The project team together with end-users and stakeholders at the launch of the NERC Thai-coast project at Mahidol University, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, March 2019.
Head of Department, Prof Cherith Moses’s new research project, ‘Thai Coast: Coastal Vulnerability, Resilience and Adaptation in Thailand’ was recently launched at a conference held at Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand.
The Newton Fund project, funded across NERC, ESRC and Thailand Research Fund, aims to improve scientific understanding of the vulnerability of Thailand’s shoreline and coastal communities to hydro-meteorological hazards, including storms, floods and coastal erosion, under future climate change scenarios.
Over the next three years, the interdisciplinary project team will build new science-based knowledge, fostering new policy approaches at different levels of governance to promote shoreline management actions tailored to predicted hydro-meteorological events under climate change.
The Thai-coast project launch brought the research project team together with end-users and stakeholders. The purpose of the meeting was to disseminate information about the project, to receive feedback on the work of the project and to identify new research opportunities and collaborations. After the conference opening by Prof. Banchong Mahaisavariya, President of Mahidol University, Prof Moses and Associate Prof Dr Kanchana Nakhapakorn presented an overview of the project followed by individual presentations by each of the project Work Package (WP) Leaders:
- WP1, Baseline assessment of hydro-meteorological boundary conditions, Dr Raymond Ward, University of Brighton, UK;
- WP 2, Scenario modelling and hazard assessment, Dr Yi Wang, University of Sussex, UK;
- WP 3, Socio-economic impact assessment, coping mechanisms and resilience, Assistant Prof Dr Uma Langkulsen, Thammasat University, Thailand;
- WP 4, Coastal vulnerability assessment, Assistant Prof Dr Pannee Cheewinsiriwat, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand;
- WP 5, Good governance, resilience and sustainable coastal communities, Prof Paul Statham, University of Sussex, UK;
- WP 6, Impact through public engagement, dissemination and dialogue between policy-makers and coastal communities, Assistant Prof Dr Chalermpol Chamchan, Mahidol University, Thailand).
Through a series of facilitated discussion groups the end-users and stakeholders discussed the work of the project in further detail to begin an ongoing dialogue that will contribute greatly to, and continue beyond, the life of the project.
