Inter-Delta Knowledge Exchange

The session explored learnings from the real-world adaptation efforts in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mekong, and Nile mega deltas, and identified shared lessons and synergies to inspire sustainable adaptation pathways in deltas.

The session included presentations that highlighted experiences and insights from research, practice, and policymaking related to integrated biophysical system understanding, climate migration patterns, and Mekong Delta Plan and Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100.

Panel reflections

Following the presentations, a group of panel members shared their reflections. The shared reflections led to an engaging discussion between the panellists, speakers and the participants.

Their insights covered a range of issues, including:

· Every delta is distinct, with its own geological, hydrological, socioeconomic, and cultural dynamics shaping unique challenges and opportunities.

· Adaptation needs to be embedded within a bigger picture and a greater understanding of all drivers of change. Too often, efforts focus on what is most familiar rather than the overall system. This highlights the growing demand for multidisciplinary approaches to understanding deltas.

· Inclusive, bottom-up approaches that reflect sociocultural understandings and values are important, but they are most effective when nested within a holistic system perspective. Think large scale, act small scale for longer-term resilience.

· Adaptation planning must also create enabling conditions and institutional frameworks.

However, the plan development efforts often overlook this need for an integrated perspective that we are advocating. This tends to happen due to administrative and institutional efforts related to the development of programmes, which involve short-term project cycles.

· Experts from different deltas shared diverse perspectives. There is a missing link between the knowledge developed in other deltas that does not travel across.

· There are more rooms for knowledge exchange and learning between the deltas. This creates a clear opportunity for global programs such as the IPDC to foster cross-delta exchange, serving as a platform where insights can be shared, approaches compared, and system understanding codeveloped. In doing so, IPDC has the potential to become a global hub for collaborative learning and system diagnostics among deltas, ensuring that expertise contributes to a shared understanding of resilience and sustainable development.