About the project
Road and railway networks are fundamental to societal functioning, but are systemically vulnerable to disruption by natural hazards, including floods. To explore how targeted climate adaptation of transportation infrastructure may reduce systemic vulnerability, this studentship will measure and model connectivity of UK transportation networks under increasing extremes in coastal flooding
This studentship will:
- use network analysis and scenarios of climate change to quantify current and potential future transportation network vulnerability to coastal flooding;
- model effects of targeted adaptation interventions into transportation network vulnerability;
- ain solutions-oriented insight into vulnerability and adaptation to coastal flood hazard in real transportation networks through collaborative knowledge exchange with a diverse group of expert partners.
Overarching research questions may include:
- How do spatial patterns of network vulnerability to coastal flooding change with different metrics of network connectivity?
- How will nonlinear increases in coastal flood extremes affect spatial patterns of network vulnerability to functional failure?
- How might different targeted climate adaptation interventions redistribute patterns of vulnerability across a given network under current and future coastal flood extremes?
The student recruited for this studentship will develop quantitative expertise in network analysis and extreme value analysis, and build a transferrable skill set in data-science techniques and writing open-source code. The student will lead research outputs, practice their communication skills, and grow their professional network by writing for publication, presenting at professional conferences, and participating in meetings with partners.
The student and supervisory team will map out a training plan to identify and address particular skills gaps, and draw from the University's deep catalogue of resources for skills training and professional development. Based in the School of Geography & Environmental Science, the student will join a close-knit graduate-student cohort and supportive research culture, and benefit from the School's peer-mentoring programme and cohort-building activities.
The School of Geography and Environmental Science is committed to fostering a culture of equality, diversity and inclusion. We welcome applications from suitably qualified candidates, and particularly encourage applications from candidates belonging to groups who are under-represented within academic posts at the University, including, but not limited to: women, people from Black and minority ethnic groups, and disabled people. The School are committed to providing equal opportunities for all and offer a range of family friendly policies, flexi-time and flexible working. We are a Disability Confident employer and the School holds a bronze Athena SWAN award.
For further context regarding the project concept, see: Aldabet et al. (Earth's Future, 2023)
