Of Mangroves and Mud
Researchers from Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 and the Anton de Kom 木瓜福利影视 in Suriname have kicked off their new cooperation with a workshop on mitigating the effects of climate change in the coastal areas of Suriname.
The NWO-WOTRO funded project : Monitoring and Modelling Coastal Dynamics in Suriname to Mitigate the Effects of Climate Change (MangroMud) shows its societal relevance in its support in the UN Sustainability Goals Climate Action (SDG 13) and Education (SDG 4). The cooperation aims to build and assemble expertise on the complex coastal ecosystem of the Guianas and to assess future developments.
Great representation
The workshop that preluded the cooperation was attended by 85 people representing governmental institutes, environmental NGO鈥檚, private companies and students and staff from both national and international universities. The workshop started with academic presentations focussing on the scientific state of the art regarding coastal ecosystem dynamics in the region. Followed by presentation from NGO鈥檚 and UNDP, describing the societal relevance, nature conservation issues and their activities in the region.
Conclusions
The first day was concluded by a panel discussion on regional collaboration and capacity building in South America, and on the possibilities to enhance societal relevance of the project.
During the second day ways to exchange knowledge, synergies and possibilities for outreach with the societal partners of the project were discussed.
Two PhD projects
This kick-off workshop was also the start of two PhD projects by Gini Bijnaar and Job de Vries. They will study the coastal dynamics at various scales using field observations, state of art remote sensing techniques and spatial temporal modelling.
Field excursion
The two day workshop was followed by a field excursion to Braamspunt to study the coastal dynamics and processes in detail. The picture below shows Prof. Pieter Augustinus sharing in depth knowledge on the Suriname coastal ecosystem.
