manager - Spatial Information Sciences and Principal Research Scientist within the Department of Primary Industries Victoria. Dr. Pettit maintains honorary appointments at the University of Melbourne as an Associate Professor in the Department of Geomatics and Senior Research Fellow RMIT University. Dr Pettit’s spatial information sciences platform, which comprises 30 spatial information scientists, applies a range of spatial technologies including spatial decision support systems, visualisation, remote sensing, and GIS. These technologies are applied across a number of natural resource management and planning areas including: climate change, water use efficiency, agricultural productivity and peri-urban land use change. He is the Associate Editor for the International Journal – Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy. Dr. Pettit has published over 50 peer reviewed papers in books, journals and conferences over the last 10 years. He has participated in more than 20 International conferences in a range of capacities including keynote speaker, conference organiser, session organiser, session chair and presenter. Dr. Pettit is currently the chair of the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute -  Spatial Information Cartography Commission and chair of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) working group on geographical visualisation and virtual reality. Dr Pettit is also the principal author to the ESRI International online virtual campus course 'Introduction to urban and regional planning using ArcGIS'.

Dr. Janine Powell, Director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS), National Wetlands Research Center in Louisiana, USA
Dr. Janine Powell has 29 years of research experience with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of the Interior, with a focus on entomology, invasive species ecology, forestry, and rangeland issues. At the National Wetlands Research Center, she leads a team whose mission is to develop and disseminate scientific information needed for understanding, managing, and restoring wetland habitats and associated plant and animal communities.  Dr. Powell received a Ph.D. in entomology from Clemson University in South Carolina; a master’s degree in biology from State University of New York College at Plattsburgh; and a bachelor’s degree in forest biology from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. 

Prof.dr. Piet Rietveld, VU University, the Netherlands
Prof. Piet Rietveld studied econometrics at Erasmus University, Rotterdam (cum laude degree) and received his PhD in economics at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. He worked at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (Austria) and was research co-ordinator at Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana in Salatiga, Indonesia. Since 1990 he has been professor in Transport Economics at the Faculty of Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. He is a fellow at the Tinbergen Institute.  

Prof.dr. Marleen van Rijswick, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Marleen van Rijswick is professor of Water Law at Utrecht University and visiting professor of European environmental law at the University of Pantheon-Assas in Paris. Her research focus on legal and institutional aspects of water governance and natural resource management, and the relations between water management and environmental management, spatial planning and adaptation to climate change.

Bert Satijn, Research programme Living with Water, the Netherlands
Bert Satijn is a civil engineer with about 30 years of experience in the field of geohydrology, water resource management and soil quality management (Shell, Iwaco and indepent consultant). With his education on the Technical High school and the Technical University of Delft he has the right mixture of practice and theory. Today he is managing director of the Dutch research programme on Living with Water (budget of  € 48 million). The 6 year programme has about 80 projects in the field of water management, as well in the Netherlands as abroad. The program team is starting and managing the projects, executed by researchers from universities, consultancy firms, contractors and water managing organisations from the public and private sectors. Research is focussing on communication, socio-economical and institutional aspects of the water management related to climate change.

MSc. Henk van Schaik, Co-operative Programme on Water and Climate (CPWC), the Netherlands
Since its inception in 2001, Henk van Schaik has been the Programme Co-ordinator and since August 2008 the Programme Coordinator International of the Co-operative Programme on Water and Climate (CPWC), based in the Netherlands. His activities include stimulating attention and research to the impacts of climate change upon water systems at all levels, the assessment of vulnerabilities, the preparation of coping measures, and the encouragement of initiatives in water sector policies and organizations. Mr Van Schaik has been key organizer of events on Water and Climate during the World Water Fora since 2003 and during the World Water Week in Stockholm since 2002. He has been the Programme Chair of the IWA Water and Climate conferences since 2004, and is co-initiator of the IWA Specialist Group on Adaptation to Climate Change. Until 2001, Mr Van Schaik was policy advisor on Water for the Ministry of Development Cooperation of the Netherlands Government, after more than 10 years working on rural water supply projects in Malawi and Tanzania.

