The Faculty of Science Research Committee and the Africa Climate Development Initiative (ACDI) present a Special Research Seminar co-hosted by ACDI, entitled, "Megacity transitions in the risk-development relationship".  Professor Mark Pelling, from the Department of Geography, King’s College London will present the seminar.

Megacities present a range of existing orientations to development and disaster risk management. This is shaped by development legacy, political vision and administrative structure. Drawing from the Belmont Forum project Transformation and Resilience in Coastal Cities this paper presents some initial results that focus on urban planning and risk management stakeholders perceptions of megacity risk from heatwave and flooding, current risk management orientation and in particular on the capacities and blockages for transition from current to preferred future risk-development relationships. Data draws from expert interviews and key stakeholder workshops supported by a combined biophysical and social vulnerability modeling exercise. The presentation will discuss methodological challenges of working between modelling and social science traditions with city level stakeholders.

Professor Mark Pelling is Professor of Geography at King’s College London. Before this he was based at the Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, UK and the University of Guyana. His research interests are in the institutions and social relationships that shape vulnerability and adaptation to natural disasters, including those associated with climate change, and in the ways in which conflicting values and practices of development inform resilience and transformation in the face of environmental change. Mark has served as a coordinating author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) and its Fifth Assessment Report. He also sits on the Scientific Steering Committees for the IGBP-IHDP core project Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) and the ICSU core project Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR). Mark convenes an MA in Disasters Adaptation and Development which includes the student-managed blog, Masters of Disaster