PhD Candidate in Rapid modelling tools

IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, the world’s largest international graduate water education facility, works to strengthen water sector capacity to contribute to a world free of poverty and injustice, in which people manage their water and environmental resources sustainably and equitably.

More than 120 of IHE Delft’s 200 staff members are academics from all over the world. About 250 guest lecturers from global academia and industry contribute to the Institute’s educational programmes. Each year, 750 international professionals, including about 200 MSc students, attend courses at IHE Delft. Our working language is English, and we promote a healthy work-life balance through measures that include support to staff who want to work part of their time from home.

IHE Delft is a unique knowledge institute in the Dutch research and educational landscape that combines excellence in education and research with work to advance global sustainable development. Partnerships are integral to achieving this mission: The Institute works closely with universities, government agencies, NGOs, and private sector institutions in the Netherlands and around the world. Through research, education and institutional strengthening, Institute staff make a tangible contribution towards all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in which water is key.

The Coastal and Urban Risk & Resilience department (CURR) supports coastal and urban areas in adapting to and mitigating the effects of water-related hazards and climate change. It provides education, scientific insights and capacity development to support risk quantification and resilience-building to contribute to this goal. The department uses an integrated risk management approach that spans across disciplines, spatio-temporal scales and technological complexity levels. The department works with partners on real-life projects and programs throughout the world. To support mainly the climate change impacts and coastal systems engineering research/project/education activities of the department we are currently looking for a:

PhD Candidate in Rapid modelling tools for assessing climate change hazards, impacts and risks in the coastal zone
38 hours per week

The coastal zones of the world are projected to be severely impacted by climate change and intensified anthropogenic activities during the 21st century. The IPCC AR6 WGI report identifies 5 main coastal and oceanic CIDs, that are projected to increase in almost every region of the world over the 21st century. These are: relative sea level rise, coastal erosion, coastal flooding, ocean acidity and marine heatwaves. While there are reduced complexity modelling tools currently available to assess these hazards and associated impacts at a given location at climate change time scales (~50-100 yrs, and beyond), the setting up and execution of such models at each and every location is laborious and time consuming. Due to the extensive computational times required, it is still not yet feasible to run detailed process-based models (e.g., Delft 3D) at climate change timescales. Moreover, the contemporary shift in coastal zone management towards risk informed decision making (as opposed to scenario-based decision making) necessitates 100s, if not 1000s of 50-100 year long simulations in order to enable risk assessment. This PhD project will address these gaps methodically with the overarching goal of enabling rapid, semi-automated setting up and execution of climate change driven coastal hazard, impact and risk assessments at any location in the world using reduced complexity models and/or hyper-accelerated process-based models. The project will focus on shoreline change, groundwater salinization, and saltwater intrusion into rivers/estuaries.

Responsibilities

· The successful candidate for this position will carry out a PhD study on “Rapid modelling tools for assessing climate change hazards, impacts and risks in the coastal zone”.

· The candidate will work within a team of researchers at IHE Delft and Deltares. The candidate is expected to be based both at IHE Delft and Deltares.

Requirements

The successful candidate must have a BSc in Civil Engineering and an MSc in, preferably, Coastal engineering or Hydro-Informatics, with the following skills/experience:

· Advanced (MSc level) knowledge of coastal processes and coastal numerical modelling

· Demonstrated interest in and a sound knowledge of climate change impacts on coasts

· Excellent programming skills in Python and Matlab. Experience with Fortran, VB and Java would be an advantage

· Demonstrated ability to learn emerging technologies (e.g. cloud computing, AI, Remote sensing)

· Willingness to lead or participate in non-expert stakeholder interactions

· Experience in interrogating large data sets (e.g. ESGF, CORDEX, ERA, Copernicus, NASA Sea level tool etc)

· Excellent communication skills (oral and written) in English.

Terms of employment

This is a position for 48 months (4 years), (38 hours per week), with the expectation that the candidate will submit and successfully defend the PhD thesis within this period. The candidate will be stationed in Delft, the Netherlands. Employment at IHE Delft is according to the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities (scale P). The appointment implies entry into the Netherlands’ Civil Service Pension Fund (ABP).

The initial contract is for 18 months. Within the first year a go/no-go decision will be made based on a detailed PhD research proposal to be developed by the candidate, which will determine whether or not the contract will be extended.

The expected start date of the position is 1 November 2025.

Information and application

Additional information can be obtained from Prof. Roshanka Ranasinghe (r.ranasinghe@un-he.org).

Applications (in English) should respond specifically to the requirements and can be sent by 30 June 2025 (closing date) including curriculum vitae, motivation letter and the names and contact details of two contactable referees. You can upload the files in the application form.

Interviews are planned to be held on 15 July 2025.

IHE Delft follows an open procedure of recruitment, which respects diversity and provides equal opportunity to applicants of all backgrounds.

Please see for more information about the PhD programme and requirements:

PhD Programme | IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (un-ihe.org).

Acquisition by staffing agencies and other 3rd parties is not appreciated.

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