Rob Schoonman, Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, the Netherlands
Rob Schoonman serves as policy maker at the Netherlands Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment. A town and country planner in origin, he is currently involved in translating climate change effects on the physical environment in accordance with policy. He is also project manager for ‘Knowledge for Climate’, an ambitious research programme that aims to develop applied knowledge, through cooperation between the Dutch government, the business community and scientific research institutes, in order to ensure that long-term decision-making takes into account the impacts of climate change.

Dr. Aart Schrevel, Wageningen UR, Alterra, the Netherlands
From 2002-2009, Aart Schrevel was team member of a project to develop the concept of livelihoods and the concept of inter-livelihood relations, and integrate the livelihood concept into the DPSIR model, a planning-for-action tool. Included in the analyses are fundamental considerations on the concept of poverty. From 2002-2005 he worked as a team leader at the Maludam National Park Development Project, Malaysia.

Prof.dr. Reimund Schwarze, UFZ Leipzig / CSC Hamburg, Germany
Prof. Reimund Schwarze graduated in the fields of sociology and economics at the Universities of Goettingen and Berlin. In the eighties he worked for the Environmental Protection Agency of Germany in Berlin. In 1991, he accepted a position as a lecturer on environmental economics at the University of Technology of Berlin, where he was promoted assistant professor in June 1995. In 1998, he started a one-year research fellowship at the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University with focus on examine legal and economic issues of the Kyoto Protocol.  In 2002, he assumed the position of senior researcher at Germany’s largest Economic Research Institute in Berlin, where he was involved in designing the German National Allocation Plan for EU emissions trading. Since 2007 he works for the Helmholtz-Institute for Environmental Research at Leipzig - UFZ, coordinating economic research on climate change and heading the department of  Economics and Policy at the German Climate Service Center in Hamburg.

Liesbeth Schipper, Royal Haskoning, the Netherlands
Liesbeth Schipper is specialized in methods for effective knowledge development and the embedment between practice, science and policy. She is currently working as deputy director of the SKB programme, a foundation aiming at knowledge development and exchange related to the subsoil. In this function, she was responsible for the new programme on Sustainable Development of the Subsoil. As a senior advisor in programme and knowledge management for Royal Haskoning SMC (Strategy and Management Consultants) she is currently involved in the development of a Community of Practice for the Delta Programme. Besides, she designs and facilitates the reflection process for the innovation programme ‘Mooi Nederland’, in which over a hundred pilots look into the possibilities of creating more quality in spatial developments.

Prof.dr. Bernd Siebenhüner, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany
Bernd Siebenhüner is professor of Ecological Economics and vice president elect of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany. He is coordinator of the Master’s programme on Sustainability Economics and Management and a member of the Steering Committee of the Earth System Governance Project. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics and Master’s degrees in Economics and Political Science. He has conducted numerous research projects in the fields of international organizations, global environmental governance, social learning, corporate sustainability strategies, climate and biodiversity governance, and the role of science in global environmental governance.

Tom Smit, Royal Haskoning, the Netherlands
Tom Smit is a senior management consultant with law degrees from the Leiden and Harvard Universities and extensive experience in the public and private sector. Tom has advised numerous governments in the Netherlands and abroad on transport, infrastructure, utilities, water, environmental and spatial planning legislation and administration.
In 1998 he joined Royal Haskoning. First as director of the Environment and Water Divisions, and currently managing the Spatial Development Division. Recently Tom has been involved in the regional consultation process leading towards the formulation of the new Dutch National Water Plan and an international comparative analysis of (integrated) water legislation. Besides different evaluation studies and consulting assignments in the Netherlands, the past years he has also advised on management capacity of governments in countries such as Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Greece. In 2009, Tom facilitated the Delta Dialogues during the 5^th World Water Forum in Istanbul.

