PSIPW sent a party-level delegate to the Conference of the parties (COP), the 28th iteration of which took place from 30 November to 12 December 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The COP28 summit brought parties together to discuss how governments can take action to limit and prepare for future climate change.

PSIPW was represented by its 2014 Creativity Prize laureate Justin Sheffield, professor of hydrology and remote sensing and head of School of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Southampton. Professor Sheffield advised COP on “addressing the challenge of drought under climate change in water scarce and data scarce regions.”

PSIPW has sent a party-level delegate to COP since 2016. In previous years, the PSIPW delegate has advised COP on the impact of climate change on groundwater management, as well as on effective rain and floodwater harvesting and storage under the uncertainties of climate change, and on unlocking private capital in efforts to ameliorate the effects of climate change on water resources, and on harnessing Earth observation for food and water security.

Professor Sheffield, along with his colleague the late Professor Eric F. Wood, won PSIPW’s 7th Award Creativity Prize in 2014 while both of them were working at Princeton University. They were honoured for their achievement in developing a state-of-the-art system for accurately monitoring, modelling, and forecasting drought on regional, continental and global scales.