Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences - Hydrology and Society

Projects

Our ongoing research projects include:

 
Water security for whom?

Social and material perspectives on inequality around multipurpose reservoirs in Colombia

 

Water for Whom investigates in/equalities in water security across the water-energy-food nexus focusing on the case of multipurpose reservoirs in Colombia. Dams — like many other man-made and 'natural' interventions — reconfigure social-ecological systems as much in material as they do in social terms. It is thus an understanding of socio-material dynamics that forms the basis of our research on how multipurpose dams reconfigure and may disrupt local livelihoods and water, energy and food sectors. A key objective is to broaden the notion of equality from a social to a social-ecological concept operationalized through the concept of 'hydrosocial territories' and though a novel methodology of interdisciplinary integration and contrast. This new approach of 'situated modelling' is advanced and empirically tested to foster conversations between social and natural sciences and affected communities around predictive knowledge and water security.

Water for Whom is a collaboration between an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. The project is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation as part of the initiative 'Global Issues — Integrating Different Perspectives on Social Inequality'.

More on this project: Prof. Dr. Tobias Krüger, Dr. Rossella Alba

 
Climate and Water under Change

Emerging challenges and strategies for coordinated action in the model region Berlin-Brandenburg (CliWaC)