Malcolm Smith, Arup, United Kingdom
Malcolm Smith is the founding Design Director of the Integrated Urbanism Unit at Arup in London. He joined Arup after completing his Masters degree in
Architecture at Yale University. Prior to undertaking his Masters, Malcolm worked in Australia on a wide range of projects including waterfront development, tertiary education buildings, entertainment and arts facilities. Malcolm has led a wide range of urban design projects both in the United Kingdom and internationally that have sustainable place making at their core. Malcolm is a visiting tutor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London, and Yale University. He was a commissioner on the Housing Corporation ‘Design Standards for the Future’ commission, and is an invited member of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). Malcolm is invited to lecture around the world on sustainable environments, most recently at the Eco-Edge Conference, Melbourne and the City of Copenhagen. He was an invited participant at the inaugural Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva, and an invited advisor to the Gore Foundation. He is appointed by the City of Amsterdam as lead designer for Zuidas, the new commercial centre for Amsterdam.

Bert Smolders, ARCADIS, the Netherlands
Bert Smolders is advisor urban and regional development for ARCADIS Consultants and Engineers. He has been working on comprehensive coastal protection and other climate adaption projects in the Netherlands (as project manager for the weak link projects), Georgia, the Middle East, Thailand, Indonesia and China. As program manager for the cooperation program of ARCADIS and UN-HABITAT he is currently involved in projects in Africa and Haiti.

Prof.dr. Tejo Spit, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
After his masters degree Prof. Spit worked both in the academic world (Catholic University of Nijmegen and  Utrecht University) and the world of municipalities. Therefore, he has developed wide knowledge of spatial planning in (local) practice. In this period he wrote his thesis on the subject of fiscal austerity and urban innovative policies (1993). In 1995 he changed jobs moving to a full time academic career as an associate professor at the Department of Human Geography and Planning (Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University). Tejo Spit is now full professor in Urban and Regional Planning and chairing the department. He is specialized in land policy, planning methodology, infrastructure planning and administrative aspects of spatial planning. He is regularly lecturing on these subjects within the Netherlands and abroad.

Murray Starkel, NGP Global Adaptation Partners, USA
Lieutenant Colonel Murray Starkel was assigned as the deputy commander and deputy district engineer of the New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, on July 10, 2005. Most recently, Starkel had deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom as the area engineer for Victory Base in the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, for a seven-month tour, while assigned as the deputy district engineer of the San Francisco District from 2002-2005. 
Starkel received a bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1988.  He holds two master’s degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, in business administration and in environmental engineering.  He is a graduate of the Engineer Basic and Advanced Courses, the U.S. Army Airborne and Air Assault Schools, the French Armed Forces Commando School, and the Command and General Staff College. 
In his current position Murray Starkel is the managing director for a new private equity fund that is focused on a Global Adaptation, building resilient coastal infrastructure, both private and public.

Jim Stefanov, U.S. Geological Survey, USA
Jim Stefanov became the Deputy Regional Executive for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) South-Central Geographic Area in March 2008. As Deputy Regional Executive he shares responsibility with the Regional Executive for planning, directing, and evaluating all science and operational activities at USGS Science Centers within the 6 states (TX, LA, OK, AR, KS, MO) of  the South Central Area. Preceding his selection as Deputy Regional Executive Jim served as the Deputy Director of the USGS Texas Water Science Center where he was responsible for USGS Investigations and Research programs in the state of Texas. Prior to joining the USGS, Jim served as Chief of the Technical Planning Division for the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) in El Paso, Texas. With the IBWC, Jim led planning and investigation efforts for flood control, wastewater treatment, and environmental projects along the entire 2000-mile long U.S.-Mexico border. Earlier positions include Installation Restoration Program Manager at Fort Bliss, Texas, Associate Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and Geologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Baltimore District, Geotechnical Engineering Branch. Jim is a U.S. Army veteran, Registered Professional Geologist, and holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Geology from Illinois State University and Fort Hays State University, respectively.

Dr. Andreas Sterl, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, the Netherlands
Dr. Andreas Sterl is senior scientist at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). He studied physics at Kiel University and obtained his PhD in engineering sciences at Karlsruhe University in 1988. Since then he worked on climate modelling, first at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, and since 1991 at KNMI. His main interest is the interaction between atmosphere and ocean, ocean waves, and, more recently, storm surges and extreme events. He contributed to the storm surge part of the Dutch Delta Committee.

