Aquatic Transitions workshop hosted at University's Malaysia Campus

The third Aquatic Transitions workshop was hosted at The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus near Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday 15 - Friday 17 February.

Part of Past Global Changes (PAGES), Aquatic Transitions is a working group which aims to understand how aquatic ecosystems have responded to the onset, and increasing impacts of humans.

The meeting was organised by Dr Suzanne McGowan from the School of Geography and Dr Keely Mills from the British Geological Survey (also an honorary researcher in the School of Geography).

It provided an exciting opportunity for involvement of researchers in the Tropical Asia and Oceania region. Tropical Asia is often overlooked and underrepresented in the scientific literature, however, this is not because of the lack of lakes or work being undertaken. In fact, Tropical Asia is home to four of the world's 28 ancient lakes, and has countless other wetlands, crater lakes, and coastal lagoons and estuaries.

In all, 30 participants attended the meeting, with a breadth of expertise ranging from the monitoring of wetland systems, to understanding environmental change, to policy making in government research institutes. This diverse bunch also covered a whole spectrum of career stages, from current MSc and PhD students, to newly appointed lecturers, experienced postdocs, and well-established professors - resulting in a variety of perspectives in a series of lively discussions.

A number of breakout sessions gave participants a chance to share their knowledge focusing on hot research topics such as:

• biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems
• lake ecosystem services
• lakes as socio-ecological systems

Staff from the Malaysia Campus hosted a Mindset Lecture entitled Exploring the Anthropocene in SE Asia using lake sediment records. This was delivered by Professor Nathalie Dubois, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dr Keely Mills and Dr Suzanne McGowan.

Work funded by the University's Centre for Environmental Geochemistry was showcased including recent research on Malaysia flood pulse wetland Tasik Chini, a research collaboration with the National University of Malaysia.