| WATCH VIDEO | As global warming accelerates, the extreme weather events emerge as one of the most prominent global risks. This workshop offers an opportunity for scientists to share their work and to explore how climate science can collaborate with the government, business and community sectors in climate adaptation and resilience, especially regarding the challenges to public health and urban and environmental planning posed by heat waves and drought.

Session 1.1: Climate Change and Adaptation: General Perspective

We will discuss the science of climate extremes and the status of climate prediction and examine the observational evidence of changing climate extremes. What are the resulting threats to urban sustainability and desirable pathways for future urban development will also be addressed in this session.

Moderator: Otto POON, ATAL

Speakers:

• Ruby LEUNG, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Brasilia University (Topic: Observational evidence of extremes)
• LEE Sai-ming, Hong Kong Observatory, HKSAR Government (Topic: Extreme Rainfalls and Tropical Cyclones in Hong Kong)
• Winston CHOW, National University of Singapore (Topic: Climate change impact and vulnerability

Session 1.2: Extreme Heat Waves and Public Health

This session presents the trends and distribution of heat waves and discuss the relation between urbanization, human population and heat stress. We will also discuss the impact of increasing heat weaves to ecosystem and public health.

Moderator: Xiaoming SHI, HKUST

Speakers:

• Gabriel LAU, Chinese University of Hong Kong (Topic: Heat Waves in South China)
• Eun-Soon IM, HKUST (Topic: Ubiquitous Occurrence of Deadly Heat Waves under Global Warming)
• Alson WM CHAN, Hong Kong Academy of Medicine (Topic: The Effect of Global Warming on Biodiversity and Human Health)

| WATCH VIDEO | The second part of the workshop will focus on dry-land expansion, drought and their influences on water security, followed by reviewing potential solutions from new water technologies as well as local water supplies strategies.

Session 1.3: Extreme Drought and Water Risk

This session will discuss the global-warming-induced challenges to water security and potential new policy and technology needed for future adaptation and mitigation. The threat to agriculture and ecosystem due to the expansion and cancerization of dryland will also be addressed.

Moderator: Ruby LEUNG, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Speakers:

• Joseph CHUNG, Water Supplies Department, HKSAR Government (Topic: Building Water Security in Hong Kong)
• Frederick LEE, HKU (Topic: climate change uncertainties and Hong Kong’s urban water-sector policy responses)
• Dawn MCGREGOR, China Water Risk (Topic: Our Real Liquidity Crisis: Does Asia have enough water to develop?)
• Jianping HUANG, HKUST (Topic: Accelerated Decline of Atmospheric Oxygen and Dryland Cancerization)

Session 1.4: Impact of climate change on urban environment

This session focuses on the adaptation to a warming climate. We will discuss the prediction of heat waves from science, urban planning, and public service perspective, as well as the design of future cities for improving their thermal comfort levels.

Moderator: Winston CHOW, National University of Singapore

Speakers:

• Ruidan CHEN, SYSU (Topic: Potential Predictors for the Heat Wave over East Asia)
• Chao REN, The University of Hong Kong (Topic: The Overheating Cities and Adaptions)
• Kevin LAU Ka-Lun, Chinese University of Hong Kong (Topic: Design of Outdoor Spaces for Outdoor Thermal Comfort under Future Climate Change)

| WATCH VIDEO | Increasingly extreme and frequent rainfall events due to the changing climate mean that our natural and man-made slopes will be subjected to continuous threats of instability and debris flow. This part of the workshop will explore and discuss new and advanced knowledge that could help us better understand the physical characteristics and underlying mechanisms of different types of debris flow and how the new understanding could inform more quantitative risk-based assessments and management.

Session 2.1: Excess Water Challenges – impact on landslides

Moderator: Anthony Leung, HKUST

Speakers:

• Carlos LIMA, Brasilia University (Topic: Extreme Rainfalls in a Changing World)
• TSZ Cheung Lee, Hong Kong Observatory, HKSAR Government (Topic: Extreme Rainfalls and Tropical Cyclones in Hong Kong)
• Julian KWAN, Drainage Services Department, HKSAR Government (Topic: Strengthening Resilience against Landslide Hazard under Extreme Weather)
• Raymond WOON, Civil Engineering and Development Department, HKSAR Government (Topic: Flooding Challenge and Blue Green Infrastructure for Combating Climate Change in Hong Kong)

Session 2.2: Excess Water Challenges (on floods in particular) 

|WATCH VIDEO| The challenges that flooding pose to public safety and sustainable development, especially to the design, construction, operation and maintenance of critical infrastructures and systems of cities are both severe and growing. Cities with high population with steep hillslopes face particular challenges. In addition, climate projections suggest that both the frequency and intensity of extremes are likely to increase in future, which has emerged as an important issue for future flood risk management and mitigation. This workshop will discuss future flood risk mitigation under climate change involving multi-disciplinary experts and stakeholders.