Prof.dr. Marcel Stive, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
Professor Stive has more than 30 years experience in research and projects in the fields of hydraulic engineering, coastal morphodynamics, coastal bio-geomorphology and coastal and estuarine management, as team member, as team leader and as advisor. He was and is involved in several projects sponsored by the science and technology programmes of the EU, of two of which he was/is overall co-coordinator. In 2001 he accepted the fulltime chair of Coastal Engineering at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences of Delft University of Technology. Since 2003 he is scientific director of the Water Research Centre of Delft University of Technology, and since 2006 he is leading the EU Erasmus Mundus MSc programme on Coastal and Marine Engineering and Management. He has written many publications on a variety of topics, ranging from geology to hydraulic engineering and coastal zone management. Chapter 6 of the IPCC 4^th Assessment Report contains 11 references to his publications.

Prof.dr. Hans von Storch, Institute for Coastal Research, Germany
Prof. von Storch is director of Institute of Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Centre and professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg. From 1987 - 1995, he was Senior Scientist and leader of the "Statistical Analysis and Modelling" group at the Max Planck-Institute for Meteorology. His research interests are climate diagnostics and statistical climatology, regional climate change and its transdisciplinary context. He has published sixteen books, and numerous articles. He is member of the advisory boards of, among others, Journal of Climate, Environmental Science and Policy, and Meteorologische Zeitschrift, and organizor of the GKSS School on Environmental Research. He was appointed a lead author of the Working Group II of the Fifth Assessment of the IPCC. He chairs efforts for a climate change assessment for the Baltic Sea Catchment (BACC) and the metropolitan region of Hamburg.

Dr. Swenja Surminski, Association of British Insurers / London School of Economics, United Kingdom
Swenja Surminsky is advising the ABI on climate change issues, including mitigation and adaptation. Key areas of work are climate impacts (incl. flooding, storms, heatwaves and health issues), greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon commerce. She has co-ordinated the ABI's response to the 2007 summer floods in the UK and sits on various research steering groups. Prior to taking up this role in April 2007, Swenja was working in the Risk Management division of insurance broker Marsh McLennon and in the Geoscience Team at Munich Reinsurance Company. Swenja received a PhD in Economics/Political Science from Hamburg University for her work on 'Climate Change and the Insurance Industry' in 2000.

Dr. Rob Swart, Wageningen UR, Alterra, the Netherlands
Rob currently is coordinator of international climate change adaptation research at Alterra in The Netherlands. He leads a number of national and international projects in the area of climate change adaptation strategies. Previously, he headed the European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change of the European Environment Agency (EEA). Rob has been extensively involved in the work of the IPCC, as lead author for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Assessments, as Head of the Technical Support Unit of the Mitigation Working Group III during the 3rd Assessment, and as lead author of the WGIII and Synthesis reports during the 4th Assessment. Most of his career he worked on integrated assessment of international environmental problems in the context of sustainable development at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). Rob holds a MSc in environmental engineering from Delft University of Technology and a PhD in climate risks assessment from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Cindy Thatcher, U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS), National Wetlands Research Center in Louisiana, USA
Cindy Thatcher’s current research focus is on delta environments, climate change, coastal hazards, data integration and visualization, and GIS-based landscape analysis.  She previously worked at the USGS Southern Appalachian Field Branch for several years, where she was involved in GIS-based wildlife habitat modeling, with a main focus on the endangered Florida panther. She has a master’s degree in geography from the University of Arkansas and an undergraduate degree from James Madison University.

Prof.dr. Geert Teisman, Erasmus University, the Netherlands
Geert Teisman is professor in Public Administration at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and chair of the research group Governance of Complex Systems (department of Public Administration). He achieved degrees in transport and sociology. His PhD thesis concerned the phenomena of complex decision making especially in the field of urban development, transport en environmental affairs. The thesis was published in 1992 and followed by a second edition in 1995 and a third edition in 1998. Between 1997 and 2000 he was appointed as professor in Spatial Planning at the University of Nijmegen. Since 2000 he is professor in Complex Decision Making and Process Management at the Erasmus University. Furthermore he practices several functions op the edge of scientific research and practical applications. He was member of the Board of Habiforum, a joint venture between science, private sector and public authorities, and exploring possibilities of multiple land-uses. He is scientific director of the foundation Living with Water, governing a variety of projects in which water system improvement is one of the important aims. He is codirector of the recently started program 'NederlandBovenWater'.  On a regular basis he gives advice to governments and private organisations on the topics like complex decision making, strategic planning, public-private partnerships, process management, intergovernmental co-operation in metropolitan areas and policy evaluation.

