Cristo Facundo Pérez, a CivMin PhD student, is a recipient of the SDGs@UofT Student Award.
As part of the University of Toronto’s initiative to support the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the program provides financial support to students who are engaged in SDG-relevant research in their chosen fields and that is being conducted at the University of Toronto. The award supports student-led research that aligns with one or more of the initiative’s research themes.
Pérez expresses his gratitude, “I find it meaningful that this award recognizes my research efforts in examining dynamic synergies across the Sustainable Development Goals. My work explores how climate change reshapes interdependencies between water, energy, food, and health systems in international river basins, bridging water resources engineering and related disciplines.” His research supervisor is CivMin Professor Mohammed Basheer, who heads the Water Resources and Hydrology Group (WRH Group).
Description of Cristo Facundo Pérez’s research:
Decisions in international river basins are often made sector by sector, which leads to missed connections between climate, water, energy, food, and health. This project develops a practical framework that brings a One Health perspective into water, energy, and food planning. Using an open-source framework, the project brings together four elements: analysis of past and future heat, wet, and dry conditions; water models to understand how climate and policy choices affect river flows, storage, and trade-offs across sectors; disease models to examine how climate and environmental changes influence the prevalence of water-related diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis; and an AI-based decision tool to help compare policy options under uncertainty. Together, these tools will support climate services, improve informed decision-making, and advance progress toward SDGs 2, 3, 6, 7, and 13.