Event

World Planning Day: Transformation and Adaptation of Coastal Cities in Small Island States is a kick-off event to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Department of Geomatics and Land Management at The UWI St Augustine and will take the form of a one-day panel discussion about urban planning, transformation and adaptation needs, policies, and measures for coastal cities to become sustainable. 

This session will take place on Thursday, November 2, 2023, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Department of Geomatics and Land Management at the University of the West Indies, Block 10, Room 109. Students, a high-ranking international guest speaker, and national experts in urban planning will discuss the current and future challenges and opportunities of coastal cities.

The programme will include a Feature Presentation by the key speaker, Dr. Jan Petzold, a researcher at the Department of Geography of Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich, Germany, and a subsequent open discussion with the following speakers:

- Grace Les Fouris, Immediate Past President, Trinidad and Tobago Society of Planners

- Katherine Agon, Transport Planner and Transport Engineer, Transport Expert, Board of the National Planning Authority of Trinidad and Tobago

- Dr. Ahmad Mohammed, Director, Caribbean Network for Urban and Land Management, Trinidad and Tobago

This event is open to all UWI students and staff.

Interested persons can also attend virtually by clicking here. | Meeting ID: 917 4955 4064 I Passcode: 300867

More about the Featured Speaker: Dr Jan Petzold

Dr Jan Petzold is a research associate at the Department of Geography of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich, Germany. His interdisciplinary research focuses on social-ecological systems in coastal zones, social capital, vulnerability, local knowledge, ecosystem services and leverage points for transformative climate change adaptation. Besides a general focus on coasts, Jan has expertise on islands and is an Associate Editor of the Island Studies Journal. He has conducted empirical research on several islands in different regions, including the island Helgoland (Germany), the Isles of Scilly (UK), New Providence (The Bahamas), Madagascar, and Java (Indonesia) since 2009. Jan studied geography at the University of Hamburg, where he also got his PhD in Earth System Sciences in 2016. After his PhD, he left academia to work for the Technical Support Unit of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a Science Officer. In this position, he supported and contributed to the writing and production of several IPCC assessment reports, such as the ‘Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate’ (SROCC).After three years with the IPCC, Jan returned to the University of Hamburg as a postdoctoral researcher in the Synthesis project of the University’s Cluster of Excellence ‘Climate, Climatic Change, and Society’ (CLICCS). In October 2021, he moved to the LMU and is currently Co-principal Investigator and Project Coordinator in the TRANSCEND project, which deals with vulnerability and adaptation to flood risks in coastal megacities, specifically Mumbai (India) and Jakarta (Indonesia).