About the project
This project assesses climate change risks to assets operated by the General Lighthouse Authority of the UK and Ireland. Using GIS mapping, historical datasets, and hydrodynamic modelling, the impacts of sea-level rise, storm surges, and coastal erosion will be evaluated for supporting the resilience of these crucial and charismatic assets.
Lighthouses and other navigation assets operated by the General Lighthouse Authority (GLA) of the UK and Ireland play a vital role in ensuring maritime safety, protecting lives at sea, and supporting the smooth flow of international trade. However, climate change impacts such as rising sea level and changing hazards from waves and storm surge pose growing risks to their operation and reliability.
This project aims to understand the impact of regional sea-level rise on the hazards posed by marine natural hazards to offshore and coastal assets of the General Lighthouse Authorities of the UK and Ireland.
The doctoral researcher will start by assessing the spatial spread of GLA assets across the UK, using GIS (Geographic Information System) software. They will then map present-day risk using existing measured datasets (e.g., tide gauges and wave buoys) and modelled datasets.
They will also use metrological hindcast datasets (covering the last 200 years) to determine the characteristics of storms that generate extreme events in this area and assess past rates of sea-level rise. To assess possible changes in risk posed by climate change, the ensemble of state-of-the-art regional climate model developed for the Northwest European Shelf (Lewis et al., 2019) will be used.
The student will map how long-term effects of sea-level rise might create new hazards across the UK and Ireland, and what new GLA assets might be required in these areas. Finally, the change impacts of wave overtopping will be investigated using OpenFOAM (e.g., Chen et al., 2021) at selected case-study sites.
Supervisors
As well as Masashi Watanabe and Ivan Haigh from the University of Southampton, you will also receive supervision from:
- Lucy Bricheno: luic@noc.ac.uk from the National Oceanography Centre.
- William Dunning: William.Dunning@gla-rad.org from the General Lighthouse Authorities.
Please contact the lead supervisor if you require further information about the project.
References
Lewis, H.W., Castillo Sanchez, J.M., Siddorn, J., King, R.R., Tonani, M., Saulter, A.,Sykes, P., Pequignet, A.-C., Weedon, G.P., Palmer, T., et al., 2019. Can wave coupling improve operational regional ocean forecasts for the north-west European Shelf? Ocean Sci. 15 (3), 669–690.
Chen, W., Warmink, J.J., Van Gent, M.R.A., Hulscher, S.J.M.H., 2021. Numerical modelling of wave overtopping at dikes using OpenFOAM®. Coast. Eng. 166, 103890.
Potential supervisors
Lead supervisor
Dr Masashi Watanabe
Lecturer B in Coastal Marine Science
Research interests
Supervisors
IH
Professor Ivan Haigh
Professor
Research interests
- I currently have 8 active research grants (4 as principle investigator (PI)) worth £4.8M.
- I am the PI on two international grants that started in 2019, both looking at compound flooding. Compound flooding (when the combination, or successive occurrence of, two or more hazard events leads to an extreme impact e.g., coastal and fluvial flooding), can greatly exacerbate the adverse consequences associated with flooding in coastal regions and yet it remains under-appreciated and poorly understood. In the £788k NERC- and NSF- (US National Science Foundation) funded CHANCE project, I am leading a team (working alongside researchers from the University of Central Florida), to deliver a new integrated approach to make a step-change in our understanding, and prediction of, the source mechanisms driving compound flood events in coastal areas around the North Atlantic basin. In the £575k NERC- and NAFOSTED- (Vietnam’s National Foundation for Science and Technology Development) funded project, I am leading a team that is working with colleagues in Vietnam to map and characterise present, and predict future, flood risk from coastal, fluvial, and surface sources and, uniquely, to assess the risk of compound flooding across the Mekong delta; one of the three most vulnerable deltas in the world. I am also the PI on a grant, which started in 2021. In this 41k project, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat), we are assessing past and future closures of the six storm surge barriers in the Netherlands.
- In 2021, I was awarded a 3-year (50% of my time) prestigious Knowledge Exchange Fellowship funded by NERC (UK’s Natural Environmental Research Council) and worth £154k. This fellowship builds strongly on my prior research and the overall goal is to provide guidance and tools that will help storm surge barrier operators better prepare for the impacts of climate change across every area of their operation now and into the future. Within the fellowship I am working primary with the UK Environment Agency (EA) and the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat). However, to ensure the work undertaken can benefit all the existing (and planned) surge barriers around the world, I am also working closely with I-STORM. I-STORM is an international knowledge sharing network for professionals relating to the management, operation and maintenance of storm surge barriers, and has representation from all the surge barriers worldwide.
Entry requirements
You must have a UK 2:1 honours degree or higher in a relevant subject. You can also have its international equivalent.
We are looking for:
- You should be highly numerate, with a good understanding of coastal and ocean wave dynamics and be able to communicate with the project partner.
If English is not your first language, you will need an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) overall score of 6.5, with a minimum of 6.0 in all components. Visit our English language proficiency pages to find out about other qualifications we accept.
Fees and funding
For UK students, the studentship covers UK fees, plus a stipend of £20,780 (UKRI Standard rate) tax-free per annum for up to 3.5 years.
How to apply
You need to:
- add the project title under ‘Topic or field of research proposed’
- add your supervisor in section 2
Applications should include:
- 1 page statement of your research interests in flooding and FLOOD-CDT and your rationale for your choice of project
- CV (resumé) giving details of your academic record and stating your research interests
- two current academic referees together with institutional email addresses
- academic transcripts and degree certificates (translated if not in English) – if you have completed both a BSc and an MSc, we require both
- English language qualification (if applicable)
Contact us
Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences
If you have a general question, email our doctoral college: fels-pgr-apply@soton.ac.uk.
Project leader
For project specific queries, email the lead supervisor Dr Masashi Watanabe: masashi.watanabe@soton.ac.uk.
