The importance of water cannot be overstated: it is essential for all life on Earth. So while the world is preoccupied by the threat of climate change, all those involved in the debate understand that when we talk about climate change the subtext is, how will water be managed? When we discuss the need to ‘adapt’ to climate change, we are, in one aspect, addressing the need to deal with either more, or less, water. At the same time, anyone who has been involved in water resource management will tell you that we have been ‘adapting’ to our climate ever since the Bronze Age, when humans decided to settle down and establish organised agriculture. Some 4000 years and 7 billion people later, and with all our clever water infrastructure and technology, we are still trying to get it right.

A simple but true fact illustrates the point: before the 1990s, water resources planning and management was the domain of engineers and hydrologists; after that time, the emphasis shifted to ‘least cost’ solutions. And yet, at our home university (as elsewhere), we now recognise that solutions which will deliver positive outcomes to society, the environment and the economy, must also engage a spectrum of hydrologists, engineers, and economists; moreover, they must also engage sociologists, ecologists, lawyers, political scientists, environmental historians, anthropologists, geographers and others.