Moderators: Anthony LEUNG & Charles NG, HKUST

Speakers:

• Stephanie GLENDINNING, Newcastle University (Topic: Resilience of long linear geotechnical infrastructure in a changing climate)
• Vaughan GRIFFITHS, Colorado School of Mines (Topic: Climate change and the Influence of Water on Geotechnical Stability)
• Limin ZHANG, HKUST (Topic: Assessing Regional Landslide and Flood Susceptibility under Extreme Storms)
• Michael DAVIS, Sussex University (Topic: Engineering and bioengineering slope stabilization techniques for landslide risk mitigation)
• Clarence CHOI, HKUST (Topic: Advanced technology for debris flow mitigation)

| WATCH VIDEO | Sea level rise and related incidents including storm surge and coastal floods have been threatening lives and coastal infrastructures in the past few decades. Previous studies even indicated an expecting 75-cm sea level rise by 2100 in the Pearl River Delta region would be leading to estimated deaths and replacements in around 200 and 1.5 million, respectively. With increasing extreme weather challenges happening in recent years, this is definitely a timely discussion for Hong Kong and the whole PRD region to consider and address all these issues.

Session 3.1: Managing Sea Level Rise

Moderator: Peter LOUIE, Environmental Protection Department, HKSAR Government

Speakers:

• Xuebin ZHANG, CSIRO (Topic: Sea-level Rise: Global and Regional)
• Sai-tick CHAN, Hong Kong Observatory, HKSAR Government (Topic: Tropical Cyclones, Storm Surges and Sea Level Rise)
• Alexis LAU, HKUST (Topic: Sea-level Rise Damage Projection, Risk Vulnerability and Resilience)

Session 3.2: Acidification and Eutrophication 

| WATCH VIDEO | About a third of human-induced carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels has been absorbed by the oceans, which has increase the acidity of ocean water, which in turn is having an impact on marine life. Climate change is also exacerbating eutrophication due to changes in ocean circulation and other impacts. This workshop will discuss how interdisciplinary study with world-class methodology and multi-scale perspective of ocean in the linked river-estuary-shelf-basin system could help address all these crucially important issues.

Moderator: GAN Jianping, HKUST

Speakers:

• Minhan DAI, Xiamen University (Topic: Perspectives Towards Ecosystems-based Management of the Greater Bay Area of the PRD)
• Tony CHIU, Environmental Protection Department, HKSAR Government (Topic: Water Pollution and Coastal Water Quality)
• Joanne LEE, Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, HKSAR Government (Topic: Sustainable Aquaculture – Does Climate Change Matter?)
• GAN Jianping, HKUST (Topic: Changes in Response to Changing Climate in the China Sea)

|WATCH VIDEO | Every city and region must consider what more needs to be done to meet the challenge of extreme weather. The recent super typhoon, ‘Mangkhut’, also gave Hong Kong and South China a chance to reflect on new issues going forward where public-private sectors collaboration will be key to adaptation and building greater resilience. This workshop will focus on a range of policy-relevant discussions not being explored by the other workshops.

Session 4.1: Securing Basic Needs (Energy-Water-Food) against Climate Change Impacts

Moderator: Christine LOH, HKUST

Speakers:

• Bruce CHONG, ARUP (Topic: Energy-Food-Water Security Challenge: A Policy Perspective)
• Deepak SHARMA, UTS (Topic: Energy-Food-Water Security Challenge: A Policy Perspective)
• Daniel KREEGER, ACCO (Topic: Human Capital, Organizational Transformation & Systems Thinking)
• Andy LIPKIS, TreePeople (Topic: Multi-Agency Collaborations to Accelerate Climate Adaption and Resilience)

REPORTING-BACK

Scene Setting
by Prof. Christine Loh  (PPT | Video)

Extreme Climate
by Prof. Ruby Leung  (PPT | Video)

Sea Level Rise
by Prof. Xuebin Zhang  (PPT | Video)

Acidification & Eutrophication
by Prof. Robert Gibson  (PPT | Video)

Landslides & Floods
by Prof. Anthony Leung  (PPT | Video)

Looking Forward: Tertiary Climate Impacts & Public Policy
by Prof. Christine Loh  (PPT | Video)

• • 6a – Role of Green Financing – by James Maguire (Video)
  • 6b – Energy/Food/Water-nexus – by Prof. Deepak Sharma (Video)
  • 6c – Social aspect – by Andy Lipkis (Video)
  • 6d – Capacity Building – by Daniel Kreeger (Video)
  • 6e – Philanthropy support – by Thomas Tang (Video)
  • 6f – Social equity – by Natalie Chan (Video)
  • 6g – Opportunities in the Greater Bay Area – by Prof Qi Ye (Video)

Discussions and Q/A (Video)