Some of you may be interested in attending the upcoming International Symposium on Weather and Climate Extremes, Food Security and Biodiversity to be held at George Mason University in Farifax, VA from October 20-24. There will be sessions hosted by a wide variety of groups, including USGS, FAO, World Meteorological Association, and many others.
The deadline for poster abstract submission is October 10; registration for attendees will be ongoing until October 19th and 20th onsite. Please visit the website for more information and to register: http://www.iscefs.org/ The information note with more details is here: http://genri.gmu.edu/iscefs/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ISCEFS_Info_Note.pdf Theme & Scope: Introduction: Climate variability and climate change are impacting agriculture and global food security in every part of the world. In particular, the productivity of subsistence farming, on which millions of small holder farmers depend upon for their livelihoods, is significantly impacted by weather and climate. The increasing frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, heat waves etc., pose potentially disastrous consequences for agriculture and food security, especially in the rain fed areas of developing countries. Weather and climate extremes also have significant impacts on agricultural production in the major breadbaskets of the world, propagating through the countries’ exports, imports, and grain stocks, and greatly affecting global food prices. Agriculture should recognize the importance of biodiversity and ecosystems for its own sustainability and must find ways to protect them. Biodiversity is the source of crops and livestock as well as fish and other wild food sources and provides the diversity of these goods required for a nutritious diet. Topics include: To review the impacts of major weather and climate extremes during 2009-2013 around the world on agriculture, food security and biodiversity at the national and local levels; To share information on international and institutional perspectives for the adoption and management of sustainable technologies to cope with weather and climate extremes and promote long term global food security; To discuss and recommend strategies for promoting healthy ecosystems to foster food supply systems that are more sustainable, productive, resilient and diverse; and To identify and propose ways to promote community understanding of weather and climate extremes and adoption of improved risk management strategies.
