Monash University’s role in Addressing Global Water Challenges

Moderated by Prof. Katya Pas (Deputy Dean Research, Faculty of Science), the session explored the many ways Monash University is helping address global water challenges. 

Ben discussed our Resilient Urban Centres and Surrounds (RUCaS) project, supported by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Mekong-Australia Partnership. A multi-year program being rolled out across 4 countries, RUCaS sprang from one small project looking at how nature-based solutions can be applied in a specific location.

That one small project expanded to consider how NbS could be applied across 4 locations in 2 countries. Now we’re looking at how they can be applied in 8 locations across 4 countries, and using lessons to understand how they we can scale up implementation across whole countries and regions. 

The keys to success:

• Respond to each unique context, by listening to communities, particularly the most vulnerable (e.g. women, children, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, the elderly).
• Combine know-what with know-how, by building the capacity of local stakeholders through training, workshops and knowledge exchanges.
• Focus on what’s already working and understand how to support that, e.g. working with communities, non-government organisations (NGOs) and governments on existing projects.
• Draw on the full range of capabilities at your disposal – e.g. researchers from different disciplines and universities, local communities and businesses, NGOs, government agencies – to create a holistic response to issues.
• Identify the enablers and barriers to scaling interventions more broadly.

Team members Natasha Sertori, Hima Chanarithichai and Jenny Flynn were on hand to talk with attendees about WSCA at the Global Café that followed presentations. 

Other panel members included:

• Prof. Christian Jakob (Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century, Faculty of Science)
• Prof. Adeline Ting (Associate Head of School (International), School of Science, Monash Malaysia)
• Prof. Yuming Guo (Professor of Global Environmental Health and Biostatistics, School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine)
• Prof. Megan A. Farrelly (Associate Dean Graduate Research (Faculty of Arts), Professor of Environmental Geography, School of Social Sciences)