Key Information
Year:
2005Education Establishment:
University of DundeeName of Chair Lead:
Professor John RowanAs the UK’s only UNESCO Category II Centre, the Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science at the University of Dundee works internationally on some of the world’s most urgent problems across multiple sectors and environments and maintains links to an international network of water scholars.
The Centre seeks to create an active community of water researchers to collectively raise awareness of the priority areas for the Centre such as water security, sustainability, development, climate change and water education. Under the auspices of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrology Programme (IHP) the Centre is unique in the UNESCO ‘Water Family’ in its focus on water law, and its relationship to the science and policy interface.
The work of this UNESCO Category II Centre
This is an interdisciplinary centre for research linked to fresh water, with a particular interest in the connections between law, policy and science. The Centre's projects are directly relevant to many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and particularly to Goal 6, to 'ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all'.
The Centre's central aim is to make sure that decision-making is linked to scientific evidence and considers the opinions of those affected by it. The Centre exists as a facilitative network and aims to emphasise networking and through lectures, workshops, and symposia to foster a sense of collective identity and purpose.
About the Centre Lead
Professor John Rowan was appointed Director of the UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy & Science in 2022.
John is a Professor of Physical Geography, with particular expertise in the study of environmental change. His systems-based work on the impacts of climate and land use change - manifested by issues like soil erosion, flooding and biodiversity impacts - has a strong policy focus. Current collaborations extend across multiple countries, e.g., Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Zimbabwe and Turkey. He also has a strong national profile and serves in an advisory capacity to the Scottish Government’s Centres of Expertise in Climate Change (CXC) and Centre for Research on Water (CREW).
John has been at the University of Dundee since 1998. He was the Founding Director of the Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience (CECHR), a strategic and highly successful partnership with the James Hutton Institute, established to tackle interdisciplinary challenges around food, water, energy and health security. He was the inaugural Dean of the School of Social Sciences created through restructuring in 2015.
