Water Webinar Series
In the pursuit for sustainable development, infrastructure has emerged as an indispensable element due to its pivotal role in fostering socio-economic development and improving quality of life and social inclusion. As climate change induced flood and drought events have increased, water infrastructure vulnerabilities have exacerbated as well as impacts in societies, the environment and cascade failures in all economic sectors.
This webinar will discuss risks, vulnerabilities and failures of water infrastructure and how they are addressed, or should be addressed, in different countries and regions. It will be moderated by Professor Cecilia Tortajada of the School of Social & Environmental Sustainability, University of Glasgow. The panel members will be Joost Buurman, Project director, Resilience Economics, Royal HaskoningDHV, and Adjunct Associate Professor, National University of Singapore, Singapore; Debra Tan, Director and Head, of China Water Risk, Hong Kong; Teodor Popa, Financial Manager, Compania Apa Brasov SA, Romania; and J. Carl Ganter is co-Founder and Director, Circle of Blue.
Moderator
Professor Cecilia Tortajada Professor in Practice, School of Social & Environmental Sustainability, University of Glasgow, UK; and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Water Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. She is a past president of the International Water Resources Association, and Member of the OECD Initiative on Water Governance and of the International Selection Committee of the Millennium Technology Prize, Technology Academy Finland. The main focus of her work is on impacts of global events on water resources, food, environment and societies.
Panellists
Dr Joost Buurman is an economist with extensive experience in applying economic analysis and supporting decision-making on critical issues related to the natural and built environment. He currently serves as Project Director – Resilience Economics at Royal HaskoningDHV, an international engineering consultancy firm, and as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore. Previously, Dr Buurman was the Deputy Director of the Institute of Water Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He also worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the same institute, as well as at the Singapore-Delft Water Alliance and NUSDeltares at the National University of Singapore. Dr Buurman earned his Master’s and PhD degrees from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, specialising in spatial economics. His main research interests and project work focus on decision-making for climate adaptation and resilience, water policy and management, natural resource management, including the blue economy, and climate finance. He has authored over 30 academic publications and several opinion pieces on water, climate, and infrastructure issues.
Debra Tan is Director and Head of China Water Risk (CWR). Debra heads the CWR team and has steered the CWR brand from idea to a leader in the water risk space globally. Reports she has written for and with financial institutions analysing the impact of water risks on the Power, Mining, Agricultural and Textiles industries have been considered groundbreaking and instrumental in understanding not just China’s but future global water challenges. One of these led the fashion industry to nominate CWR as a finalist for the Global Leadership Awards in Sustainable Apparel; another is helping to build consensus toward water risk valuation. Debra is a prolific speaker on water risk delivering keynotes, participating in panel discussions at water prize seminars, numerous investor and industry conferences as well as G2G and academic forums. Before venturing into “water”, she worked in finance, spending over a decade as a chartered accountant and investment banker specialising in M&A and strategic advisory. Debra left banking to pursue her interest in photography and also ran and organized philanthropic and luxury holidays for a small but global private members travel network. She has lived and worked in Beijing, HK, KL, London, New York and Singapore.
Mr Teodor Popa has over 30 years of career in the water sector, of which he served 23 years as Financial Director of the Brasov Water Company (a Romanian water utility). He is also a passionate member of various water associations, including the Romanian Water Association (ARA), the International Association of Danube Water Utilities (IAWD) and the International Water Association (IWA), where he serves on the Board of Directors as Treasurer. In addition, he is the Vice President of the IWA Specialist Group for Statistics and Economics and an IWA Fellow since 2016. Mr Popa has been involved since the 90s in water sector reform and company regionalization, restructuring processes and other water-related projects and wastewater infrastructure development. He has been a moderator, presenter and panel member for various conferences around the globe on tariffs and finance, benchmarking, circular economy, aggregation and institutional arrangements, water sector workforce training, infrastructure finance, climate change mitigation and regulation. Mr Popa is the author of several papers presented around the globe and an expert of the World Bank (WB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on various international projects on water sector strategies, institutional transformation, compliance with the EU Water Directive and management drought risk. for the Romanian water supply sector (2023). Mr Popa holds an MSc Bachelor in Engineering, Economics and a Master in Public Service Management.
J. Carl Ganter is co-Founder and Director, Circle of Blue, the international centre for original frontline reporting, research and analysis on water resource issues and the water-food-energy-climate nexus. Co-creator Designing Water’s Future: A new operating system for fresh water, a systemic combination of data-driven situational awareness, context and trusted journalism, and rapid response convening. Past member, Global Futures Council on the Environment and Natural Resource Security, World Economic Forum and New Vision for Agriculture Leadership Network; Past Vice-Chairman, Global Agenda Council on Water Security, World Economic Forum. Microsoft Entrepreneur for Impact. Recipient, Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award. Fellow, Explorers Club. BA (Hons) in American Studies, and MSJ in Investigative Reporting, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.