Prof.dr. Katrien Termeer, Chair of the  Public Administration and Policy Group  at Wageningen University, the Netherlands
Prof. Termeer is full professor at the Wageningen University. Before she held positions at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam; Technical University of Delft; the ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food and at Sioo, a Centre for Organizational Change and Learning. Her research focuses on the governance of wicked problems in the policy domains of the life sciences (climate change, sustainable agriculture, water management , rural areas). Key research themes are: governance arrangements, public leadership, change management,  organizing innovation in networks,  analyzing and opening up deadlocks, and reflective action research. At Wageningen University she is responsible for the research programs ‘Changing Governance and Governing Change’ and ‘Scaling and Governance’. She is chairing the Knowledge for Climate Consortium on Governance of Adaptation. Her research is both scientific relevant and useful and recognizable to practioners.

Jos Timmerman, Ministry for Transport, Public Works and Water Management, the Netherlands
Jos Timmerman is senior policy advisor at the Directorate-General for Water Affairs of the Dutch Ministry for Transport, Public Works and Water Management. His work focuses at connecting scientific disciplines and linking their results to policy development. He has a long time experience in working on transboundary cooperation in water management. His recent work concentrates on research on the role of Integrated Water Resources Management in climate change adaptation and the additional value of Adaptive Water Resources Management in this process. He is the lead-author of the Guidance on Water and Adaptation to Climate Change that is developed under the Water Convention of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The goal of this Guidance is to support transboundary cooperation in adapting to climate change in water management.

Prof.dr. Kerry Turner, CSERGE, School of Environmental Sciences, United Kingdom
Prof. Kerry Turner is the Director of CSERGE and a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Kerry specialises in environmental economics, coastal zone and wetland management, conservation economics and waste management research. He has published widely on these subjects including a number of best selling texts. Kerry is Chairman of the Broads Authority, and serves on the East of England Sustainable Development Round Table. Kerry previously served on the Board of the National Rivers Authority and was the Chairman of the Office of Science and Technologys, Foresight Panel on Natural Resources and the Environment until April 1999. He was a member of the UK Climate Change Impacts Review Group, for the DoE and a lead author with the IPCC Working Group II and UNEPs Biodiversity Assessment Panel. He also is a consultant to a number of Government departments, international and national agencies.

MSc. Tiedo Vellinga, Port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Tiedo Vellinga MSc obtained his degree in Civil Engineering in 1979 at the Delft University of Technology. Since then he has been working for the Port of Rotterdam Authority in the field of infrastructure- and water management. His main present positions and activities are Director Environmental Monitoring Maasvlakte 2, Rotterdam Port Authority. Responsible for the monitoring of the environmental effects of the realisation and the use of Maasvlakte 2; Associate Professor Ports and Environment, Hydraulic Engineering Section, Delft University of Technology; Projectmanager for the development and implementation of the Environmental Ship Index (ESI), one of the IAPH World Ports Climate Initiatives. Specific fields of expertise are: port environmental management and sediment management. Tiedo Vellinga wrote numerous publications and is an active participant in international networks related to these fields of expertise.

Dr. Frans van de Ven, Deltares, the Netherlands
Dr. Frans H.M. van de Ven is head of the Urban Water Management team of Deltares institute for delta technology and he is associate professor Urban Water Management at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences of Delft University of Technology.  His expertise includes urban water management, climate adaptation, spatial planning & urban design, urban drainage, policy development and transition management. Van de Ven is involved in the Dutch Climate Proof Cities program and published amongst others on cities of the future, climate change vulnerability and adaptation.
His mission is to develop closed and adaptable cities, to reduce their environmental footprint and their vulnerability to future changes. His focus is on Water Cities, located in lowlands. Based on profound understanding of the urban hydrology, he develops the multifunctional use of urban surface water, storm water, groundwater, drinking water and wastewater flows, in addition to the control of this water. This multifunctional use requires changes in water management and in land use planning and urban design.

