Garschagen, Matthias

Biography

Dr. Matthias Garschagen is the Head of Vulnerability Assessment, Risk Management and Adaptive Planning (VARMAP) at UNU-EHS. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Cologne, Germany. His main research focus is on urban vulnerability, social resilience and climate change adaptation, particularly in Asia. Dr. Garschagen has been an invited contributing author to the IPCC´s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in WG II, chapter 24 on Asia. He further was an invited member to the FP-7 IDEAS Working Group ‘Towards a Joint Research Programme on the Mekong Delta, Vietnam´. His research findings have been featured, for example, in the latest UN-ISDR Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR 2013). Besides his engagement with UNU-EHS, he has been a lecturer at the University of Cologne, Department of Geography, the University of Maastricht and the University of Bonn. Dr. Garschagen was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service. He is currently an active member of the working group on Southeast Asian studies within the German Geographical Association. Over the recent years, Dr. Garschagen has gathered more than 18 months of field research experience in Vietnam and India. He studied Geography, Anthropology and Economics at Cologne University, Germany, and at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

Research Interest

Asia Climate change adaptation Risk and Vulnerability Reduction Urban Development