~ FREE & ZOOM WEBINAR ~

IAHR Global Water Security Webinar on
Water Resilience and Urban Flood Management

Tuesday, 27 January 2026
08:00 New York | 13:00 London/UTC | 14:00 Madrid | 21:00 Beijing

Registration for the Webinar

Speakers

Organisers

Program

Welcome Remarks (5 mins)

• Qiuwen Chen | Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, Director of Center for Eco-Environmental Research; Co-Chair of IAHR GWS TC

• Reza Ahmadian | Cardiff University, Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering; Co-Chair of IAHR GWS TC

Honouring Arthur Mynett (Founding co-chair of IAHR GWS TC) (5 mins)

• Roger Falconer | Emeritus Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering Hydro-environmental Research Centre, School of Engineering, Cardiff University, UK and Chair Professor, Hohai University, China

IAHR GWS TC Road Map (20 minutes)

• Qiuwen Chen | Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, Director of Center for Eco-Environmental Research; Co-Chair of IAHR GWS TC

• Reza Ahmadian | Cardiff University, Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering; Co-Chair of IAHR GWS TC

Keynote Speeches (40 mins each)

• Water Security and Water Resilience: Why is it important?
  Jan Hofman | University of Bath, Department of Chemical Engineering, co-director of the Water Innovation and Research Consortium

• Urban Flood Management: the increasing risks and prevention measures
  Liu Jiahong | China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Deputy Director of Department of Water Resources

Closing (10 mins each)

• Qiuwen Chen | Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, Director of Center for Eco-Environmental Research; Co-Chair of IAHR GWS TC

• Reza Ahmadian | Cardiff University, Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering; Co-Chair of IAHR GWS TC

Abstracts of the Presentations

Water Security and Water Resilience: Why is it important? (by Jan Hofman): Water Security is about too much, too little or too polluted water. The concept of water security covers the availability of water for personal/household and health, ecosystems, economic activities and manufacturing, food production, and protection against water related disasters. Water security acts on different scales from national to transboundary water resources management to access of clean drinking water at your home. Water Security and Resilience are becoming increasingly important by rapidly changing climate conditions, demographic changes and the changing geopolitical landscape. The European Commission has recently presented their Water Resilience Strategy safeguard the European citizens and sustain the competitiveness of the European industry and agriculture.    The presentation will introduce the concepts of Water Security and Water Resilience in more detail. Also assessment methods for water security will be presented and some case studies on how Water Security and Water Resilience can be improved on the local scale. Finally, a long-term outlook for Water Security in the urban context will be given.

Urban Flood Management: the increasing risks and prevention measures (by Liu Jiahong): Urban flooding is a major challenge to water security, apart from water shortage. In recent years, urban flood disasters have happened around the world, even in traditional arid areas, which caused significant casualties and property damage. This presentation analyzed the changing patterns of typical urban floods, as well as the main factors that cause urban floods. The increase of extreme precipitation intensity caused by climate change is the main reason for urban floods. The increase of impervious hardened surface under rapid urbanization is another important factor that increases the peak flood in urban areas. The technical measures are proposed to mitigate urban flood risks from three aspects: urban planning, infrastructure design, and emergency management. A technical system for urban flood forecasting, risk analysis, joint prevention and control is proposed to deal with severe floods in urbanized watershed. The proposed technology and methods have been applied in Beijing and have achieved significant economic and social benefits. To prevent and control urban floods, it is necessary to strengthen urban resilience and enhance flood risk management in the future. Furthermore, catastrophic flood insurance is an important measure for risk transfer.

About the Speakers

Professor Jan Hofman is Professor of Water Science and Engineering, Deputy Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Bath and the co-director of the Water Innovation and Research Consortium (WIRC) at the University. WIRC is a campus-wide community of water researchers bringing together multidisciplinary research teams, with contribution from all faculties and departments. It has wide expertise in the natural sciences and engineering, as well as in social, economic, and political sciences, in policy, and in business management. Jan’s research interests focus on water security, water management and governance, water quality in sewers, heat recovery from sewers, organic micropollutants in water and advanced water treatment.    Before joining Bath, Jan worked for 25 years in water treatment and water quality research in the Netherlands at Kiwa, Waternet (Amsterdam Water Supply) and KWR Water Research Institute. He was involved in many international scientific studies on various treatment technologies including coagulation, membrane technology, ozone, UV, activated carbon filtration, slow sand filtration and softening. He also was involved in projects on the detection and fate of nanomaterials in the environment. Jan is IWA Fellow, member of the Board of Directors of Water Europe, member of the IWRA Task force on Water Security and member of the OECD Water Governance Initiative.

Dr Liu Jiahong is deputy director of department of water resources in IWHR, and deputy director of the Key Laboratory of River Basin Digital Twining, Ministry of Water Resources. He graduated from Tsinghua University in 2005, awarded doctorate degree. His research interests focus on urban hydrology, flood prediction and hydrodynamic modelling etc. He has made many innovative contributions in urban hydrology and flood control, which have been applied in many cities, including Beijing, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, etc. He has published more than 300 scientific papers on hydrology and water resources management. Dr. Liu has won several awards, including First Prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award, and six provincial awards of first prize. In addition, he was awarded the China Youth Science and Technology Award.

Related Events

Related links

• IAHR Technical Committee on Global Water Security