Events

 Wicked Human-Water Problems: Can We Solve One Problem without Creating New Ones

Abstract:
Coupled human-water systems are characterized by uncertainty, limited predictability, bounded rationality, indeterminate causality, and evolutionary change. To determine the impact of a specific policy intervention, an integrated analysis approach is needed that provides a holistic view of complex interactions within such systems. In this talk, Kaveh Madani highlights some of the major challenges of modeling and managing complex human-water systems to argue why we often fail to develop comprehensive technological and policy solutions that can solve one problem without creating new ones.

Bio:
Kaveh Madani is an environmental scientist, educator, and activist with expertise in modeling and analysing complex human-nature systems. He has previously served as the Deputy Vice President of Iran in his position as the Deputy Head of Iran’s Department of Environment, the Vice President of the UN Environment Assembly Bureau, and the Chief of Iran’s Department of Environment’s International Affairs and Conventions Center. He is currently a Henry Hart Rice Senior Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies of Yale University and a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP) of Imperial College London. He has received a number of awards for his research, teaching, as well as outreach and humanitarian activities, including the New Face of Civil Engineering recognition (ASCE), the Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Scientist Award (AGU), the Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists (EGU), and the Walter Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (ASCE).