Mats Eriksson, PhD
Senior Water Specialist
Integrated Water and Hazards Management (IWHM)
Dr. Mats Eriksson holds a Ph.D. in Geography and a Ph.Lic. in Physical Geography from Stockholm Univer-sity, Sweden. For a number of years he worked as a glaciologist on glacier mass balance studies and ice depth measurements at the Tarfala Research station in the Kebnekaise Mountains, northern Sweden. After 'getting his feet a bit cold' he changed the glacial environment for the semi-arid savannahs of East Africa where he worked on soil erosion, landscape development, the palaeoclimate, and environmental change.
In 1998, he took up the position of Programme Officer at the Water Division, in the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) in Stockholm. In this position he worked with water resources management in a regional and transboundary context in southern Africa and was responsible for the Swedish support to basin-wide projects in Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and Water Governance, in particular the Zambezi (running through eight riparian states), the Okavango (coveing three riparian states), and the Pungwe Rivers (two riparian states).
Dr. Eriksson has carried out research in Scandinavia, East Africa, Australia, the Himalaya, Spitsbergen, and the Patagonian Andes, and has published some 25 scientific papers. More recent research in Australia covered fluvial history and changes in river behaviour in relation to land use and climate change.
