Patel Fellow Travels to Guatemala
Aug 11, 2011
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Patel School Fellow, Dr. Maya Trotz, traveled to Guatemala to participate in the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) second meeting on climate change. Dr. Trotz attended the meeting on behalf of The Coastal Areas Climate Change Education Partnership (CACCE) as part of their plan to form relationships in the Caribbean region.
She presented a case study at the IADB conference on the Adaptation to Climate Change in the Caribbean, which she called an ?overview on where the Caribbean challenges might be?. The four main topics of her presentation included: how people in the islands lived right now, what the future looked like given the myriad of predictions, the interconnectedness of the issues, and the opportunities to adapt to or mitigate these effects.
The meeting was attended by ministers, government officials, ?technocrats?, and representatives of the IADB, which is a bank that provides multilateral funding to Latin America. The meeting took place over three days, with an agenda full of presentations and speakers.
Dr. Trotz, originally from Guyana, conducted some of her own research in the Caribbean area and regularly sends students to do research in the region as well. Currently, she is co-advising a student who is working in Panama on community level chlorine disinfection for potable water, she also notes that she is writing more proposals to have students based in the Caribbean.
“The Caribbean region depends on its coastal environment for transportation, tourism, food, and pretty much everything that drives their local economies,? said Dr. Trotz. ?Projected climate change impacts like sea level rise and increasing levels of drought can have far reaching consequences on these isolated islands that range from loss of land, intrusion of salt water in fragile freshwater lenses for water supply, and reduced crop yields. Climate change predictions or drivers are highly controversial, however, the systems level approach that is used to connect them to localized impacts of vulnerable coastlines is definitely reshaping the way in which islands develop and invest resources today as stresses are already evident whether they be from unchecked land use and population growth.”
In addition to being a Patel School Fellow and an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Trotz is a member of the Executive Committee for CACCE.
For more information on the conference and for a list of presentations click here.