Mark Fletcher：Applying nature-based solutions at scale to build urban resilience
Mark leads the Global Water Business of Arup. He has been with Arup for 35 years. He is an international thought leader on sustainable water management, nature based solutions and water resilience and has worked around the world. He is on the Organising Committee for Singapore International Water Week and has led the initiative to include Young Water Professionals at Stockholm World Water Week for the last 6 years.
He is an Arup Fellow and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Society for the Environment and Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and received an Honorary Doctorate from Bradford University for his work on sustainable water management. He was a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Engineering Design for Sustainable Development since 2003. He is also Chair of British Water and former Chair of the Water Industry Forum.
Harry Seah: Water-Waste-Energy Nexus: How Singapore Achieves Sustainability
Harry Seah, appointed as Deputy Chief Executive (Operations), provides strategic oversight to the entire water systems operations of PUB to ensure total integration, effective management so that PUB remains operationally effective and efficient to serve the water needs of Singapore.
Prior to his current appointment, Harry Seah was Assistant Chief Executive (Future Systems & Technology) and Chief Engineering and Technology Officer at PUB, leading PUB’s efforts in the continuous exploration, research and development of water technologies essential to future-proof Singapore's water system. Under his leadership, PUB has established itself to be among the world’s most innovative and forward-looking utilities.
Dragan Savić: What can we learn from investment portfolio management for achieving long-term global water security?
Dragan Savić is Chief Executive Officer at KWR Water based in the Netherlands and Professor of Hydroinformatics at the University of Exeter in the UK. Professor Savić is an international expert in smart water systems with over 35 years of experience working in engineering, academia and research consultancy. He has held senior roles in non-profit, private and public sector organisations operating in diverse contexts in the UK, Netherlands and internationally. His work has resulted in patentable innovation and spinout companies. In addition to innovation and leadership skills, he is known for believing in and practising "bridging science and practice" in the wider water sector and utilities in general. Prof. Savi is a regular speaker at industry events and a published author of thought leadership.
David Wegner: Water Security in a Changing Climate: Risk Identification and Management Options
David L. Wegner is retired from the U.S. House of Representatives where he was a senior staff specialist on water, energy, climate change and science applications. His portfolio included coordination with the USGS, Bureau of Reclamation, Army Corps of Engineers, Public Power, transportation, and tribal water settlements. He has over 25 years of experience working for the Federal government on water and science issues in the Colorado, Columbia, and Missouri river basins along with extensive knowledge in water law, remote sensing and satellite data collection. His expertise in public policy and legislative process continues to be used nationally. He has multiple publications on the use of science in decision making and is on the board of national and international scientific and non-profit organizations and is an appointed member of the National Academy of Scientists, Water Science and Technology Board. His current research focuses on water security and the use of science in policy and water management decision processes.
Eelco van Beek: Quantifying water security in Asia and the Pacific – state-of-the-art and challenges
In 1972, Mr. Van Beek graduated cum laude at the Delft University of Technology in Civil Engineering. After working a few years for the United Nations he joined Delft Hydraulics (now Deltares) in 1976, with as main expertise field the use of analytical tools in integrated water resource management. He has extensive working experience in Asia. He is co-author of the textbook on water resources management “Water Resource Systems Planning and Management – An Introduction to Methods, Models, and Applications” with Professor Pete Loucks. In 1992, Mr. van Beek was appointed part-time (30%) professor in Modelling in Water Resources Management at the Delft University of Technology, a position he kept till 2004. From 2007 till 2017 he held a similar position (also 30%) at University of Twente. He teaches also at IHE-DELFT. From 2012 till 2018 Prof. Van Beek was member of the Technical Committee of the Global Water Partnership (GWP).
Chris Zevenbergen: Multi-quality Sponge Cities 2.0: towards the next level of climate resilience of urbanizing catchments and deltas
Chris Zevenbergen (1958) is professor of urban (flood) resilience at the Water Engineering Department of IHE Delft and of Delta Urbanism at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TuDelft, The Netherlands. He is also a visiting professor at the Southeast University (SEU). In the past 20 years he has accumulated extensive national and international experience with integrated approaches to manage floods in the urban environment. His research interest is specifically on innovative concepts to mitigate urban flood impacts, on flood proofing building designs and technologies and on decision support tool development in urban planning with practical application in urban flood management. He has published/edited five books and more than 200 scientific publications in the field of environmental engineering, urban design and urban flood risk management.
Malik Fida A Khan
Mr. Khan is the Executive Director of the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services, a public trust under the Ministry of Water Resources. He has done his M.Sc in Hydroinformatics, IHE, Netherlands; B.Sc in Civil Engineering, BUET.
Mr. Khan has over three decades experience in water resource planning and management, integrated coastal zone management & planning, transboundary water management, climate change, climate change impact assessment, disaster impact assessment, integrated, long-term strategic planning, master plans and natural resource management, climate change risk/vulnerability and disaster risk and damage assessment, multi-sectoral analysis of climate change impact & adaptation, setting up monitoring mechanism of evidence of climate change and climate variability.
Mr. Khan has been involved with the National Water Management Plan, Integrated Coastal Zone Management, Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100, Haor Master Plan, National Adaptation Plan. Mr. Khan has over 12 years’ experience in transboundary water management. He has 30 publications so far including various peer reviewed journal papers and conference papers.