Claudia Pahl-Wostl

Claudia Pahl-Wostl is a full professor for resources management at the Institute for Environmental Systems Research (USF) at the University of Osnabrück, Germany. She holds a dual affiliation with both the Institute for Environmental Systems Research and the Institute of Geography, working from room 66/106 at Barbarastr. 12 in Osnabrück.

Professor Pahl-Wostl is an internationally leading scholar specializing in governance and adaptive management of water resources, with particular expertise in the role of social and societal learning in environmental systems. Her research builds on systems science foundations that acknowledge the complex and often unpredictable dynamics of the systems being managed. Her work spans multiple critical areas including adaptive governance, transformation processes toward sustainability, global water governance within multi-level systems, and conceptual frameworks for analyzing social-ecological systems.

Her recent research has expanded to address the water-energy-food nexus, SDG implementation, and social-ecological network analysis, reflecting an evolving focus on integrated approaches to global sustainability challenges. The publications demonstrate a clear trajectory toward increasingly complex, interconnected systems analysis with emphasis on governance structures capable of addressing multi-scalar environmental challenges.

Her scientific achievements have been recognized with the prestigious Bode Foundation Water Management Prize in 2012 for her pioneering interdisciplinary work on 'Governance in times of change' and comparative analyses of water governance in large river basins.

Professor Pahl-Wostl teaches courses in Adaptive Management, Participatory Modeling, Environmental Risk Analysis and Governance, Actor-based and Social Network Analysis, Complex Adaptive Systems, Rule-based Modeling, and Adaptive Governance and Political Steering, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of her research program.