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Claudia Pahl-Wostl Professor for Resources Management University of Osnabrück

Claudia Pahl-Wostl is full professor for resources management and director of the Institute for Environmental Systems Research (USF) in Osnabrück, Germany. Since October 2001 the activities in the socio-economic area and in integrated modeling and analysis at USF have been extended by the chair of resources management. A new research field has been established on the development of innovative concepts of managing transformation processes of complex social-ecological systems towards sustainability with an emphasis on an improved understanding of the role of the human dimension in resources management.

Before moving to USF Claudia Pahl-Wostl worked for more than ten years in the field of mathematical modelling, integrated assessment and human ecology at the Swiss Federal Institute for Science and Technology, Zürich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology, EAWAG, one of the leading water research institutes in Europe. She is co-chair of the scientific steering committee of the GWSP (Global Waster System Project - a joint project of the ESSP – WCRP, IGBP, IHDP and DIVERSITAS) representing the IHDP (International Human Dimension Program) to develop a global change research program on the water issue from a social science perspective and president of TIAS, The Integrated Assessment Society.

Claudia Pahl-Wostl has participated in and coordinated several European projects. She was coordinator of the EU project HarmoniCOP (Harmonizing Collaborative Planning on the role of social learning and IC-tools in participation). She coordinated the Integrated Project NEWATER (New methods for adaptive water management) which developed new methods for integrated water management taking into account the complexity of the river basins to be managed and the difficulty to predict the factors influencing them. NEWATER focused in particular on the transition from current regimes of water management in a river basin to more integrated, adaptive approaches with strong stakeholder participation. The project had case studies in Europe, Africa and Central Asia, where new methods were developed and tested in participatory settings. She coordinated the EU project Twin2Go (Coordinating Twinning partnerships towards more adaptive governance in river basins) which aimed at drawing general lessons on adaptive water governance in the context of climate change from a range of projects on integrated water resources management. The analyses identified factors influencing performance and assess potential and limitations of transferability of insights among basins with different economic, environmental, social and political characteristics.