Sukaina Bharwani

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sukaina.bharwani@sei-international.org

Telephone: +44 1865 426316

Title: Senior Researcher

Role: Theme co-leader, Transforming Governance

Centre: Oxford

Sukaina Bharwani is co-leader of the SEI theme Transforming Governance and is a staff representative on the SEI Board.

Sukaina Bharwani has a Ph.D. in Applied Computing (Social Sciences) and a BA (Hons) in Social Anthropology. Her inter-disciplinary research in Social Anthropology and Computer Science provides her with a unique range of qualitative and quantitative skills linking vulnerability, livelihoods, and adaptation with bio-physical analyses in innovative ways (Kemp-Benedict et al., 2010). Her current work involves coordinating the strategic and technical development of the weADAPT.org, a collaborative knowledge platform on climate adaptation to share knowledge, experience and stories on building adaptive capacity and community resilience around the world.

Her past work has focused on agent-based modelling of poverty and vulnerability and developing innovative ethnographic computer-based and participatory tools for knowledge elicitation, representation and validation (KnETs) (Bharwani, 2006). She has been central to bottom-up agent-based modelling approach used in the Climate Outlooks and Agent-Based Simulation of Adaptation (CLOUD) project funded by the School of Geography, University of Oxford, SEI and the Tyndall Centre. This project focused on the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of small-holder farmers in a communal irrigation scheme in a village in Limpopo Province, South Africa (Bharwani et al., 2005, Ziervogel et al., 2006). Sukaina has also led a WP in an EC FP7 project, NeWater, which focuses on vulnerability and adaptation in the context of adaptive integrated water management. Case studies focussed on the Tisza (Hungary/Ukraine), Guadiana (Spain) and Orange (Lesotho) transboundary river basins.

The general aim of her research is to enhance an interdisciplinary and holistic understanding of the interactions of social models (such as those of adaptation, socio-cultural change, etc) and physical models (such as those of natural resource management, climate change, etc) and the way in which they manifest themselves in the multiple stresses of complex and dynamic vulnerabilities.

Her current work also involves leading a work package on policy needs and decision-making in another EC FP7 project, Mediation, which will develop an integrated methodology for climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation; a five-year AfDB research project assessing the synergies and conflicts between climate adaptation and REDD in the Congo Basin; and contributing to a project under the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme funded by DFiD, NERC and ESRC, looking at how ecological and social systems interact and how decisions are made for sustainable management of ecosystems for poverty reduction. Her research focus on decision-making and integrating different types of knowledge has included work with Google.org to develop innovative methods for the dissemination of climate adaptation information integrating Google Earth within weADAPT.org – the Adaptation Layer. Other innovative projects involve the linking of climate data to weADAPT, connecting it to different communities of practise such as AfricaAdapt, and improving the semantic technology on the site using a climate adaptation thesaurus.