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Attendees at the Shanghai Forum on Climate Change and Cities, August 19, where the opening ceremony for a new east Asian regional hub of UCCRN was held, hosted by East China Normal University. |
A new regional hub of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) has been established at East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai. CIESIN has also developed a collaborative relationship with the ECNU School of Geographic Sciences, focused on common research interests related to disasters, environment, and geographic science and applications.
The opening ceremony for the UCCRN regional hub at ECNU, which will serve as an Asian focal point for research on climate change and cities, was held August 19 at ECNU as part of the Shanghai Forum on Climate Change and Cities. CIESIN director Robert Chen, associate director for science applications Alex de Sherbinin, and information scientist Xiaoshi Xing participated in the forum, together with the UCCRN international program manager, Somayya Ali Ibrahim, and other scientists from ECNU, Columbia University, Princeton University, and the University of Southampton. Chen gave a brief overview of CIESIN’s urban climate change activities, de Sherbinin gave a presentation on flood risk in coastal mega-cities, and Xing described the observed impacts data available from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Data Distribution Center (DDC) co-managed by CIESIN.
Prof. Min Liu, dean of the School of Geographic Sciences at ECNU, is co-directing the regional hub together with Xiaotu Lei of the China Meteorological Administration. Faculty member Ruishan Chen, a visiting scholar at CIESIN during 2011–2013, was appointed as coordinator of the UCCRN regional hub. Established in May 2007 by Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Columbia University, and by William Solecki of Hunter College, the UCCRN is a consortium of individuals and institutions dedicated to the analysis of climate change mitigation and adaptation from an urban perspective.
CIESIN’s collaboration with ECNU will focus on disaster risk assessment and management, remote sensing applications, urbanization and climate change, and environmental pollution. A letter of agreement was signed by Prof. Liu and director Chen at a signing ceremony August 22 in Beijing. The collaboration is expected to encompass joint workshops, exchange of visitors, and collaborative research activities.