"The lack of water and disasters such as droughts, floods, landslides and subsidence are associated with global warming and uncontrolled urbanization," said Priyadarsi Roy, researcher at the Institute of Geology (IGL) of UNAM.
During the inauguration of the academic workshop Water, climate change and disasters, the first event of the newly formed Alliance of Mexican-Indian Geoscientific Opportunities (AMIGOs), warned that Mexico City and cities in India such as Bangalore and Chennai are on the list of the dreaded “zero day” –without water available–.
For his part, the director of the IGL, Ricardo Barragán Manzo, assured that the country needs these issues to be included in the National Development Plan. "It is striking that Earth sciences, and geology in particular, do not appear as priority issues, and they should be, especially having a geological environment like ours."
One of the most severe effects of climate change is the problem of water and disasters. Accelerated by human activity, it causes similar problems in different parts of the world, Priyadarsi Roy warned.
"We need to understand how climate change and changes caused by anthropogenic processes have affected the availability of water and caused disasters, in order to implement mitigation measures in the near future," he said.
Climate on the rise
In its history, the climate has changed, many times in a cyclical way, but that process was always very slow, it occurred in thousands or millions of years. It's currently happening in decades, Roy said.
“If we analyze the last 800 thousand years of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, this greenhouse gas increased from 200 to 300 parts per million every 100 years. Now, in the era of post-industrialization, in the last century alone we have introduced 100 parts per million of CO2 into the atmosphere. Human beings have accelerated climate change a thousand times ”.
Meanwhile, Ricardo Barragán Manzo, cited as examples of the strategic importance research on the critical area of the Earth (where the water system is), soils, environmental geology and climate change. "The subject is broad and diverse."
Likewise, it considered that the formation of Friends It is an opportunity to strengthen lines of collaboration on water, climate change and disasters. "We want to do research on geological risk, which has a significant impact on land use planning and decision-making at the governmental level."
Workshop to establish collaboration
In addition to annual continuity, the workshop will seek specific collaboration agreements in the academic field, to seek adaptation and mitigation responses from Earth sciences.
The idea, Roy explained, is to raise awareness, establish joint collaborations and propose solutions to these problems that affect both countries and many regions of the world. The workshop is an initiative of the Institute of Geology of UNAM and the Anna University of India.
Also participating, for the National University, scientists from the institutes of Geophysics and Geography; the Center for Atmospheric Sciences and the Faculty of Engineering. From India, from Bharathidasan, Pondicherry, and French Pondicherry, and Sri Shakthi Institutes of Engineering and Technology from India.
With info from UNAM
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