Prof.dr. Peter Verburg, Institute for Environmental Studies, the Netherlands
Peter Verburg is professor Environmental Spatial Analysis and head of the Department Spatial Analysis and Decision Support at the Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam. He specializes in spatial analysis and simulation of human-environment interactions, with emphasis on land use and land cover change, ecosystem services and scenario studies. Peter Verburg is developer of the land use change model CLUE which is currently used by more than 100 institutions world-wide for simulation of land use change scenarios and ex-ante assessment of policies. He has been a member of the IHDP/IGBP LUCC focus office on regional and global integrated models of land use change. He was involved in many EU research projects, and he has coordinated large research projects for other organizations. He has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles and several book chapters. He has organized workshops and post-graduate courses on the topic of land use modelling and he is a regular invited speaker at international symposia.

Hoang Viet, Freshwater Coordinator, WWF Greater Mekong, Vietnam Country Programme, Vietnam
Graduated from Hanoi National University on Environmental Science in 1995, after 4 years working as a marine chemical analyst at the Haiphong Institute of Oceanography, in 2000, he took a master programme on Integrated Tropical Coastal Zone Management in Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand and an exchange programme in New Zealand. In 2002, he came back to Vietnam to work for Ministry of Fisheries as a coastal aquaculture planning specialist for 4 years before joined to WWF family to manage the newly established freshwater programme in 2006. Since now, he has managed many projects on wetland restoration, water pollution control, fish conservation, and as well as ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change in the Mekong delta. He is also the founder of the Mekong Delta conservation forum, which facilitates for the public participation into decision making processes in the delta and sharing knowledge and information about conservation issues as well as initiate solutions for the issues in the Mekong Delta.

Paula Verhoeven, City of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
After completing her secondary education, Paula Verhoeven attended the Twente University of Technology, graduating in Educational Technology. Between 1986 and 1992 Paula Verhoeven filled several positions at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior in the department of Public Order and Safety. From 1993 up till now she is working for the City of Rotterdam. There she had several positions. At first in the Human Resources department of the Mayor’s Office (management development and some major reorganisations). From 1997 till March 2009 she worked as head of the HRM department, head of the department of Water Management and Director and Vice Director General at the municipal department of Public Works. Since 2006 she was amongst other tasks in the area of infrastructure, maintenance and environment, responsible for international relations and the Rotterdam Climate Proof Programme (2008). In 2009 Paula Verhoeven was appointed the first Director of Climate Affairs in the Netherlands for the City of Rotterdam. Her main objective in her current role is to ensure that the Rotterdam approach to climate is imbedded in all aspects of the municipal policy.

MSc. Marnix de Vriend, Royal Haskoning, the NetherlandsMarnix de Vriend, Royal Hoskoning, the Netherlands
Since 2003, Marnix de Vriend is a senior consultant Coastal & Rivers at Royal Haskoning in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He is responsible for project management of environmental impact assessments for a large dyke relocation project in Nijmegen/Lent, for nature development in floodplains along rivers, and for strategic analysis of early conceptual objectives to prevent flooding. Before his current position he was senior advisor process management and strategy at Royal Haskoning, senior advisor in nature development and projectmanagement for several major environmental impact assessments at Arcadis, and head of the department of coastal fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Quality, the Netherlands. He is also president of Bifae foundation (Bongmom Integrated Farming and Education Project) in Shisong Western province of Kameroen.

Prof.dr. Martin Wassen, Utrecht University, Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development en Innovation, the Netherlands
Prof. Martin Wassen is a full professor in Environmental Sciences and head of  the Department of Innovation and Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University. He has published more than 60 articles in refereed journals including Nature, Ecology and The American Naturalist. His expertise is on (landscape) ecology, vegetation science and eco-hydrology. His research focuses on the effects of changes in biogeochemical cycling and the hydrological cycle in ecosystems. He centres on the following components of the environmental cause-effect chain: land use > water fluxes and water quality > ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. Human intervention affects the hydrological cycle and thereby the spatial distribution of water quantity and quality with associated effects on solute transport and the dynamics of resource limitation. The cumulative effects of changes in climate, changes in land use and nutrient cycling on the resilience of species, inter-specific competition and species migration and adaptation, and how this affects ecosystem functioning are key issues in his research.

