Climate Change is already manifesting itself globally in real and devastating situations, including socio-economic disruption of businesses due to extreme floods and droughts, damage to coastal structures and shorelines, massive destruction of coral reefs through rising seawater temperatures, and damage to food supply.  Once considered a matter to be addressed in the distant future, climate change is now an increasingly important factor in planning for the future. The impacts of climate change can amplify exponentially and negatively impact people and infrastructure, particularly when coupled with population growth, rapid economic development and intensified land use. This is particularly so for a small island nation like Singapore, with limited natural resources and intense population pressure. Issues of paramount importance include: (1) Sea level rise and coastal protection; (2) Ensuring water sufficiency and safety; (3) Improving climate change modelling predictions and (4) Reducing the carbon footprint.

For Singapore, the complex problems arising from Climate Change need to be addressed holistically. Of prime importance is the ability to predict and manage the inherent risks arising from Climate Change through (1) the use of accurate simulation models at both global, national and local scales, (2) implementation of effective, adaptive strategies and (3) building resilience capability to withstand losses and damage caused by Climate Change.  The Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE), together with its collaborators are well positioned to deliver on such a task. Ongoing research efforts focus on prediction of sea-level rise and coastal floods, assessment of climate change impacts, coastal and inland flood risk assessment, and protection of coastal and urban infrastructure systems, urban climate modelling and urban ecohydrology, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in cities, development of carbon capture technologies.

Director:  Prof Rajasekhar Balasubramanian

Co-Director:  Prof Vladan Babovic