News

Project workshop - August 2024

In late August 2024, the SAFER project team gathered for a pivotal two-day workshop, marking our first in-person meeting with the complete project team. This workshop brought together researchers, PhD students, and experts working across diverse disciplines, with participants from the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and Politecnico di Torino. Over the course of two jam-packed days, the team's discussion focused on planning the first papers for the SAFER project, setting the direction for the long-term project goals, and to introduce each other to the broad expertise and perspectives within the project team.

Led by project coordinator Lan Wang-Erlandsson, the first day began with a comprehensive introduction to the SAFER project. Participating researchers introduced their own research interests and visions for the project, and PhD students Romi, Vajira, and Petr presented plans and initial results of their respective PhD projects:

• Romi Lotcheris is looking into data-driven methods to assess water resilience loss, and understand how changes in water resilience loss might be mediated or buffered across global bio-physical and socio-economic teleconnections. 

• Vajira Lasantha is focusing on ecosystem's root zone storage capacity and its role in governing water cycle fluxes. His research will explore how human activities have modified this capacity and what that means for ecosystems adapting to climate stressors.

• Petr Vesnovskii is examining governance mismatches in addressing water resilience risks and their teleconnected effects. His work aims to shed light on the role of green and blue water governance and global policy responses.

Our discussions then broadened into the wider aspects of water resilience, from the defining elements of water resilience to the intricate dynamics of complex adaptive systems. As a team, we emphasized the need for a clear, shared definition of global water resilience— while acknowledging the diversity of perspectives and metrics that already exist. This set the tone for discussion for the remainder of the workshop, and the second day of the workshop saw our reflections and ideas evolve into actionable plans for future collaboration. 

Besides break-out sessions, engaging plenary discussions, and write-shops for works in progress and works to come, we discussed future plans for student-led PhD courses, summer schools, and ongoing project meetings, to continue the positive momentum. 

Stay tuned for updates! 

SAFER project at EGU 2024 

The SAFER project team was well-represented at the annual European Geosciences Union (EGU) conference in Vienna. Researcher Lan-Wang Erlandsson hosted a session on moisture recycling, and 

SAFER and SAFER-affiliated PhD students 

PhD students begin at the Stockholm Resilience Centre

Vajira Lasantha and Romi Lotcheris have both recently joined as PhD students at the Stockholm Resilience Centre to begin working on the SAFER project. 

Romi has broad experience in the fields of hydrology and environmental sciences. She holds a Master of Science with distinction in Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Within the SAFER project, her research will focus on understanding and detecting global scale water resilience loss. In particular, she will work with green water, moisture recycling, and global teleconnections. This will involves using earth observation data, methods for detecting resilience loss, and causal inference.

Vajira has a diverse background spanning hydrology, environmental engineering, water resources, and water infrastructure. Before joining Stockholm Resilience Centre, he was a joint double masters scholar at the University of Tokyo and the United Nations University, where he studied urban environmental engineering and sustainability. His thesis projects covered the topics of sustainable sanitation and global water resources. Previously, he worked as a water and environmental engineer in Sri Lanka, designing water and sanitation infrastructure and conducting hydrological studies and environmental assessments. Within the SAFER project, he will focus on detecting water resilience loss and investigating its global teleconnections, taking a multifaceted approach that includes land surface modelling, moisture tracking, and network analysis.

We look forward to welcoming Petr Vesnovskii later this month. 

Soon hiring 3 PhD students! 

Please check or subscribe to the Stockholm University vacancies page.