Water Matters: ENVR 400 In-house Seminar

Dr. Carmen Anthonj, a postdoctoral research associate at the Water Institute in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, will present this week’s seminar in the department’s Spring 2019 series. Anthonj’s talk is titled, “Water matters: Why a holistic, interdisciplinary approach is at the
heart of solving the world’s sustainable development challenge”.”

Abstract: Water – the most precious resource of all – is the core of sustainable development, serving as the crucial link between societies and the environment. As worldwide,
populations are growing and need to be fed, the pressure on water is increasing. Water is part of a global hydrological cycle, a medium providing a service and related to behaviors,
all of which may promote or hamper human health. Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), which aims to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”, shows how complex of a matter water is. The list of issues addressed in SDG 6 is long and covers safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and hygiene, water quality and wastewater, water use and scarcity, water resources management and ecosystems, international cooperation and stakeholder participation. Additionally, water is a cross-cutting issue in all other SDGs. In the context of water and health, this seminar discusses how holistic, interdisciplinary approaches rooted in theories, concepts, and methods of Medical Geography can be applied in order to understand and approach water-related global health challenges in complex settings. Case studies from Small Island Developing States in the South Pacific, watersheds in semi-arid East Africa, and a protracted emergency setting in Northeast Nigeria will be presented.

Learn more here.

Please contact Dr. Howard Weinberg, howard_weinberg@unc.edu, if you have any questions.