Spotlight on Ivo Pink

My PhD research focuses on the evolution of flood hazards in the Himalayan forelands. Flood hazards are shaped by the climatic and environmental conditions in the catchment and floodplain. The aim of the project is the development of a geospatial modelling approach to predict future flood hazards. Such information can increase the planning security for the design of flood mitigation and adaptation strategies which often have long (50+ years) runtimes and will be used by Durham Business School to develop novel risk insurance products.

The modelling approach combines different statistical and environmental modelling techniques at different spatial (catchment, floodplain) and temporal (continuous, event-based) scales to quantify the effect of i) climate change and ii) evolution of channel/floodplain topography on floods. The climate change impact on flood flows (until 2100) was predicted from hydrological and statistical modelling in the upstream catchment using an ensemble of 12 CMIP-6 climate models. In the current phase, a landscape evolution model is applied with the projected flows to predict the evolution of channel and floodplain topography for different climate change scenarios. The results of i) and ii) are combined in the last stage to predict the spatial patterns of the flood hazards using hydrodynamic modelling techniques.

For more information: https://lnkd.in/d-5qiyWu
Email: ihrr.admin@durham.ac.uk