Prof. Wenwei Ren, Head of Shanghai Programme Office，WWF China
Wenwei Ren has got the bachelor degree of environmental science from Sichuan University in 1994 and PhD degree of ecology from Fudan University in 2000. He is the associate professor in School of Life Sciences at Fudan University. He is also the founding member of the Sino-Canada Centre for Environment & Sustainable Development, Fudan-Queen’s University. He has published more than 30 research articles and 3 books. Currently he is leading WWF-Shanghai program office to implement conservation projects in Shanghai & Yangtze estuary, including water source protection, wetland protected area network, estuary partnership, world estuary alliance and low carbon city initiative.

Elizabeth Wilson, Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom
The research interests of Elizabeth Wilson are spatial planning response to climate change in UK and Europe, environmental appraisel of plans and futures-thinking and scenario’s. Recent projects she has been involved in are MACIS (Minimisation of and Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity), BRANCH (Biodiversity requires adaptation in NW Europe under a changing climate), England Biodiversity Strategy, Adaptation to climate change in the Sustainable Communities Growth Areas, ASCCUE Adaptation Strategies for Climate Change in the Urban Environment, SECTORS South East Climate Threats and Opportunities research Study: for SE England Climate Change Partnership and The Planning Response to Climate Change.  

Prof. Tony Wong, Monash University, Autralia
Professor Tony Wong is co-director and Chief Executive of Monash University’s Centre for Water Sensitive Cities.  Tony has over 30 years experience and is internationally recognised for his research and practice in sustainable urban water management.  He is also a Director of Environmental and Ecological Planning in the Global Design Firm AECOM. Through his research and practice leadership, he has led many urban design innovations in the integration of sustainable urban water management measures into the urban landscape and building architectural that have underpin Water-Sensitive Urban Design as we know it in Australia today.  He was the editor-in-chief of Engineers Australia’s recent book entitled Australian Runoff Quality: A Guide to Water Sensitive Urban Design.  He has over 100 scientific publications in the field of sustainable urban water management. Tony provides advice to governments and industry, notable through his membership of the Urban Water Advisory Group of the Australian Government’s National Water Commission and his service on the Prime Minister’s Science Engineering and Innovation Council’s working group on Water for Cities.

Dr. Robert Muir Wood, RMS Stanford Universit, United States
Robert Muir-Wood is chief research officer at Risk Management Solutions. He heads the research group within RMS, with the mission to design enhanced methodologies for natural catastrophe modeling, and develop models for new areas of risk, such as life and liability. He has more than 20 years of experience in developing probabilistic catastrophe models covering earthquake, tropical cyclone, windstorm, and flood for Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan. Robert has recently focused on new models for clustering, time varying activity rates, loss amplification and Super Cats. Author of six books, many scientific publications, and more than 150 articles, he has been the technical lead on a number of catastrophe risk securitization transactions, and is Lead Author on Insurance, Finance and Climate Change for the 2007 (4th) IPCC Assessment Report. He is also a member of the OECD High Level Advisory Board of the International Network on Financial Management of Large-Scale Catastrophes. 

Prof.dr. Chris Zevenbergen, UNESCO-IHE, Institute for Water Education, the Netherlands
Prof. Chris Zevenbergen is an Associate Professor to the Department of Urban Water and Sanitation in the core Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Systems (SUIS) and Professor of Flood Resilience of Urban Systems at UNESCO-IHE. He is also managing director of the Business Development Department of DuraVermeer Group NV. He has a masters in ecology from the Agricultural University Wageningen and a doctorate in environmental engineering from the University Utrecht. He worked as a researcher on various environmental issues related to the building industry. In the past seven years he has accumulated extensive national and international experience with integrated approaches to manage floods in urban environments. His main research interests are on the development of strategies, concepts, and technology to mitigate urban flood impacts. He is member of the board of the Netherlands Water Partnership and the Japanese-Dutch platform on Water Management, and chairman of the EU COST action C22 on Urban Flood Management.