Professor, Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology, University of Cologne, Germany. Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow (1998/99). Prof Shao is an atmospheric scientist and an authority on atmospheric-land interactions and desertification. He previously worked in the Pye Laboratory of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia and then in the School of Mathematics at the University of New South Wales. Shao has maintained a strong interest in Aeolian processes ever since the early 1990s. He has studied the physics of sand movement and dust emission by means of wind-tunnel experiments, worked on the theory of dust emission and developed numerical models for dust-storm predictions. In recent years, he has turned his research interest to climate change impacts on water resources.